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The value of buddy programs—a traditional onboarding concept—also applies to the virtual experience. Recognizing the worth of a productive person through compensation can help firms in running more efficiently and successfully. Gaining a deeper understanding of employee salary and benefits will help your department provide more appropriate staff incentives. Consistency in the presentation of its content, such as skills, processes, and other information, is ensured by using manuals of this type.
It is very important to introduce the new remote employees to the rest of the team. An onboarding checklist can help new hires see which tasks they should complete by when. For example, you could create a checklist that breaks down tasks (like trainings, 1-1 meetings, and recommended reading) into sections based on when they should be completed. A good way to do this is to create sections for day one, week one, week two, week three, remote onboarding best practices and so on. If you create your checklist in Asana, it can also function as a central repository for all onboarding information. Asana lets you link relevant projects and contextual information to each task, so your new hire has all the information they need. During the first few weeks of onboarding, it’s a good idea to schedule more frequent 1-1 meetings with your new hire—for example, twice a week instead of once a week.
Continuous Engagement Helps
This could be anything from teaching them about agile methodologies, to explaining any kind of per-day structure they can expect during their workweek. The social culture of your company is another good thing to get in there from day one. In fact,presenting your social culture to new team members may be even more important if you’re transitioning from an office-based company to a remote company. Some tools are important to get sorted and set up at the start of a new team member’s first week.
This will show them that their onboarding process has been meticulously planned out for them and will also give them a clear structure. Here is an outline of how to onboard remote employees from the moment they sign their offer letter. As time passes and you successfully onboard a stream of new employees, you’ll start to see gaps in the materials or questions that commonly pop up. As such, putting together an FAQ and cheat sheet could streamline your onboarding process. A platform like Teamflow can seemingly make the miles separating a virtual team disappear, curating an environment in which collaboration and communication are easy to achieve.
Connect Remote Employees with their Manager
It’s hard to create an onboarding experience that makes people feel like they belong somewhere, when that “somewhere” isn’t a physical space. But it’s a critical part of both reinforcing employees’ decision to join your company and strengthening your company culture. With this sensitivity in mind, create a plan to leverage a variety of strategies that can mitigate first-day nerves and allow your employees to feel welcome and gain confidence from the start. Many organizations only provide one week of onboarding, which is simply not enough time. Research shows that the best employee onboarding programs extend from 90 days to a year. So that new remote employees feel fully trained and capable to do their very best. Send first-day calendar invites to the new hire’s personal email, in addition to their work email.
- You may have an existing onboarding plan which covers a week to a month to three months (if you don’t, here’s how to write one).
- For remote employees, the first day is all about getting access to essential systems.
- The first few months of working remotely are critical — especially for new hires.
- New employees are bound to feel awkward and make mistakes during the first few weeks and months of a job, and some may shrink back if they are not comfortable in a remote work environment.
- Planning for a remote onboarding is not necessarily any easier.
Not to mention, it helps the onboarding process feel more “official” and organized for remote employees. For that, Teamflow is the all-in-one virtual office you can use to mitigate—if not entirely eliminate—many of the challenges of onboarding and managing remote employees. It’s the hub your team can use to collaborate, meet, brainstorm, and hang out. Even though employees have digital tools at their disposal, remote hires might feel more reluctant to reach out, especially if it feels like they’re constantly pestering their supervisor with questions. Setting regular daily virtual check-ins with their team members and managers can help alleviate confusion and clarify any questions or issues as new employees settle into their role. Every team has their own way of communicating, so create detailed guidelines for how your team does things.