When you have remote employees it can be hard to keep them engaged. They don’t get a chance to interact with their new team as much as they would if they were working in the same office together.
To keep your remote employees engaged you need to give them a way to get to know their new team as well as their new duties.
This is where virtual onboarding programs come in handy. . Virtual onboarding is a chance to walk new employees through the company’s processes, policies, and procedures. It’s a way to give new employees an idea of what they’re getting into, as well as a way to help them feel more involved in the company as fast as possible. The remote employees can become familiar with their new team, team duties, and company culture.
With virtual onboarding you can make sure your remote employees have all the information they need to get up to speed as quickly as possible. They don’t have to feel like they’re being left in the dark.
In this post you’ll discover 6 best practices for implementing virtual onboarding process in your remote team.
Provide a welcome packet and access to necessary tools
To keep remote employees engaged, it’s important to include them in the onboarding process and provide them with the business-critical tools. They can use the welcome packet to learn how the company’s systems work, what their responsibilities might be, and how they can get started. A welcome packet can also provide the remote employees with goal setting worksheet to help them understand goals and track progress.
Early start with company introduction
Too often, companies wait until after the new employee has started work to start the onboarding process with company introduction. They’re intimidated by the idea of sharing values and culture with the new hires and afraid they’ll feel weird sharing it with a remote team. But the truth is that it’s almost as important to onboard remote employees as it is to onboard traditional employees.
Start the process with an intro video or a company introduction video soon after the hiring process is complete. Introducing yourself and your company is important for everyone but especially for remote employees. They might have questions about your company and your culture. You can use this opportunity to address questions and concerns. You can also use this time to share your values and culture with the new remote employees.
Share onboarding schedule and goals
New hires might have questions about the schedule and what the process is like. It’s important to walk them through the schedule so they know what to expect. You can make this walkthrough as formal or informal as you’d like. The important thing is to make sure new hires know what to expect and when.
Every organization is different. It’s important to know what is needed to onboard remote employees. There might not be a daily standup schedule, your new employee might be taking a few days to learn the ropes, or they might be working with a team that knows the company really well. So it’s important to know what’s required of the new employee.
Incorporate virtual trainings
New hires might have questions about policies, procedures, and processes. It’s important to walk them through policies and procedures, but it’s also important to walk through each position and processes as well. This way, it’s a bit more personalized. If you have a traditional onboarding process, it’s easy to fall into the trap of just showing policies, procedures, and processes from the beginning. You have to move past that and focus on each position and how they fit into the organization as a whole. You can use virtual trainings to walk through processes that are different for remote employees. This can be really helpful. It might mean explaining how the company runs holiday scheduling or how the team conducts performance reviews.
Enable communication with the team
Communication is important for both traditional and remote employees. It’s the foundation for trust and building a good working relationship. New hires might have questions about communication policies, such as confidentiality, or have questions about communication tools, such as Slack. It’s important to address communication policies as well as make sure new hires are comfortable with tools. You can also use communication trainings to walk through tools and policies, such as confidentiality or Slack, and make sure remote employees are comfortable with tools. You might have to explain the difference between remote communication vs. traditional communication. This might mean explaining how the company uses Zoom or how to send an email with a photo attached.
Collect feedback
New hires might have questions about the process and how they can improve it. It’s important to address feedback because it shows that you care and that you are listening to your employees. As you walk through the onboarding process, job shadowing, or mentoring new employees, it’s important to ask if they have questions. This is your opportunity to address questions and hand them off to management, HR, or the company’s coaches. Collect feedback on company processes and make sure remote employees are aware of what you’re looking for.
Conclusion
Virtual onboarding process is crucial for remote employees to fit into the company culture. As remote work model has become the new normal, it is essential to focus on virtual onboarding process. A strong onboarding process contributes to enhancement of employee retention by 82%. Hope these insights on best practices will enable you to build or improve virtual onboarding process for your business.
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