Can onboarding journey tasks be assigned to AORs before hire date?

Summary:

Onboarding Journey tasks are assigned to Initiator when new employee record is created before the start date, but correctly assigned to AORs when new hire record is created on or after start date. Is this intended functionality, or are there processes that need to run to allow AORs to be assigned ahead of the new hire start date?

Content (required):

I am am in the process of implementing Onboarding Journeys for a customer. I am using the Hire action as the trigger.

During testing I found that if I create a new hire record before the actual start date, the tasks get assigned to the Initiator, rather than the AORs defined in the checklist. But if I create the new hire record on or after the actual start date, the tasks are assigned correctly to the AORs. When I tested the same scenario, but creating a Pending Worker and using Add Pending Worker action instead, the tasks got assigned correctly to the AORs.