Hiring a new employee during a global pandemic when most people are working remotely can present new challenges for both the manager and the new hire. You want to be able to give them a warm welcome to your team and ensure they are up to speed with your systems, processes, goals – all with minimum face to face contact.
It’s no easy feat! We’ve got some tried and tested ways to successfully onboard your new employees remotely so you can have the peace of mind that they’ll hit the ground running and feel part of your team quickly.
Develop an onboarding plan
If you don’t already have one, we highly recommend you create one to ensure the onboarding process goes smoothly. It should include certain milestones that can be used to measure how a new employee is progressing through the process, including what is expected of them by the end of the journey.
Your onboarding plan may need adapting to include more remote sessions and collaboration and to postpone things such as the office tour until everyone is back working from the physical workplace.
Create opportunities for virtual collaboration
Collaboration with the rest of the team remotely, by inviting your longer standing members of the team to train new hires on systems such as how to save and store documents, and other business critical tools via Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
This gives it a much more personal touch than watching recorded videos. This gives them a chance to get to know those who are training them, and how they use the tools on a daily basis, and they can also reach out to them whenever they have any questions.
Regular check-ins
Checking in regularly with a new employee can help them feel more engaged and motivated. It helps to create a sense of team spirit, despite the fact that people might be working from different locations.
We also recommend assigning another team member to check in with them on a regular basis too, as this removes the obvious barriers that come from an employee/manager relationship. It makes it much more friendly and personal and helps them feel as though they are part of a team.
Arrange an in-person meeting after the first week
Arrange for them to come into the office after their first week to meet key team members. This gives them an opportunity to ask questions and talk through any issues with their manager in person, as well as give you feedback about how they’ve found the onboarding process so far.
If you want to be more successful in the onboarding of long-term remote workers, it is critical that adjustments are made to create a remote-friendly workplace so that everybody feels included and up to speed, irrespective of where they work.
We’ve recently helped a company create an effective remote onboarding process to give their new hires the ability to have regular check-ins, reach their targets quicker and feel part of the team. If you would like help with your onboarding process, contact us to implement an engagement app to help with that regular and important check-in.
