Since the COVID-19 crisis, the world has been heading towards virtual work more than ever before. From Remote Working to Online Meetings and Presentations, the corporate world has undergone a significant transformation, embracing digital solutions to enhance productivity and flexibility. One of the most valuable innovations of digitalization is Remote Working. As a company, onboarding new employees is an important aspect of the Hiring Process and an employee’s journey in your company. It is critical to educate them about the company's regulations and standards, connect them with existing team members, and tell them about their work.
However, providing a great onboarding experience might be challenging in a remote work environment. That is where virtual onboarding or remote onboarding comes into play, offering an innovative way to onboard new employees in a remote or hybrid work environment. It has proven to be an effective alternative to train new employees in recent years. In this blog, we will shed light on best practices for virtual onboarding in a remote or hybrid work environment to ensure the effective integration of new team members.
What exactly is Virtual Onboarding?
Virtual onboarding, also known as remote onboarding and hybrid onboarding, is the process of onboarding new employees into the company’s culture, workflow, and team through digital means. It includes all processes, activities, and interactions that occur during in-person onboarding to welcome new workers, with the only difference being that it is conducted digitally. It involves using digital onboarding tools and technologies that make new employees feel as if they are getting onboarded in person. With remote onboarding, remote and hybrid employees feel welcomed, informed, and fully prepared to work in the organization remotely.
Best Practices for virtual onboarding in a remote or hybrid work environment
Virtual Onboarding is a simple and straightforward process of introducing new people to the business and making them aware of the company's values, culture, rules, goals, and, most importantly, people. To ensure effective virtual onboarding, follow these best practices:
Leverage the time before Arrival
When you hire new employees, they mostly join the company after a certain interval due to a notice period or any other reason. This valuable time before joining is crucial to instill a sense of belonging and enhance employee engagement. Therefore, utilize this time by sending them welcome packets that include:
- Company’s Rules and Regulations
- Company’s Culture and Policies
- Organizational charts
- Company’s Information
- Required documentation to sign
- Tools and Technologies that your company use
- Virtual Training Resources (training videos, links, courses, etc.)
- An About Me Questionnaire
- Employee’s handbook
- Social media Channels
- Necessary equipment required, etc.
The Welcome Package is an essential component of making the new employees feel part of the company, understand its values and culture, and get an in-depth overview of it before starting work.
Set Clear Expectations
Clear expectations are important for new employees to work efficiently and effectively. Clearly define each new employee's roles and responsibilities and ensure they understand their position and role correctly. To do that:
- Prepare a comprehensive job description involving key responsibilities, expected outcomes, the company’s vision, and how their position contributes to the company.
- Inform them about key performance indicators and evaluation criteria to help them understand what you expect from them.
- Establish clear day-to-day activities, such as key projects, deliverables, deadlines, client expectations, quality standards, and performance metrics.
- Make sure that the new employees do not feel overburdened and maintain a manageable workload for our employees.
Provide them with Necessary Resources
Remote employees require access to all the necessary software, portals, accounts, and systems to enter the company’s framework. Therefore, using digital onboarding toolsprovides them with the necessary login details and clear instructions for setting up the software on their systems. Provide them with information on the tools your company uses in the virtual workspace, from messaging app and video conferencing software to attendance portal and project management tool. With access to the tools and portal the company uses, employees can seamlessly integrate with the company and start their work. Additionally, make sure the worker receives the business laptop before the first working day.
Create and Share an Onboarding Schedule/Agenda
In remote onboarding, an employee does not know how things work in the company, nor can they join the other teammates physically. Therefore, it's essential to tell them the onboarding schedule and agenda that outlines the first week, including meetings, training sessions, and introductions. To do that, create a comprehensive onboarding schedule and make sure that new employees know their roles and responsibilities for the first week of working. You can use digital onboarding tools to store all resources, schedules, training material, and contacts in one place. Besides that, you can also add new employees to a Slack channel that consists of instructional materials to encourage employee engagement.
Host a Virtual Welcome Lunch
In virtual onboarding, introducing the new employee to the team is crucial to familiarizing the person with their colleagues, creating friendly bonds, and feeling a sense of belonging. While the team's welcome messages are an excellent approach to greeting a new member, in-person communication is more advantageous. To do that, the best way is to host a virtual welcome launch using video conferencing tools where the existing team members warmly welcome the new employees and make them feel comfortable. In a Virtual Launch, the new members can introduce themselves to the team and connect with them professionally as well as personally. The virtual welcome launch can include team-building games to make the new members comfortable and settled in the team.
Integrate Interactive Meetings and Training
Hold one-on-one online meetings to tell the new members their work schedule, responsibilities, deadlines, and the quality of work you expect from them. For the first few weeks, there should be weekly online meetings with the remote worker's team lead to set expectations, address queries, and monitor progress. Live Q&A sessions with trainers and managers can also enhance engagement and progress.
Virtual training is crucial to ensure the new employees know the work procedures, operational plan, market strategy, day-to-day activities, etc. Utilize various formats for training, including videos, interactive modules, webinars, presentations, online workshops, and live sessions to keep new hires engaged.
Create a Virtual Onboarding Buddy Program
In addition to the virtual welcome launch, creating a Virtual Onboarding Buddy Program helps new employees clear their doubts, take help, navigate their roles, and immerse themselves in the company’s culture and landscape easily. The buddy program involves assigning a go-to mentor or buddy to help new employees clear their doubts and questions, provide insights, connect them with concerned people, etc. This Hybrid Onboarding practice ultimately boosts productivity and drives employee engagement in the long term.
A buddy or mentor should be available for the employee to guide them on every matter and make them feel like they are an important part of the company. Ensure that the buddy is a colleague who is well aware of the company and, most importantly, the role and responsibilities of new employees to help them accurately. Using onboarding technology video conference platforms such as Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, etc., the new employees and buddies should meet at least once a week to clear doubts.
Ensure Effective Communication
In remote working, the biggest challenge is effective communication. There may be times when employees have some doubts or require clarifications regarding their tasks. In the office, they can directly reach the team lead or manager or ask teammates, but in remote working, it's crucial to ensure effective communication through clear channels to address queries. You can use communication channels like Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, etc., for different types of interactions. Ensure weekly meetings and check with managers and HR to address questions, provide feedback, and ensure new employees are settling well in the company. Besides that, employees should be given the freedom to interact and communicate with each other on a personal level outside the office groups to ensure efficient working.
Conclusion
Today, 60% of companies are adopting remote/hybrid work, and it is believed that this percentage will rise even more in the future. In such a situation, it has become important for companies to adopt remote working to get access to the best professionals without local restrictions. Virtual or remote onboarding is crucial to seamlessly integrate new employees into the company culture and workflow. We have discussed the best practices for virtual onboarding in a remote or hybrid work environment to ensure that employees are well informed about their roles, responsibilities, company culture, and their teammates.
