7 Best Practices For Onboarding Remote Employees

Checking in with new employees also provides you with a platform for getting feedback on the onboarding process. Having at least one off-site (i.e. not at the company offices) gathering makes it possible for new employees to meet other team members in person. This is not only vital to creating stronger relationships between remote employees and other team members, but it can also often make the difference between a high and https://remotemode.net/ low employee turnover rate. Try incorporating the welcome video into one of the early stages of the onboarding process. Better yet, make the majority of your training done by videos via training webinars where you can release pre-recorded or live training for your remote employees. It can also be beneficial to include a Q&A section designed to familiarize the employee with the company’s culture and important processes.

• With a larger population working remotely, there’s been a change in how companies onboard new employees.
• By feedback, it is meant to be employees interacting with existing employees about the work culture and getting cues that impact their decision.
• But providing such processes virtually can be a new concept for managers doing it for the first time.

This includes any organizational charts, company benefits packages, training manuals, contracts, employee handbooks, etc. Make sure they have permission to access these documents and walk through them with your employee so they understand how to find the information they need. This can be as simple as taking 5 minutes at the beginning of your weekly team meetings to share about your weekends or scheduling virtual team breaks together to get to know each other. Small steps like these go a long way towards creating a welcoming, inclusive, and positive hybrid team. Make time for activities other than work communication to foster team connection remotely. When you add remote work into your company dynamics, that will impact how employees and leaders work together.

What Do New Hires Want from Onboarding?

A new employee’s first day should be fun and informative at the same time. You don’t want them to spend eight hours filling out paperwork https://remotemode.net/blog/10-best-remote-onboarding-practices-to-adopt/ and sitting through lectures. But you also want to ensure they learn something and are better prepared to start their job.

• In a virtual setting, you can’t rely as much on the organic and spontaneous relationship-building that happens in hallways, over lunches, and at office events.
• Mentoring programs have become increasingly popular in recent years, and are set to continue to grow in 2024.
• Lack of physical proximity, use of remote work tools and a tendency towards asynchronous work can all make it more challenging for an employee to thrive in their new role.
• This way, HR managers can identify areas that need improvement and address these concerns proactively.
• Remote work requires businesses to embrace digital transformation across all aspects of their operations.
• Virtual employees consider different criteria when deciding if they like working at a company and can envisage themselves staying for the long term.
• HR departments can take advantage of these technological advancements by digitizing their onboarding process.

Sandwiched between those two goals, however, employers may be missing a crucial step – onboarding remote employees. So go ahead and explore what technology has to offer for your virtual onboarding process. Find out what the best employee onboarding software for your business is. To give you a head start, check out Freshteam, a modernized HR software that can help you hire, onboard, and manage your employees. Employee feedback will become a crucial element of onboarding processes in 2024. HR managers can collect feedback from new employees regularly to assess their onboarding experience and make improvements based on their feedback.

Best Practices for Virtual Onboarding

To avoid overwhelming new hires, stick to a few select but powerful platforms for communicating, training, inspiring and rewarding employees digitally. Onboard employees using a remote training tool, which you can then rely on to upskill employees on how to use any other softwares. Here at Panopto, new hires record their own video introduction at the end of their first week, which then gets shared with everyone in the company. It’s something we’ve been doing since our once-small startup began growing more than 13 years ago. And now, with teams in Seattle, Pittsburgh, London, Hong Kong, and Sydney, everyone in the company learns a little about the newest hire, who gets to tell their story in their own words.

• The first step you can take is to create a quick reference guide that explains which tools your company uses and how to get started with them quickly.
• Setting a clear timeline for the successful completion of each milestone in the onboarding plan will help give remote employees structure and maintain productivity in their first few weeks.
• And choose and use your communication tools wisely—remember that sometimes simple is better, and not all shiny features are necessary for leading a productive, focused meeting.
• This can be accomplished through well-thought-out strategies aligned with remote onboarding best practices.
• Covered in the book for example, you could use a remote authorized representative to sign Section 2 for you.
• Incorporating these elements into your onboarding strategy helps remote employees feel more engaged and aligned with your company’s vision.
• Work from home don’t only give you the benefit of only flexible working time and let you sleep a little later than normal.

This helps new hires to stay productive during the first few weeks of joining your company. The COVID-19 crisis even underscored the significance of building proper remote processes for work and onboarding. But providing such processes virtually can be a new concept for managers doing it for the first time. Employee onboarding is crucial to help new hires integrate themselves into the company, team, and culture. While on-site this happens organically, in the case of a remote employee, it should be facilitated properly. One of the benefits of virtual onboarding is the opportunity to personalize the onboarding experience for each of your new hires.