There’s a great deal of personal employee data that’s collected during the onboarding process. Unlike paper-based onboarding, virtual onboarding captures information in a more reliable, simplified manner. We’re so serious about security that the Click Boarding Platform stores sensitive employee data in a SOC 2 Type 2-compliant cloud-based repository for convenient access and complete peace of mind. Many companies now choose to either have no office at all or an office that team members can use at their leisure, making a great remote onboarding process essential.

remote onboarding best practices

New hires should recognize how their responsibilities fit into the overall success of the company. Spend more time than you generally would in a face-to-face environment talking about what is typical and atypical across various cultural remote onboarding best practices dimensions. Create the space for your new colleagues to ask about the way things are done as well. It turns out that the biggest barrier to creating an intentional, differentiated onboarding experience is often mindset.

Remote onboarding best practice #3: A uniquely customized experience

As remote work allows employers to see benefits such as greater productivity, lower absenteeism and decreased turnover, it is becoming a more widespread practice, especially after the outbreak of Covid-19. Remote workers have different needs than office workers, and this applies to their onboarding as well. They’ll need the right technology, tools and resources to become familiar with the company and to get to know their co-workers and managers. If the onboarding process for remote employees isn’t up to par, employers could risk losing hardworking talent. Toptal, a 10-year-old online professional talent services platform that has always had remote onboarding, also has multiple new hires start on the same day. Alisa Avelar, Toptal’s Director of People, relies on a “village” to let new hires know they are not alone and to open up the lines of communication.

Your remote onboarding plan should be concise, well thought out and be a document you can share with everyone, regardless of job title. Streamlining it this way can help you avoid confusion and extra documentation that isn’t necessary. A typical new hire’s first day would consist of an office tour, introductions to their teammates and a set of in-person orientation sessions. Because all of this is obsolete for the time-being, it’s important to put emphasis on connecting new hires with their teams (virtually of course). In this post, we’ve laid out the five best practices you can use during the remote onboarding process to make sure your hires have a smooth landing in their new roles.

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Hiring managers are important, but so is IT, who helps employees set up their computers and deal with troubleshooting. Other team members, who will be working directly with the new employee on projects, figure into the onboarding process too—they meet one-on-one with new hires within their first two weeks. Remote onboarding is the process of welcoming new members to your team remotely and providing them with the tools that they need to do their job. Although onboarding new employees remotely poses its challenges, an effective onboarding process has been proven to improve retention by 82%.

It guarantees your employees a quality onboarding experience through structured task flows, increasing the efficiency of how quickly you obtain results. Informing all employees of their pending tasks and of their scheduled completion date. Onboarding is that critical juncture of the employee journey when a new hire connects with other members of the team, learns the ins and outs of the job, and has a chance to feel and embrace the company culture. All of that is likely disrupted if your company has recently moved to a work-from-home or hybrid model, which means you need to focus on creating a positive remote onboarding experience — and fast.

Introduction To and Training on IT Systems

Importantly, onboarding solutions such as Enboarder, HROnboard, and SaplingHR have been built with employee engagement as a top priority. Be sure to add software where needed to speed processes and provide the required legal or audit trails. Welcoming a new employee virtually doesn’t necessarily have to be more extensive than in-person onboarding. Making the most of preboarding helps you focus on higher-value aspects of onboarding on the employee’s first day. Employees are most open to absorbing new ideas and information during the onboarding process. Effective onboarding aims to convince employees that sustained efforts over the long term can help them reap career jumps and financial rewards at your company.

Ideally, the onboarding liaison will proactively reach out to the new employee prior to the first day and establish themselves as the new individual’s go-to person. Traditional employers are getting creative about onboarding new employees, and tech companies already familiar with remote work are improving upon previous processes. Here are some remote onboarding best practices to institute at your company. You need to take explicit steps to foster this culture, which is hard in person and can be especially challenging when teams are remote. In order to develop a remote onboarding checklist, you need to be sure to include a plan for the new employee’s first week on the job. They should have a clear idea of what to expect, their responsibilities, and their goals.

Get employees online ASAP

Be sure all existing employee documentation is digitized and hosted on a company intranet for easy access. Many companies use an intranet or internal wiki to maintain digital documentation of projects, successes, failures, and culture outside of day-to-day operations  (at Owl Labs, we use Notion). An emphasis on company culture is also a fantastic way to bolster your new employees’ sense of belonging and camaraderie in their work environment. A remote environment can often feel isolating, and group employee onboarding is a fantastic way to address this issue.

remote onboarding best practices

By implementing best practices, leveraging technology, and embracing innovation, companies can create seamless and engaging remote onboarding experiences that foster employee satisfaction, productivity, and long-term retention. These technologies improve the onboarding process for employees, emphasizing the integration of innovative tools like Meetaverse in the realm of online employee onboarding software. Effective best practices for onboarding remote employees require implementing strategies that foster a seamless and engaging experience for new hires.