A new hire’s success and contentment are greatly influenced by the onboarding process. Since remote workers don’t have as many opportunities to naturally integrate into the company’s operations and culture, effective onboarding is particularly crucial for them.
Since they were formerly uncommon, remote workers are now a significant portion of the workforce. In actuality, since 2005, there has been a 159% growth in the number of persons who work remotely. Moreover, there has been a change in how businesses onboard new employees as a result of a growing population working remotely.
However, it’s time to change onboarding and make it people-focused because efficient onboarding increases retention. Many employees believe organizations don’t do a good job with it or place too much emphasis on paperwork.
5 Tips for Smooth Onboarding of Remote Employees
1. Create a 2-Week Schedule
Because they are not surrounded by coworkers at an office, remote workers take longer to onboard.
The stress and anxiety that new hires may experience can be reduced by making a plan, scheduling all of the meetings, setting up the agendas, video links, etc., and ensuring that they are introduced to all of the people, procedures, and projects that will be a part of their work.
Consider balancing the more business-focused sessions with some casual conversations and enjoyable icebreakers. If your staff members live close to one another, they can get together in person for lunch or coffee. Alternatively, you can order food to be delivered to two individuals so they can interact virtually while eating a meal “together”.
2. Begin with a Tiny Assignment
Work together to create a detailed plan for the new hire’s first 30, 60, and 90 days so that you both understand what is expected of them in their position.
Introduce them to other team members, company knowledge, and regular ceremonies within your remote culture by giving them an exercise within the first few weeks that calls for cross-team cooperation or knowledge discovery.
To aid all new hires in achieving their objective, a book called The First 90 Days can be suggested. Additionally, you should decide how you will evaluate your progress during this time.
3. Onboard in Groups Rather than Individually
Onboarding new hires and teaching them in groups is a terrific approach to reduce time and duplication. Additionally, it fosters a sense of belonging among your recent hires. Recruit workers in groups, and allot each group a “functional stewards” who provide technical assistance and “squad hosts” who foster a collaborative environment.
4. Take Feedback
There’s a good chance you may encounter some difficulties at first if you have no prior experience managing a remote workforce. Each new remote worker should be asked to closely observe the process and report on what worked and what didn’t. As a result, you will be able to continually enhance the hiring procedure.
5. Make Time for Personal Interactions
To establish relationships with new workers as soon as possible — and possibly even meet in person if they live nearby — ask your team to introduce themselves to them.
Invite new hires to an offsite with everyone, lunch at the headquarters, or other activities if you can. You can even design some remote-based ceremonies for teams to interact socially.
Conclusion
One of the most crucial factors in employee success is onboarding. Gaining momentum begins with a solid start. A bad start undermines the confidence of a new hire and makes the hiring decision questionable for the company.
It takes a lot of work to onboard new employees, and doing it remotely has its own difficulties. However, the work required to effectively train new hires pays off handsomely.
About the Author
BCjobs.ca is Western Canada’s largest job board, and host of “Innovators” a weekly podcast interviewing top recruiters in BC and across Canada. Check out our recent interview with Lighthouse Maricar Traballo, Employer Relations & Partnership Manager, and Meri Ghazaryan, Senior Manager of Employer partnerships (Podcast link) and IBM with Shelly Bardai, Associate Partner (Podcast link).
