How to make remote onboarding effective? – 5 best practices
According to Gallup’s research, only 12% of employees agree that their company does a good job during onboarding. This surprisingly low number should give organizations food for thought.
Especially, when onboarding is often conducted remotely, and the contact between recruiters, team leaders, and employees is limited. The remote onboarding process requires the right approach to be effective and engaging. To make it so, follow these 5 basic rules.
1. Provide the new remote employee with the necessary tools
To be able to even process the remote onboarding, you need to contact the new employee before the first day and hand over a set of documents and necessary equipment including a laptop, phone, and headphones. This all needs to happen before the first day to minimize the risk that suddenly something will go wrong.
The new employee should be able to switch on all tools and be sure that nothing is missing. It is also a good idea to do all paperwork before the first day – all documents should be prepared carefully by the HR department and explained in case of any doubt.
2. Present the detailed remote onboarding plan
Schedule a morning meeting with the employee on the first day. Arrange the meeting with your cameras on so that you both have at least a semblance of real contact with each other. Prepare yourself thoroughly for this meeting because the way you will conduct onboarding may determine whether the employee will want to stay with your company.
Plan point by point the first week and determine clearly what you want the employee to do, and which training to undergo. Inform your new employee about the remote onboarding goals and prepare a written list of them. You can also arrange meetings after completing each training stage, this way it will be easier for you to control the course of onboarding, and to react when something is unclear or not working.
3. Help new people build connections with their new teams
The entire team should be informed in advance of the new employee’s arrival. You can ask them to warmly welcome the new person. Arrange an on-camera meeting for the whole team to introduce the new member. It is also a perfect idea to choose one person from the team as a mentor for the new employee – a person who the new employee will be able to interact with and learn from on an ongoing basis.
4. Provide your organization with tools that enable the remote onboarding
Remote onboarding poses many challenges. It’s hard to engage new employees and teach them anything by just delivering them numerous, boring pdfs to read. They won’t remember much of it.
Try then to acquire the right tools, thanks to which you can conduct training remotely in an engaging way. You can create a special database of multimedia training materials – videos, infographics, and podcasts divided by topics. Add multimedia quizzes to these materials, to check the learning progress. Only in an engaging way will you be able to teach a new remote employee anything.
5. Schedule feedback meeting after each training stage
Plan a feedback meeting after completing each training stage. Be open to all new employees’ comments and let them know what you think of their performance. Ask them if something is unclear, clarify, and specify how the knowledge can turn out to be useful in their everyday duties.
If new employees let you know that they need something, try to help them, and communicate with their supervisors and co-workers if necessary. Be available and be a friendly guide during the first days of work. Everyone knows how difficult the first days at a new job are.
Remote onboarding requires good planning so that the remote employee does not feel isolated and always has something engaging to do. Try to provide only attractive onboarding materials. Take care of the new employee’s well-being and make sure that everything is ok.