14 Effective Tips For Onboarding Remote Employees

Additionally, how you supervise them during the onboarding phase will set the tone for their future work. Independent working is fundamental for remote workers, so fostering such skills is important. New hires will be learning multiple things on the go during the onboarding process, and it’s good practice to give them some leeway early on. It’s no secret that a great onboarding process forms a healthy foundation to build relationships with new employees. Then, schedule manager one-on-ones or meetings with other supervisors the employee will closely work with. After a few days, introduce your new hire to everyone else on the team during one larger meeting.

The company’s mission, vision, values and history, as well as its communication preferences and working styles, should be made explicit. Remote workers will not have the luxury of picking up on physical cues in face-to-face meetings or running into colleagues in the breakroom. Ashley Priebe Brown, the onboarding program manager at Zapier, a workflow automation technology provider with a fully remote workforce, helps managers devise ramp-up plans for new employees. “These plans plot out what is expected of new hires through the first 90 days,” she says. One of the key differences between remote and in-person onboarding is visibility. Meaning that, for extended periods of time, a new employee may find themselves alone in their role.

What is Remote Employee Onboarding?

However, managers should be trained on how to manage remote employees by using communication platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Skype, GSuite, and Microsoft Office 365. Since the remote working culture is based on having good communication, knowing how to use these platforms effectively is essential. This is especially helpful in the case of remote employees when working away from the office can often lead to a feeling of isolation. If you are unable to onboard in groups, then consider inviting all new employees who have started in the past 3 months to a group session. Incorporating live webinar training sessions can be another great way to make employees feel welcome by getting their questions answered in real time and building a sense of camaraderie.

Asynchronous training experiences are learning and training that occurs simultaneously, such as watching training videos and interacting with other learning materials. As an example of what you https://remotemode.net/ can expect with virtual onboarding, let’s mention some popular methods and what they entail. Along the process, you could make some mistakes, but what matters is that you grow from them.

Get New Hires Onto Your Online Platforms Immediately

Many virtual onboarding programs don’t work because the new hire only receives communication from their boss in the first week. Your remote onboarding process should continue for at least three months, if not six months! This is one of the most underrated virtual onboarding best practices you should be mindful of.

• It is possible that employees will fear feeling isolated and disconnected from their coworkers.
• It’s important to help facilitate a welcoming environment for new hires and bridge the gap between new and existing employees.
• You want to show them that you care about them so that they feel the same way about your company.
• Its objective is to formally welcome a group of recent hires to the firm while often providing a forum for them to become familiar with its vision, mission, culture, and history.
• “Our team immediately focused on reimagining onboarding and welcoming new employees while Commvault moved its entire workforce to working remote.”

Instead, it’s better to clearly communicate what you expect from your new employee and then assign them to a relatively straightforward task where any potential mistake can be easily corrected. Assign these tasks in your PM software and have them check-in via your preferred messaging protocol. You’ll get any questions or kinks out of the way, help them practice using the software, and gradually ease them into taking on real work. This gives them a preview of what’s in the pipeline and helps squash those early nerves . It’s also an excellent way to ease them into their remote schedule and working with your team.

Remote Onboarding Challenges

If you’ll be providing any hardware, make sure you are prepared for it to arrive early so your employee can be ready for orientation. Remote employees look forward to concrete goals and an opportunity for one-on-one face time with their manager. Employees with proper support during onboarding are 54% more productive as new hires. Rather than having a single drawn-out presentation for your onboarding process, break apart your training into smaller modules, with each module having a specific goal or outcome. Other technologies to think about include application tracking systems, help desk software, video conferencing tools, e-signing tools, and more.

That way, whether ten or one hundred people are starting at the beginning of the month, you have everything firing, everyone in the loop, and all of your new employees feel welcome even when working remotely. That’s why it is typically a good idea to ask new remote onboarding best practices employees how comfortable they are with meeting and chat tools such as Google Hangouts, Zoom, Slack, etc. – before their first day. In that sense,HR needs to engage closely with new colleagues and communicate openly throughout each step of remote onboarding.

Ship technology tools before Day One

They will understand the company rituals and learn the values and expected behaviors – making them feel part of the team from week one. Find out our best practices for remote onboarding, including pre-onboarding, designing an onboarding workflow and tips for success. When you’re in the office, it’s easy to turn to your colleague for answers. Whether you’re looking for contact details, a particular document, or an answer to your latest burning question, help is only a half meter away.