8 Best Practices for Any Remote Onboarding Process

And there are many online tools, such as Google Drive, that can be used for collaboration and sharing documents. Our entire company uses GitLab to collaborate on the handbook and we also create issues and merge requests in our product. For all new GitLab hires, we have created an onboarding issue template that has tasks to complete each day. This allows new hires to become familiar with GitLab in a way that feels meaningful (e.g. in learning GitLab, they are also accomplishing necessary onboarding tasks).

Online, editable documents don’t need to be printed, employees need not commute or drive to the office, and training can be conducted using recorded videos. Nowadays, even companies with in-person arrangements take advantage of remote onboarding because of its many benefits. The goal of using remote tools is to ensure seamless communication and collaboration. They need to keep your employees connected, no matter their geographical locations. When onboarding new hires, you can’t afford missed opportunities, miscommunication, and stalled progress due to issues with work tools. Group dynamics can break or make your remote team, just like in a typical office environment.

1. Provide your remote hires with presentations, documents and videos that comprise of company values, culture, vision and mission on a single portal.
2. Shorter modules act as milestones that provide new hires with a roadmap to know how far they have progressed.
3. These actions make it easy to integrate them into the company as seamless as possible.
4. RESOURCE ALERT_Download our guide on how to onboard remote employees and take actions today to help onboard remote workers in a new future of work.
5. Giving your employees the ability to explore and discover necessary onboarding content helps them mentally invest more into the process and increases retention rates.
6. Check-ins also allow your new employee to bring up any concerns or issues they may be having.

Start with thoughtful basics

Include specific steps or milestones they’ll need to meet and any other pertinent details and timelines. Self-service tools can provide employees access to corporate policies, guides and FAQs, he said, in addition to the employee’s work schedule and introductory training materials. A negative onboarding experience makes it twice as likely that a new hire will soon look for another job, according to a report from Deloitte. Here are 10 remote onboarding tips to help guide your organization’s process. Alexandra Sunderland is an engineering manager at Fellow, a platform that enables teams to build collaborative meeting agendas, record decisions, and keep each other accountable.

Meet the Tiled Score

Urge newbies to be cautious with email attachments (if it looks fishy, it probably is). To avoid situations like this, set up corporate accounts and access permissions in advance so new hires can log in seamlessly. You’re also reducing the risk of security breaches due to human error and contributing to a security-first culture throughout the organization. Once your equipment is all set up and running, use Workwize to manage your assets throughout their remote onboarding best practices lifecycle.

When information is passed during live training sessions, there is always the possibility that the instructor will make a mistake. The likelihood of mistakes being made is reduced and new hires know they are getting the most up-to-date information. Negative feedback about your remote onboarding process is inevitable, but look at it as an opportunity.

Think about all of the small personal touches employees would usually experience in the office and bring them to life. Announce them to the organization on your organization’s staff calls to give them some face time. Lastly, consider giving them a peer mentor as a friend at work on day one.

Smart companies have changed the way they orient new employees by working together with remote employees to find out what they need. Dell hosts all onboarding materials on a dedicated website, including documentation, videos, and a success team available via chat and email. Stack Overflow sets up calls between new hires and the company’s executives to hear the company story firsthand and open the door for questions. These remote onboarding processes can ease the transition of joining a new team for remote new hires.

Introduce them to key stakeholders with the help of live video sessions where they talk on topics such as personal goals and accomplishments. In addition to building team cohesion from the start, you can inform future teammates of the employee’s arrival by detailing their position and introducing them in a few sentences in a group email. In the context of remote onboarding, you can even encourage other employees to interact with the newcomer so they do not feel isolated.

How to manage onboarding new hires remotely

1. Also, be prepared to wage war against handling everything from troubleshooting connection issues to managing an influx of support tickets from curious newcomers.
2. Combine it with a Learning Management System and video conferencing software to give new hires the onboarding experience they deserve.
3. We anticipate the remote onboarding process to take at least two full weeks, with the third week designated for team-specific onboarding and training.
4. Background checking also ensures that candidates are legally allowed to carry out certain roles, failed criminal and credit checks could prevent them from working with vulnerable people or in a financial function.
5. Now that you have all the tools and advice to organize efficient remote onboardings, it would be a waste to stop there and not further question your practices.
6. “Further, having their direct supervisor and HR representative periodically reach out to provide advice and to address any concerns will help new employees feel supported throughout their employment,” Williams said.

Creating a great onboarding experience isn’t an easy process, particularly when you have new hires for different job roles. Regardless, you need to focus on providing a seamless process for your employees. Companies with an effective remote onboarding best practices plan are likely to increase revenue growth and profit margin by 2.5 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively. It’s easier to manage new hires remotely when you onboard them in groups. If you’re using a company intranet, setting up a category or tag for new hires lets you introduce them to the right resources and training at once. This allows them to make progress as a group.If you are hiring a large group of employees, you can onboard them in batches weekly or monthly for simple management.

Creating a Culture of Innovation: Fostering Creativity in Teams

Culture is created when a company’s values are prescriptively articulated and visibly reinforced through elements such as discretionary bonuses and linking promotions to values. At GitLab, we document to create a single source of truth so we can operate handbook-first and value transparency by making the handbook publicly accessible to all. For onboarding, we’re able to direct new hires to a huge repository of information and also teaching them to be self-sufficient and proactive when looking for answers. Because we’ve implemented a handbook-first approach, the GitLab handbook is always changing and growing as we learn new things. The GitLab team handbook is the central repository for how we run the company. Our handbook serves as a single source of truth that all team members can reference and depend on for answers about GitLab.

A study by McKinsey from spring 2022 found that in the US, 35% of employees had the option to work from home full-time while 90% were able to work under a hybrid model. Let your new employee get an early interaction with the essential members of your team. Finally, remember that your new employee is still learning and growing into their role. What’s important is that you give them the space to learn and grow.Encourage them to ask questions, try new things, and take risks.

You want to break down the information into digestible chunks–nobody wants to sit through an 8-hour Zoom marathon, right? Instead, consider spreading the training over a few days with shorter, focused sessions. This helps maintain attention and allows for better information retention. To do that, use an externally accessible form to collect new employee data, which Talent Acquisition will provide to candidates after they accept their offer. You want new hires to feel supported and equipped from day one, even if they’re miles away from the physical office. Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.