10 best practices and checklist for remote onboarding
Some of these events can even target specific values of your company – trust, fun, collaboration, etc. Whatever orientation or training you offer, make sure you’re using the latest technology that makes it easier for remote employees to feel immersed in the company culture. When you onboard remote employees, make sure you’re present and follow up in a timely manner. Managers should be nearly constantly available to answer questions and help set expectations for how the first day, week, and month will go. At HubSpot, managers create a 100-day plan that serves as an onboarding roadmap for new employees.
You can consistently invest the right amount of time and energy towards helping new remote employees feel welcome. All of the aforementioned practices are easy to read, but visualizing and organizing them is an ordeal. Therefore, successfully onboarding remote employees requires a more hands-on approach with a virtual onboarding checklist. By following this list, you ensure that you meet all of your onboarding criteria and remove any gray areas.
Clearly communicating expectations around your new team member’s statement of work is especially important for those working remotely. While some employees thrive off of working independently, others may need external accountability to stay motivated. Regardless of which approach you take, mapping out what the first few months on the job will look like for your new employees is a best practice that can set them up for success in your organization. Make sure your current team members know to make themselves available to support your new hire as needed so your new employee feels empowered to ask questions and get the help they need. One thing I’d encourage you to do is to always keep your finger on the pulse and ask them for feedback at different times to understand more about their onboarding experience. Once you’ve made sure their tools are up and running, encourage them to post a message on a Slack channel (or send an email) so the rest of the team knows who they are.
Common challenges of onboarding remote employees
Remote onboarding (and onboarding itself) is one of the most crucial aspects of your employer’s strategy for retention and attracting new hires. That’s why you should carefully craft your remote onboarding process and review it regularly as your company grows. Now that we understand the best practices for remote employee onboarding, let’s explore why it’s so important for an organization. It’s no secret that a great onboarding process forms a healthy foundation to build relationships with new employees. Fortunately, a well-planned virtual onboarding program can address these questions and more.
- This kit should arrive before their first day as a way to make them feel welcome and ready to start their new job.
- This message should remind them that you have an open-door policy that invites them to ask questions or address concerns.
- Much like a meeting with a manager, these initial conversations are helpful for building trust between your new hire and current employees.
- Regardless of which approach you take, mapping out what the first few months on the job will look like for your new employees is a best practice that can set them up for success in your organization.
Fellow helps your team build great meeting habits through collaborative agendas, real-time notetaking, and time-saving templates. I’ve participated in remote escape rooms and several remote games to build trust and connection with my colleagues. You can play something like “two truths and a lie” or ask icebreaker questions as well.
Explain the company culture.
« The buddy is the new team member’s point person throughout the onboarding process, » said Christina Ioannou, vice president of HR at Lewis. « The buddy is available for all the ‘silly’ questions, to fill them in on office happenings and add them to the office social channels. » Even if onboarding for remote employees ends up taking longer than traditional onboarding or gets disrupted, there are ways to combat that. Make sure that they have access to the benefits that on-site employees have, for example, if your company offers subsidized gym memberships to employees you can extend that benefit to remote employees as well. In particular, if you manage a team, ask each team member to organize a video call with the new remote employee. They can use this time to welcome the new employee into the team and explain their role.
Best practice #6: Check-in regularly
It turns out that the biggest barrier to creating an intentional, differentiated onboarding experience is often mindset. But proper implementation will reap benefits down the road and erase any chances for the feeling of exclusion or lack of clarity. Furthermore, putting in the effort now will eliminate the need for excessive instruction or onboarding in the future. As this new hire gets acclimated into their new role, these meetings are also a great place for them to come to their manager with questions they may have as they work through their to-do list. Similarly, managers can check in with these employees and see how they’re getting used to their new roles.
« Our team immediately focused on reimagining onboarding and welcoming new employees while Commvault moved its entire workforce to working remote. » Remote onboarding is onboarding that is conducted entirely through technology instead of in person. The concept of working remotely has been around for years but many managers still use traditional methods to manage team members. Because remote workers face their own unique set of challenges, it is important that managers receive the appropriate training. If your team conducts webinars for customers, you could also use your webinar software to create educational learning sessions for remote employees. Try incorporating the welcome video into one of the early stages of the onboarding process.
This may be especially true if you were starting a new job in the ambiguity of a virtual environment. The few moments of comfort that would typically present themselves in the early day — the quick bonding with a colleague in the hallway, or your new boss or teammates taking you out to lunch — aren’t available in a remote context. Joining Virtual Vocations grants you access to our hand-picked remote jobs database.
This will help new hires assimilate to the work culture and build meaningful relationships with key stakeholders and colleagues. In the remote world, you need to be intentional about creating opportunities for your team to build connections and have space to chat. At this point, you’re probably ready to get started on building a remote onboarding program. HR software is remote onboarding best practices designed to help you get rid of most of your admin and ensure your team member gets the remote onboarding experience they deserve. Strengthening company culture ideas early on can help ensure new employees comply with your organization’s work processes and take greater responsibility for their actions.
Ideally, this should be a central space (a Slack channel or Microsoft Teams) where all new hires can see responses to questions and respond to each other’s doubts. For instance, Time Doctor is a powerful productivity management tool that can track time and initiate new hires into the idea of optimizing their productivity at work. « Having employees acknowledge and consent to the use of electronic signatures is prudent, » she said. Forcing a new hire to complete a confusing array of tasks is one source of a negative new employee experience. For a more in-depth exploration of these metrics and others, check out our article on onboarding metrics. Mara Calvello, with a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature/Letters from Elmhurst University, is a seasoned Content Marketing Manager.
