How Companies Can Effectively Onboard Remote Employees

Why Onboarding Remote Employees is Important

Remote work has swiftly become a highly desired workplace strategy for employees, and more businesses are realizing that flexwork and work from home options are the new business normal. The acceptance and adoption of remote workplace strategies increased during the early days of COVID-19 restrictions and have grown in demand as employees become more comfortable with work-from-home arrangements. 

As employees and employers alike dealt with the sudden shift to remote work during the earlier days of the pandemic, companies needed to reorganize operations and workflows in order to keep pace with the sudden workplace changes, including hiring and onboarding processes for remote employees.

In hiring new employees who will be working remotely, many companies instituted virtual hiring and onboarding processes. The benefits of virtual hiring and onboarding seem apparent – less disruption to work schedules and no commuting or travel arrangements are required.  

However, HR personnel and hiring managers struggled to assess candidates and their qualifications without the benefit of a face-to-face interview. Without formal processes in place for remote hiring, HR personnel and hiring managers grappled with understanding the best way to assess candidates’ experience, performance, aptitude, ethics, and organizational cultural fit. 

Perhaps even more importantly, this struggle also persisted during the onboarding process, as companies reflected on the best way to remotely onboard an employee into a new company and new role. 

The valid concern of how to best onboard remote employees can be addressed and overcome, and it requires that companies have a solid understanding of best practices regarding remote onboarding.  

What is Remote Onboarding?

It is important to note that onboarding is different from employee training. 

While training deals with the targeted learnings of an employee’s role and company-specific information, onboarding involves introducing a new hire into the company culture and organizational structure. Onboarding occurs within the first few days and weeks of employment, where the employee is given the opportunity to understand and assimilate to the role, work dynamics, and new work environment. 

Onboarding is a pivotal time during an employee’s tenure, whereby they create connections with teammates and assess how they best fit into a company’s dynamics.  Onboarding also includes introducing newly hired employees to the tools and programs that they will be using while working for the company. 

Challenges of Remote Work Onboarding

Onboarding remote workers can create certain challenges, particularly for companies that have historically required that employees work at a physical office. 

The challenge between traditional onboarding and virtual onboarding involves the lack of a physical office environment. With remote onboarding, employers and employees alike might feel that there is limited opportunity for the employee to assimilate into the company, their team, and business workflows. Technology has come a long way in closing this gap, with the availability of video teleconferencing, internal chat and communication tools, and collaboration software. 

Another challenge is how a business should develop onboarding documentation in a way that addresses remote work and virtual communication. Creating workflows that support remote business functions is crucial to the success and productivity of a remote employee. 

Further, aligning meetings and routine communication with teammates by having set schedules respectful of all time zones is also an important aspect of the onboarding process.  By implementing work-from-home policies and regulations, companies can develop a supportive onboarding process and increase the productivity of employees who work remotely. 

Lastly, a significant challenge that must be overcome when onboarding remote employees involve the ability to create a human connection with the employee – virtually.

 Employees do not want to feel like they are just an employee number. A business must be able to establish a human connection with remote employees, even when they are not in the same workspace. 

Without proper planning on how to enable your new hires to convey and communicate with employers and teammates, they could feel like an outcast and less valued. This is especially true in situations where a company applies a hybrid workforce, whereby some employees are working in a physical office, while others are working remotely. 

It is the employer’s responsibility to create a mindset within its workers that remote teams are just as essential as office teams. The company must inculcate in the minds of all its employees that everyone is valuable, regardless of where they are working. 

Virtual Onboarding Best Practices

Templates, checklists, and workflow tools are routinely used during the in-office onboarding process. These practices should also be implemented for virtual onboarding processes, but with additional rigor as there are unique challenges for employees undergoing virtual onboarding.

Double the preparation efforts 

It is easier to miss out on important details when onboarding is handled via a video call. Plus, if a company is hiring someone also new to remote working, there may be a lot for the employee to process at the onset of the hiring process. Therefore, being prepared with established guidelines will make things easier both for the company and the candidate.

Preparation also encompasses creating self-help guidance such as onboarding videos, task templates and guidelines, and any other resources that a new hire can revisit anytime. This is especially helpful and efficient as it saves time and lessens frequent video calls which could trigger burnout even at such an early stage of employment with the company.

Introduce new hires to other online coworkers

It is standard to introduce new hires to employees across the organization, but an emphasis on connecting them to fellow virtual employees should be made, so they can share aspects of the job that can only be understood by other remote employees. 

Employees might share tips on how to use online communication tools and manage geographically disparate schedules of team members or simply encourage each other on various aspects of their jobs. These introductions help build camaraderie among remote workers.

Let employees meet the experts during virtual training

Instead of designating a single point of contact responsible for onboarding all employees, it is helpful to expose new virtual hires to as many employees across the company as possible.

One way to accomplish this is to assign a subject matter expert mentor for each aspect of the training. Not only do the new hires receive knowledge from team members that work on these tasks, but they also have an opportunity to get to know their coworkers better. 

After all, it is much more encouraging to hear different voices with every virtual meeting rather than hearing everything from just one person.

Gathering Feedback from New Hires to Improve Remote Team Setting

To implement a successful customized remote work onboarding experience for new hires, it is essential to gather employee feedback. There will always be room for improvement during the initial stages of a new implementation of policies, and instituting best practices for onboarding remote workers is no exception. 

Pay close attention to the initial set of new hires, and gather information through surveys and assessments. 

Creating Remote Work Onboarding Best Practices with SCG

Business needs are unique for each company, including creating policies that affect employee performance and productivity. SCG can help in facilitating and creating effective strategies that best suit your organization and its remote work needs. Fill out the form below and let’s get started.