Perhaps folks will add favorite background music for focus time, links to podcast episodes, books, blog posts, pet pictures, descriptions of their remote work setups, and so on. Sharing this in advance helps to break the ice, providing new team members a window into what others on the team are interested in or care about. Consider, too, a virtual lunch hour with the entire team soon after onboarding. The exchange might alleviate some stress for an employee still settling into their role and, in the process, demonstrate a supportive company culture.
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Remote onboarding best practices can be a challenge to navigate when hiring new employees you never meet in-person. Employee onboarding is just as important as the hiring process and even more so when onboarding virtually. In fact, companies with a strong onboarding process is shown to increase employee productivity by over 70 percent and improves new hire retention by 82 percent according to a report by Glassdoor. Even the most tech-savvy employees will likely have questions about setting up their equipment.
- They provide a comfortable space for new hires to ask questions and express any concerns or thoughts.
- Most importantly, remote tools allow for proper management of new hires by the in-house teams.
- Sync with your HR system to prevent duplicate work and make onboarding smoother.
- When I first joined a company as a developer, I felt like the biggest imposter in the world.
- While the immediate questions might be answered quickly, new employees working remotely still require check-ins on an ongoing basis.
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Things like face-to-face introductions, lunch meetings, in-person training, etc., have become almost non-existent in the new normal. This makes it harder for employers to welcome new employees and make them familiar and comfortable with their organization’s culture. Onboarding new employees, both in the office and remotely, entails a specific list of requirements.
Your new hires need to know the ins and outs of office operations during the first few days. You can use a buddy system to ensure efficient knowledge sharing with the new hires. You can assign an experienced employee to assist new hires with various activities like raising a ticket, accessing a software tool, etc. This reduces your workload and allows you to delegate minor tasks to other employees. This also allows the new hires to connect with other team members and get accustomed to your work culture. Onboarding challenges have increased in magnitude with the onset of remote and hybrid work environments brought about by the pandemic.
Be sure to create a welcome statement or document that guides and orients them. Keep in mind, disconnection and isolation are some of the key challenges that new remote hires experience. Therefore, a comprehensive and successful remote onboarding plan should include measures for addressing such issues to create a sense of belonging and integration in new hires. As such, this post will cover the remote onboarding best practices you can use to virtually onboard new hires. When thoughtfully implemented, these strategies can deliver optimal results for HR teams and ensure employees settle into their new jobs.
Companies are increasingly hiring workers who don’t have an office or job site. Like any other onboarding process, remote onboarding constitutes of the same objectives – to build and scale new teams. However, this time around, your process is being conducted virtually, and for distributed teams of hires that you have not met in-person.
It can also help encourage the feeling of support and camaraderie – something that we consistently see proximity bias tear down. Onboarding for remote employees isn’t just about teaching necessary procedures and tasks within your company—it should also focus on making new hires feel comfortable and connected to your company’s culture and community. Typically this is done with a walkthrough tour of the office, introductions to various teams and managers, and other face-to-face interactions. Remote onboarding processes should strive to achieve the same goal digitally. Use video conferencing or online team meetings to ensure a smooth transition.
Be sure to put a face-to-face webcam introduction with the rest of the team on the schedule. Set up some time for your new employee to talk to other colleagues that also work virtually. They can share tips, insights, and strategies, and will also be a valuable resource to each other in the remote onboarding best practices future. One way to help your new employee feel welcome is to assign them a buddy.
Working remotely makes it easy to feel like you’re out of sight and out of mind. This gives you a chance to see how they’re doing, answer any questions they may have, and give feedback on their progress. As part of the onboarding program, provide your new employee with all the training sessions and resources they need to be successful in their role. A workplace mentor can provide initial guidance and help eliminate the anxiety many new remote employees experience. Moreover, use video coffee chats and other ice-breaker activities to break the ice. You can help employees track their progress by making videos of everything that they need to learn in modules.
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- Remote onboarding is the process of welcoming, training, and integrating new employees into a company—entirely online.
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- GitLab has created a main page that provides a clear and informative overview of the onboarding process at the company.
- Welcoming a new employee virtually doesn’t necessarily have to be more extensive than in-person onboarding.
- The remote employee onboarding process consists in welcoming an employee 100% digitally by following the same onboarding phases as you would in person, from the signature of the hiring contract to the first team meeting.
- Making the most of preboarding helps you focus on higher-value aspects of onboarding on the employee’s first day.
It not only saves you time but enables employees to have instantaneous access to all the information that they need. A knowledge base is an affordable solution for your remote onboarding and you can get set up in just a few clicks. Gallup research suggests that onboarding is viewed more favorably by employees whose managers actively participate. New hires need help connecting with other employees, and this is especially true in a remote setting, said Tracy Browne, vice president of HR at Salit Steel, based in Niagara Falls, Ont. Browne said COVID-19 forced her company to adopt a remote work model, making onboarding more challenging. But replicating in-person onboarding activities helps establish those personal connections.
New hires should recognize how their responsibilities fit into the overall success of the company. Spend more time than you generally would in a face-to-face environment talking about what is typical and atypical across various cultural dimensions. Create the space for your new colleagues to ask about the way things are done as well. It turns out that the biggest barrier to creating an intentional, differentiated onboarding experience is often mindset.
How can you replace the experience of a new hire meeting colleagues over lunch or a cup of coffee?
For example, you could create Slack channels where employees can share photos of their pets, recipes, travel tips, etc. We send everyone a $20 Grubhub gift card and use this meeting to get to know each other outside of what was on the resume. We ask questions like, «If you could eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would that be?» We may also play two truths and a lie. Remote working benefits both employees and their employers, but it can also pose its own challenges. For example, employees may feel disconnected from their colleagues or manager.
As such, building a virtual culture is key to ensuring the right values, behaviors, and beliefs among your new hires. Help remote team members develop routines and realistic schedules that work for both of you. When they know what’s expected, they’ll be more inclined to give themselves room to recharge. In the weeks after onboarding, check in with them frequently and ask how they’re feeling about the job and their work-life balance.
Keeping a weekly or biweekly team meeting on the calendar for project updates and brainstorming problem-solving ideas will help build relationships and staff cohesion. Regardless of where they’re working from, though, it’s essential for the company to provide them with equal access to professional development opportunities and company resources. After that, managers should schedule weekly one-on-one meetings with the new employee to stay connected, offer support, and answer questions. However, a remote workforce is not without its challenges, and one of the biggest can be creating a successful onboarding experience. Be sure all existing employee documentation is digitized and hosted on a company intranet for easy access. Many companies use an intranet or internal wiki to maintain digital documentation of projects, successes, failures, and culture outside of day-to-day operations (at Owl Labs, we use Notion).