Remote work is becoming more popular with the rise of telecommuting and the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many companies are implementing 100% remote work policies. While this lowers operating costs for companies and employees, it presents new challenges for companies. One such challenge is onboarding new employees in a 100% remote environment. Herein is a discussion on how to onboard new employees effectively.
Set a List of Your Expectations
New remote employees may want to prove a point that they are working by overworking themselves. This can lead to burning out and low productivity. You can avoid this by spelling out your expectations to your new remote employees.
Set a schedule of the working hours (consider different time zones), work priorities, and daily briefings. If you’re tracking time using software like Time Doctor, Toggle, or any other, let them know. Once your new employees know what you expect from them from a timing perspective, they can plan themselves depending on their productive hours.
Additionally, you should include wellbeing activities for remote employees.
Invest in Advanced Technology
While your company’s operational costs are likely to drop by adopting 100% remote operations, consider the costs of maintaining a remote environment. Your company needs an advanced form of support system to keep your team connected. The new remote employees need suitable equipment and systems to guarantee their productivity.
You should invest in reliable and secure cloud-based collaboration tools, such as;
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- Wrike
- Asana
- Zoom
With these apps, you can schedule meetings, make announcements, and exchange information with your new remote employees. This ensures that you’re always on the same page with your new employees, no matter how far apart you are.
For safety access to your organizational network at all times, your new remote employees should use highly secure VPNs. Ensure to set the IT infrastructure before onboarding the new remote employees.
Share Your Organization’s Culture
Your new remote employees should be aware of your organization’s culture and values. Give them access to your company’s website, intranet, and other documents that showcase your organization’s culture.
Other options for sharing the company’s culture are:
- Organize a virtual happy hour session to welcome your new remote employees. Allow them to chat and ask questions. You can encourage valuable interactions by including games or activities.
- Come up with slideshow images and videos that display your physical workstation and previous social activity within the organization.
- Team up new employees with existing ones randomly and encourage them to video chat or socialize.
- Distribute mail weekly to all employees highlighting staff accomplishments in both personal and work-related matters.
Don’t overwhelm your new employees with information. Instead, you can have a video conference or phone call to go over specific topics of importance.
Do Regular Check-Ins
New remote employees are likely to feel anxious because of their remoteness. You can ease this by having regular check-ins with them. During these check-ins;
- Get to know how they’re fairing to ensure that they’re on track with their tasks.
- Do they have any concerns about the work? Or are there any personal challenges?
- Once you’ve addressed their concerns, let them know if they’re meeting the team’s expectations or not.
Don’t have a formal check-in session with your new remote employees. An informal chat will be friendly and easy for them to participate in. It will also help you reach out to your new remote employees at their convenience.
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