Successfully onboarding remote employee

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become an essential skill to manage remote teams and managers often need to onboard new employees ‘remotely’. Onboarding a new employee is an invaluable part of ensuring success in their new role, but how do we do this efficiently, when we are onboarding someone into a remote and virtual team?

It is a time for hiring managers to proactively engage with their new people and thereby, pave the way for a successful integration into the new workplace and team.

So, with this new challenge for hiring managers who are devoted to building an engaged remote workforce, how do we ensure that ‘remote onboarding” is a positive experience for both the team and the new employee? How do we ensure that a new employee becomes part of a trusted team – virtually?

I have asked a few job seekers to share their views of what was helpful for them, when they onboarded ‘remotely’. Here are 13 tips to help remotely onboard new employees successfully.

1) Be kind, caring and patient when onboarding a new employee, they will be feeling overwhelmed and isolated

2) Set up a MS Teams / ZOOM meeting for them to meet the whole team before starting in the position

3) Ask each team member to set up individual Virtual meetings with the new employee – just a quick 5 minute catch up to explain who they are and to say welcome. If this is not possible, ask each team member to send a quick email to say “Hi” and “Welcome to our team”

4) Buddy system - assign them a ‘buddy’ within the business who can act as a sole point of contact

5) Regular check ins from the manager - keeping the interaction as constructive and regular as possible. When onboarding a new person, especially remotely, check in on them regularly and allow them to ask questions and talk about how they are doing

6) Hand over document – ensure that you have a detailed hand over document to pass on to the new employee, or even better, have the person who is leaving set up a meeting to talk them through this

7) Don’t bombard them with unnecessary information, they will already be overwhelmed. What about bite size training sessions, rather than long ones?

8) IT Support – this is an important lifeline for all new employees. Make sure they have a point of contact in the IT department who can assist or at least direct them, with any IT related issues

9) Home office set up – make sure they have the necessary equipment to work from home and assist if necessary

10) Ensure that they have diary invitations for all the meetings – there is nothing worse than NOT being invited to a meeting and then included n as an after thought

11) Deliver a gift bag / treat /card to welcome them on their first day

12) Checklist – have a checklist in place to ensure that you do not miss anything important when onboarding a new employee

13) Virtual Drinks / Daily Quiz – invite them to join social team events virtually. This could be a virtual office drink on a Friday afternoon or even the team logging in daily to complete a daily quiz.