6 best practices for your new virtual onboarding process
Published
In this quick guide, we'll share our favorite virtual best practices Onboarding to ensure that new employees feel welcome and engaged long before their first day at work.
Whether your company recently transitioned to remote work thanks to COVID-19 or you've been successful as a remote employer for years, your virtual Onboarding process probably could use an upgrade.
After all, it can take quite a while to get to know your new employees in person (if you do it at all). And now that we all know the basics of the virtual onboarding process because they don't have as much money, smart companies are fine-tuning their approach to achieve even better results.
Why spend all this time and effort?
A solid introduction process helps new employees feel welcome and already part of the team. They help ease the transition, make it less overwhelming and gradually get everyone used to the new workflow. In return, your new team members will be excited and eager to get to work.
On the other hand, a bad one leads Onboarding -Experience early on creates stress and confusion, leaving new employees wondering if they made the wrong choice. The last thing you want is for a new employee to continue attending interviews when they should be establishing roots in your company.
To increase the chances of the former and prevent the latter, in this guide we present our favorite best practices for your virtual onboarding process. Let's start by laying the right foundation:
How to attract new employees to work from home
Those : learning.shine.com
We have created a guide that describes all the important details for creating a virtual onboarding process for your company. Since we have covered this topic in detail in this guide, here is an excerpt of the steps you need to take:
- Create a remote onboarding process and set expectations. A standardized process keeps team members and new hires informed. He also ensures that employees know what is expected of them.
- Offer virtual training via online videos. These could relate to the new position, your company culture, work processes, etc.
- Give your employees access to communication tools, project management software and more. The more familiar you become with these tools (and the more you learn their ins and outs), the fewer problems you will have when you actually start using them.
- Check in on a consistent schedule to balance your other tasks and outreach (and to avoid overwhelming new hires).
Check out the full virtual onboarding guide when you're finished here to get a better idea of how to properly onboard your new remote team members.
Now you're ready to take your virtual onboarding process to the next level.
6 best practices for your new virtual onboarding process
These virtual onboarding best practices take the process a step further and ensure a positive experience that delights new employees and improves employee retention:
1. Start your onboarding process early
Remote companies often wait until an employee's first day to get the ball rolling with onboarding. We believe there is a better strategy that starts well before your new team member arrives:
Send a welcome package once you complete the new employee hiring process .
There's nothing more exciting than receiving free stuff and goodies in the mail. So after you've offered a job and your candidate has accepted the job, you should send a welcome package that includes:
- The company handbook or other company-related reading material
- Onboarding-Agenda
- Company loot
- Important HR documents to sign
- Something fun for the field office
Receiving this package will help ease first day jitters and create goodwill. New hires may feel connected to the team before every meeting. And they'll be more inclined to hit the ground running from day one.
Bonus: Don't be surprised if they share their excitement and free gift on social media, which is a great way to promote your brand and business naturally. Inclusive hiring practices in action.
2. Create and share onboarding schedule/agenda
Those : istockphoto.com
In addition to sending freebies, we also recommend that you Put together an agenda in your welcome packet that includes a timeline for your new employee's onboarding and first two weeks .
This gives them a taste of what's to come and helps them get over their initial nervousness (without overwhelming them). It's also a great way to get them used to working with your team.
In addition to your welcome packet, you should also include this agenda in a Google Doc or an organized board in your favorite project management (PM) tool and share this information with your new employee. This gives them the opportunity to become familiar with these tools instead of feeling pressured to master them on day one. To support this:
3. Assign simple tasks to build confidence and ease
To build trust before the actual work begins, give your new hires a few simple tasks to complete right from the start. Have them fill out HR paperwork, watch a short video, set up their company email/Slack/PM software profiles, etc.
Assign these tasks in your PM software and have them checked in via your preferred messaging protocol. This way you can get all questions and problems out of the way, practice using the software and gradually introduce it to real work.
4. Schedule virtual training
Remember to schedule some virtual training into your new employee's schedule. You can use Google Slides for training presentations, provide internal training videos, or send them links to online tutorials. This allows them to get up to speed on their own time.
Live video calls between trainers and new hires can help employees learn the basics of their team or department, the ins and outs of the software, etc. Give them the date and time for these training sessions and let them know if they will be required to be on camera.
5. Schedule virtual group and individual sessions to introduce the team
Those : slidegeeks.com
Virtual meet-and-greets give all employees the opportunity to find out who they will be working with in a less intimidating way. So build some video calls into the agenda, starting with smaller groups of employees that they will interact with on a regular basis.
Then, schedule one-on-one meetings or meetings with other managers with whom the new employee will work closely. After a few days, introduce your new employee to all other members of the team in a larger meeting.
To keep it short and sweet for everyone involved, you should allow these meetings to last a maximum of 10-15 minutes. This time won't disrupt the workday too much, and the new employees won't feel pressured to be "at it" for long.
Pro tip: Think of some fun questions to ask your new friend Employees can ask at this introductory meeting. You could ask them to share fun/weird facts about themselves that most people wouldn't guess. Or you can limit yourself to simple questions about their favorite vegetable/show/hobby etc.
6. Assign a welcome buddy
Finally, we recommend pairing an employee with your new employee by using the buddy system. This person is the contact person for the new employee, who shows them everything and is there for them if they get stuck. They will be less confused about where to ask for help and feel more comfortable knowing they always have someone to talk to.
We therefore recommend that you pair your new employee with someone they will work with on a regular basis. Doing this during the onboarding process will help them form a close bond right away.
Both parties must report on a fixed schedule and an asynchronous one Communication style apply . This way, everyone can balance their tasks with outreach (and none of the employees are overwhelmed).
Save and share these virtual onboarding best practices
You now have six best practices for your improved virtual onboarding process. Now it’s time to create an unforgettable welcome experience for your new employees.
While this will require a little extra work, it will pay off in both the short and long term. Your new hires will feel confident, eager and comfortable working with your team. You'll also make them feel welcome and included, which is often a challenge when working remotely.
Apply these best practices, share them with your colleagues, and let us know how it goes!
