Tips for Onboarding a New Remote Team Member
Research shows that properly onboarding a new employee into the company culture increases employee retention by 82 percent and productivity by more than 70 percent.
Unfortunately, onboarding wasn't a high priority for most companies before the pandemic, and it's even more difficult now that everyone works from home.
Onboarding for remote employees basically contains many of the same elements as in-person onboarding. But at the same time, the employee's psychological need for security and well-being, as well as a sense of belonging and resilience, must also be considered.
Here's how to create an effective onboarding experience that addresses the informational and emotional needs of remote tech employees.
Create an onboarding structure
Think of remote onboarding as an enterprise-level project. To be successful, each new employee needs a personalized plan that outlines goals and milestones, progress updates, and a schedule of assimilation and online training activities to be completed by various team members during the first year. In other words:
To create a sense of support and belonging, a plan should eliminate ambiguity by outlining what should happen,when.
Give new employees time to develop synergy and integrate into the role.
Research shows that employees who participate in longer onboarding programs perform at their full potential 34 percent faster than employees in shorter programs.
"Preboard" new hires as quickly as possible
Don't take new hires for granted or safe after they accept their job offer. Make them feel like they're already a part of the team before they begin the actual automated onboarding process. Otherwise, they might accept an offer from a competitor on short notice.
It can be daunting to just be "the new guy." So familiarize new remote employees with your procedures, methods, blueprints and security practices early on by helping with orientation, sharing rosters and org charts, and providing advance access to internal communication tools, VPNs and project updates.
Roll out the virtual welcome mat
Remote work can feel awkward for those who are used to meeting new team members or socializing over lunch. Managers need to do everything they can to ensure that new,virtual employees feel comfortable enough to speak up and want to speak up during stand-ups and after-hours meetings.
One way to ensure this is to share the profiles of all team members (including new hires) in advance, so there is already some familiarity. Additionally, future colleagues can also be tasked with creating video welcome messages. An online meet & greet with the supervisor could also be scheduled during the first few days.
Communicate expectations and cultural norms
When the new employee starts, host a virtual happy hour to introduce him to the team. Consider assigning him a virtual buddy as a point of contact as well. Organize a series of casual online meetings to introduce stakeholders and decision makers from each business unit to the new employee.
Create a "cheat sheet" of common scenarios so the technical employee can integrate into the culture and understand how the work will be done. For example, explain the required work hours or when they can use "offline time" to focus on their work, without interruptions and zoom meetings.
Describe the procedure for out-of-office messages, signature lines in emails, Slack posts, or for turning on cameras and sound during Zoom calls. Long-established employees often take these things for granted, but pointing them out can help a newcomer feel more like an insider.
