remote onboarding: what is it and why is it important?

When offices were shut during lockdowns in 2020, new employees would complete their onboarding process digitally, which is otherwise known as remote onboarding. Remote onboarding is the process of completing your company onboarding procedures with new hires through online channels.

As we move forward to live with COVID, some parts of the onboarding process, such as welcome team lunch, will be conducted in-person. However, the majority of the onboarding process can continue to be conducted remotely and digitally for better use of everyone’s time.

remote employee onboarding checklist should include:

Signing an employment contract and completing other necessary paperwork
Sharing of digital copy of company policies, which will include your rules and guidelines on remote working
Virtual meetings with co-workers who are not based in the same city or office
Setting up IT equipment and tools, including access to necessary online applications, data and resources
Detailed discussions about the role, its responsibilities and expectations

It could be argued that the various processes involved in the onboarding experience have become even more important in a hybrid work environment.

For one, new employees who are being onboarded remotely will not get the same experience. For example, it could be harder for a home-based worker to familiarise themselves with the business, their colleagues and company leaders, your organisation's general ethos, as well as the working atmosphere if they're not physically in the workplace and able to meet people face-to-face.

However, if the virtual process is managed well, it helps to ensure that your journey with a new recruit begins on the right foot and both parties benefit from a positive, productive and meaningful employer-employee relationship.

From a commercial perspective, giving your newbie a good experience at the start of their employment reduces the risk of people leaving shortly after joining. It helps to reduce employee turnover and the financial and operational disruption of rapid staff turnover.

Furthermore, people who enjoy a positive onboarding experience are likely to tell others about it and recommend you to their friends and contacts, which will strengthen your employer brand and improve your ability to attract fresh talent.

Research has shown:

20% of new hires leave a job to pursue a different opportunity within 45 days of starting
Companies with a strong onboarding process improve new hire retention by 82% and productivity by more than 70%
69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for three years if they experienced great onboarding
The best-performing businesses are 53% more likely than others to start onboarding before the employee's first day - known as pre-boarding
72% of workers say one-on-one time with their direct manager is the most important part of any pre-boarding or onboarding process
88% of employees believe their employer mismanaged their onboarding

key elements and best practices to a successful remote onboarding

The remote onboarding process can be a challenge for both the worker and manager. A new recruit could find it more difficult to make a positive and confident start to their new job if they're spending a lot of time working on their own. Managers who are not familiar with the virtual onboarding process may similarly feel less confident in their new employees.

A poor onboarding process will only reduce employee morale and confidence. It can lead to a lack of role clarity and expectations. This is why the significance of creating a strong online onboarding experience should not be downplayed.

Considering how important it is to get this aspect of your HR management right, what steps should you be taking to onboard a remote employee effectively and how should an onboarding process look like? Here are the best practices for onboarding remote employees successfully.

1. make a special effort to welcome people

A new employee who is working remotely could miss out on some of the basic benefits of being in the workplace on their first day, such as meeting their co-workers in person and getting used to the general atmosphere and 'vibe' of the company. That is why it's important to make up for a pleasant virtual onboarding programme for new employees.

Managers can address this by taking special measures to welcome remote staff and to make them feel like they're part of the team. There are various ways to go about this, such as sending out a welcome pack with small gifts and company-branded items, like a piece of clothing, a mug or a water bottle.

One employer that uses this approach is Miro, a virtual whiteboarding software provider. AJ Josephson, the firm's head of people, said it's important to provide symbols of company culture and to show remote workers that the business cares and wants to make them feel welcome.

You should also think about the best approach to introducing new hires to their co-workers over time. Bringing everyone together for a single video call could be overwhelming for new joiners - as well as being impractical - so you might want to come up with a plan for arranging virtual meetings with key colleagues and small teams over the course of a week or two. This will help remote workers get to know the rest of the workforce in a relaxed, gradual way, rather than in a hectic rush.

2. take advantage of technology

Modern technology is one of the most valuable assets available to any company making the transition from in-person to remote onboarding. We should leverage digital communication tools as much as possible to help speed up the process.

There are many tools that can help to make this process easier and more efficient. DocuSign, for example, allows you to manage and sign contracts and other key documents electronically, while instant messaging and project management platforms like Slack are designed to facilitate remote collaboration, helping geographically distributed teams to stay in contact and share data in real time.

Another key consideration in the technical aspect of onboarding is making sure remote workers have access to all the equipment and tools they need to do their job properly. That could be anything from delivering a laptop ahead of time so the user can set it up and familiarise themselves with it before starting, to ensuring the employee has full access to any proprietary software or cloud platforms they need. You also need to give remote staff the right training and IT support to make sure they can use their tech tools effectively. This is particularly important if they're using applications or software they're not familiar with.

3. emphasise human interaction

While tech tools have a key role to play in 21st-century business and HR, particularly where remote onboarding is concerned, it's crucial to remember that technology isn't a replacement for human interaction.

Remote workers don’t get the frequent contact and conversation that happens naturally in a physical workplace. On the social aspect of onboarding, HR leaders should think about how they might be able to replicate the typical social workplace interaction in a virtual environment to enrich the online onboarding experience.

Miro encourages its employees to mix and get to know each other by breaking the workforce up into small groups for intimate bonding sessions. The company even invited workers in its Amsterdam office to play a virtual board game together.

Kaelyn Phillips, director of global talent development at Monster, pointed out that the process of introducing a new remote worker to the rest of the team doesn't always have to be focused on work, as Miro's approach shows.

Ms Phillips stressed that the onboarding process - whether it's happening remotely or in-person - should be all about people. "It's about making connections and making sure the person feels that they have joined a place that wants them and a place that welcomes them," she said.

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