Onboarding Remote Employees? Here Are 5 Best Practices You Need to Know

Even after a virtual introduction and the welcome email, you can’t expect your new remote employee to remember every single thing about your company and its policies. To run your virtual introduction sessions, you should choose a good video conferencing platform that will allow you to make the most of it. Vowel offers live meeting transcriptions, https://remotemode.net/blog/10-best-remote-onboarding-practices-to-adopt/ which a new hire can go through afterward to make sure they haven’t missed anything important. They’ll also get meeting notes and a recap with shared links and action items. Things can get even more challenging when it comes to onboarding new team members remotely because there’s no face-to-face time or a deskmate to quickly ask a question to.

• For businesses that wish to expand their operations internationally, Horizons’ global Professional Employer Organization (PEO) streamlines your compliant expansion into your new market.
• After each training session, you should allow some time to enable knowledge retention.
• According to a recent ADP research report, 64% of surveyed employees would consider looking for a new job if they were required to return to the office full time.

HR software, for example, can help streamline your recruitment process, including onboarding remote hires. It provides a centralized platform, workflow automation, scheduling, report generation, and data and analytics. “The buddy is the new team member’s point person throughout the onboarding process,” said Christina Ioannou, vice president of HR at Lewis. “The buddy is available for all the ‘silly’ questions, to fill them in on office happenings and add them to the office social channels.”

How to Set Up a Remote Employee for Success on Day One

Remote working is notorious for dissolving boundaries between home and office, and this can make it difficult for your entire team to fully switch off after work. You can also take the practice a step further and celebrate personal events. Instead, encourage your teammates and leaders to treat the new hire respectfully and have confidence in their abilities. Chat tools such as Slack may seem ubiquitous, but not everyone has used them before – and even if they have, they may not know how your network is organized. Then make it consistent by automating steps where possible (like signing paperwork and registering for training) to keep the process moving forward.

Because they’re often inundated with information during the first days, it can take time for them to recognize whether anything is missing. Applying recognition strategies is one of the most important tools to increase employee retention. Additionally, providing recognition can boost employees’ performance and productivity.

Provide a digital employee handbook and company culture.

And there are some admin tasks that you can perform beforehand to ensure things will go smoothly for the first few days. As well as monitoring voice quality, network jitter, latency and packet loss, our solutions also provide vital metrics and complete visibility into your entire communications environment in real time. One example of a company that used Social Recognition® for boosting retention is LinkedIn. It experienced a 96% retention rate in current employees receiving recognition, whereas new hires receiving recognition showed a 9% increase in retention rate. According to this Workhuman® report, new hires are 4x more likely to actively look for another job when they don’t get fulfilling recognition.

That’s why it is typically a good idea to ask new employees how comfortable they are with meeting and chat tools such as Google Hangouts, Zoom, Slack, etc. – before their first day. In remote onboarding, the active portion of onboarding (the intense elements of helping a new employee understand their role) may take two to three weeks, depending on the position. But, passive onboarding, which we will address with some specific measures later in this article, may stretch months (maybe even six months into their tenure). This way, your new hires don’t have to worry about device specifications during onboarding. You can also provide asynchronous options so that they can follow the process at their own pace.

Assign a buddy

Consequently, there is a high probability these employees will look for job opportunities elsewhere. When onboarding remote employees, you should encourage new hires to build relationships with your existing workforce as quickly as possible. A clearly defined onboarding plan makes it easier to have standardized virtual onboarding https://remotemode.net/ practices for every new team member at your company. You can consistently invest the right amount of time and energy towards helping new remote employees feel welcome. 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.

By following these tips, you can set your new remote team up for success from the start. If your company has a physical office, give your new employee a virtual tour so they can see where their team members work and what the space looks like. If you don’t have an office, you can still give them a tour of your company’s website, intranet, or social media channels. If you’re working with a project management tool, ensure that their accounts are already set up in advanced and they’ll have access from day one. In that case, putting together a list of recommended tools for your new employee may be helpful.

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Employers have the capacity to build career development into the onboarding process by encouraging new hires to foster connections with their co-workers, while also advancing their own career goals. According to Business.com, you can establish fun company traditions, such as things like celebrating birthdays, virtual happy hours, or informal Q&A sessions. This helps employees to get to know each other on a personal level and keeps things fun and light-hearted. Showing your appreciation is a simple, yet often neglected, way to motivate and engage your remote employees. It’s also a fantastic idea to have weekly or monthly meetings that enable employees to communicate through video conferencing and get to know each other; both on a professional and a personal level. For example, new employees might organize a group call with other new hires in order to walk through onboarding together, while learning about new personalities and departments of the company.