10 Best Practices for Onboarding Remote Employees

The welcome pack should ideally be sent out to new employees before their first onboarding session. Follow-ups for employees can be as simple as an email or a message on your communication tool, like Slack. Aside from direct supervisors, it’s also a good idea for human resources managers to schedule periodic one-on-one video calls.

• In this article, we’ll highlight ten remote onboarding best practices and their benefits to ensure the smoothest experience for new hires.
• They can use this time to welcome the new employee into the team and explain their role.
• In order to keep it fun and light, try playing virtual icebreakers during the meeting.
• When developing a remote onboarding process for the first time, there are likely to be challenges or things that are missed.
• New hires should spend some time getting to know their teammates before the official start date.

Providing all necessary equipment demonstrates the company’s commitment to the remote workforce. The action fosters a sense of professionalism and creates an environment that encourages optimal performance and collaboration. The following 10 best practices will help support a company through remote onboarding. A new employee of any level will have a lot of questions and need guidance to get their footing in the company.

onboarding best practices for remote workers

Regular check-ins can mean the difference between a long-term, productive employee and one who quits early on. A new employee’s first day should be fun and informative at the same time. You don’t want them to spend eight hours filling out paperwork and sitting through lectures. But you also want to ensure they learn something and are better prepared to start their job. Onboarding doesn’t have to wait for the first day — there are steps you can take immediately to make a new hire feel welcome as soon as they’ve accepted the offer. This not only sends the message that you’re excited to have them on the team but also gets some of the more mundane onboarding tasks out of the way so you can make their first day on the job memorable.

A negative onboarding experience makes it twice as likely that a new hire will soon look for another job, according to a report from Deloitte. Here are 10 remote onboarding tips to help guide your organization’s process. Addressing any challenges that come up can quickly become time-consuming for both employees and the organization. However, good organization and strategic use of technologies, such as robotic process automation (RPA) and autofill forms, can trim down the time needed to complete the steps. Remote onboarding became the norm during the pandemic while many businesses struggled with it. That flexibility is unique to the all-remote environment, as those who prefer a self-guided experience are typically forced into a very social onboarding at colocated companies.

Effective Tips for Onboarding Remote Employees

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That means that remote onboarding is likely to remain a top priority for some time. Training can often go overlooked, leaving managers to fall back to traditional methods rather than to optimize the onboarding and on-going support of remote workers. If you have remote employees that are working from geographically distant locations, it may not be possible for everyone to attend a gathering. Most notably, you can organize a social meeting via web conferencing software. While it may not be the same as a physical gathering, it is important nonetheless.

Why are these onboarding best practices important?

If you are unable to onboard in groups, then consider inviting all new employees who have started in the past 3 months to a group session. However, this isn’t always practical since remote employees usually work from various locations. If that’s the case at your organization, you can easily conduct a virtual gathering via a Zoom video conference. You can also consider an onboarding buddy system where a new hire is paired with an existing employee. This gives them access to someone who can always answer questions and make sure they fit well into their new remote teams.