Successful Onboarding For Remote Employees: Best Practices

The remote employee onboarding process consists in welcoming an employee 100% digitally by following the same onboarding phases as you would in person, from the signature of the hiring contract to the first team meeting. To address all aspects of remote onboarding, we must first understand the need to implement the best management practices for remote workers and the importance of anticipating the employee’s arrival.

The pandemic made it clear that remote work will become increasingly common. Indeed, the expansion of hybrid work patterns and full remote employees are all organizational evolutions that have gained ground in recent years, even more so in the current context.

If you don’t update your onboarding practices to consider these critical changes, you would, in turn, risk demotivating a growing number of your employees. If they are not welcomed like the others, they will never feel truly part of the organization, and their morale and productivity will suffer.

The last few months have taught us more than ever the value of organizational flexibility to overcome business challenges. Therefore, improving the remote work environment should be one of your key projects. This includes refining your remote onboarding program.

Consider setting up a clear action plan so that you don’t find yourself at a loss and risk losing your employee’s motivation in the first few days. However, remember that distance should not be an excuse to stifle the new employee – finding a balance between autonomy, supervision, and training is necessary for virtual onboarding.

A flexible and well-structured remote onboarding plan will be a real asset in facing remote onboarding process challenges!

Avoid any oversight by downloading our free onboarding checklist!

Now that you know what remote onboarding is and how to anticipate it, the question is how to overcome virtual onboarding challenges. 

Psychological distance is one of the biggest challenges in virtual environments. However, building effective remote communication is not an unattainable goal: if you haven’t already done so, it’s time to implement virtual communication tools in your organization. Video conferencing software and instant messaging tools like Slack are software solutions that help you build professional and informal communication remotely.

Beyond the logistics, it is also essential to make your staff aware of remote communication so that it gradually becomes part of your employees’ daily habits. They should feel heard if they have questions about digital communication. There is no such thing as a silly question, so consider scheduling digital training workshops to make them feel comfortable!

Extending these communication tools to all your company’s departments will ensure that remote employees always find someone to talk to and are part of daily discussions among colleagues.

Once you have set up a remote contact, you still need to ensure the link lasts. In that perspective, you must involve managers and employees, not just the human resources department.

Remote hires should not only feel virtually integrated into their team: the link created at a distance must be cultivated and continuously maintained thanks to simple and effective team-building activities. For example, weekly team lunches and informal chats beyond the professional framework are easily organized remotely. As a result, they will be your greatest allies for building meaningful relationships between teammates.

Video conferencing software solutions are once again crucial to setting up these activities and are valuable to maintain a connection, even without seeing each other ‘in person’.

Once again, organizational flexibility is essential and will allow you to adapt to remote situations without impairing some of your employees.

Team spirit can and must be maintained outside the office. With goodwill and a strong sense of organization, remote employees will feel recognized and integrated into their new company.

Employee onboarding does not stop after the first few days and on a good first impression; the process must be perpetual, so all employees feel involved in the company’s life.

Here are our best tips for maintaining good practices over the long term, even from a distance!

An obvious and easy-to-implement digitization tool is the HRIS (Human Resources Information System), a software adapted to your company’s needs that offers a tool to manage remote onboarding easily. As we said, onboarding is not just a matter of a few days. It is a process that takes place over time. An HRIS will allow you to position yourself clearly in the different stages of this process on a platform where all the data is centralized. 

You can improve remote onboarding experience with Folks’ employee onboarding platform and its flexible, affordable features. Request your free demo today!

A warm welcomefrom the human resources department is a good start. Of course, regular manager check-in meetings are essential. However, you should also consider involving the entire team from the start. This can be done through a short introduction message, team video meetings presenting future teammates, or even a virtual coffee meetup with the entire team to conclude the first day. Even better: try out all of these options at once!

In addition to building team cohesion from the start, you can inform future teammates of the employee’s arrival by detailing their position and introducing them in a few sentences in a group email. In the context of remote onboarding, you can even encourage other employees to interact with the newcomer so they do not feel isolated.

Involving the whole company in the entire onboarding process will make the employee want to get involved in the organization!

Remote employees need to quickly get a sense of the people they will work with. Dematerialize all the onboarding documents (make sure everything is available virtually) and be ready to answer any employee questions. Prepare a quick video introduction presenting company values and answering common employee questions. The new employee’s team can also create introduction videos to promote team vibes. That’s what we do at Folks, and our staff loves it!

If you can, in addition to professional equipment, send the employee goodies with the company’s logo – these little gifts are even more appreciated if you take the time to send them directly to their home!

In short, share just as much attention with your remote employees as with an employee onboarded in an office environment.

Now that you have all the tools and advice to organize efficient remote onboardings, it would be a waste to stop there and not further question your practices. Your ultimate goal should be to continuously improve your onboarding programs and your company culture. 

An obvious solution to optimize remote employee onboarding experience in your company is to ask your remote workers what they think. Remote employee feedback represents valuable information for your company. Collecting this data has numerous benefits: employees will feel heard, and their testimony will allow you to correct any error or oversight in your remote onboarding practices.

Surveys are valuable tools for learning more about your employees’ personal experiences while increasing their engagement and motivation.

Anticipation, adaptation, communication and dematerialization are critical to efficient remote employee onboarding.

But beyond the evolution of employee onboarding management, it is necessary to improve all HR practices during significant organizational changes. HR software are solutions adapted to our current and future needs and represent the start of a major shift towards business digital transition.