6 Best Practices for Your New Virtual Onboarding Process

Remote onboarding is the process of preparing new employees to join a company by training them for their specific roles, in a remote setting. Meeting new coworkers is a key component of onboarding, and when carried out on a virtual office platform with real time communication, socialization with coworkers feels natural. One of the most common HR tips for onboarding remote employees is creating a buddy system for new hires. You assign them to a specific team member, preferably someone who has been with the team for some time, to be their guide and mentor.

• You need to invest in creating a smooth process that makes employees feel supported and loyal to your company, or you will lose out in the hiring battles with your competitors.
• While the COVID-19 pandemic has made remote working mainstream, the work style has been around for decades.
• Creating space to experience the newness together is important, Ramirez says, even if it’s in a simulated remote environment.
• This has a domino effect impacting every other team member, seriously affecting your company’s culture and ultimately, your total revenue.

But with a little effort, you can make the process smooth for both the employee and your team. Consider, too, a virtual lunch hour with the entire team soon after onboarding. A virtual team meeting during https://remotemode.net/ the first week can give them insight into how the organization operates. It turns out that the biggest barrier to creating an intentional, differentiated onboarding experience is often mindset.

How to Improve Focus & Concentration At Work Remote Edition

Our research shows that when people are made to feel welcome, the organization not only survives during a recession, it thrives. First impressions last much longer than the initial moment, so focus your time spent onboarding remote employees on connecting. Across the globe, companies have shifted to remote and hybrid workplaces.

Essentially, it entails all of the steps of the traditional onboarding process, facilitated by different digital tools (for example, video calls or other collaborative tools like shared documents, etc.). The point of remote onboarding is to offer an employee an exciting, integrative experience as part of your organisation, even if they are not in a physical office location. Given the isolation of off-site work, managers have an expanded responsibility to keep the lines of communication open and create opportunities for questions and feedback. Also, consider arranging a mentoring relationship for the remote employee. Mentoring is a great way for new hires to get a better feel for the company’s culture. Mentors can serve as guides and sounding boards for remote workers as they ramp up with their new jobs.

How to Onboard New Work From Home Employees

Set up virtual coffee breaks, lunches, or after-work drinks to promote communication within teams. You can either arrange these meetings yourself, ask teams to do so, or even have new employees organise meet-and-greet sessions. Consistency is key during this time, and making sure new employees have access to company tools, protocols and resources places them in a position for success, https://remotemode.net/blog/10-best-remote-onboarding-practices-to-adopt/ she said. „The average new hire has [far too many] activities to complete during their onboarding experience,“ said Renato Profico, CEO of Doodle AG, an online scheduling vendor based in Switzerland. „Overloading a new hire with too many onboarding tasks could create a roadblock for them in getting familiar with the business and understanding what’s expected of them in their role.“

• A series of training modules welcomes new employees to campus and explains policies.
• Break up learning with things like multiple-choice quizzes and polls that require a thoughtful response.
• This allows both sides to share their screens and highlight what was done well and what could be improved.
• Employee retention can be improved by prioritizing onboarding programs that emphasize their company’s commitment to advancing their employees’ careers.
• With a remote worker, you’re not trying to curate the on-site experience, but an intentional and distinct virtual onboarding experience that aligns with the company’s culture.
• Even so, that doesn’t mean they’ll be familiar with your processes, tools, and technology.

It is a great way to help the new hires adapt to the new working environment and also establish bonding with other teammates. Best if there are other remote teammates in the new hire’s local area as well. If bringing the new hire into HQ during their first week is not possible, you should definitely set up a welcome call to orient them to the critical aspects of working at your company with a video call. However, reforming the process is possible to yield effective results by following the steps discussed in today’s guide.

Assign a buddy

It should also create a personal welcome and help new hires feel supported and comfortable with your company culture. Brower adds that a chief goal of onboarding is helping new employees build social capital—networks of people and information that can help them learn and grow while also increasing retention and engagement. The benefits of feeling connected include being more comfortable asking for help, experiencing a sense of belonging, and feeling positive about the role and the organization.

Assign either a mentor or a peer „orientation buddy“ who they can go to with any questions and grow and learn together. The goal here isn’t to have anyone reveal sensitive personal health information but to let employees organically connect around the subjects of health, wellness, and work-life balance. In the context of remote work, where new employees can’t just walk up to their teammates and introduce themselves, formal intros become much more significant. It saves time and money because you’re not duplicating your efforts and it fosters a sense of community and belonging among your new hires because they’re going through a process together.