With the new norm of self-isolating and non-essential travel in place, remote recruiting, hiring and onboarding is the only way to go for non-essential workers to carry on business as usual.
As recruitment experts we’ve pulled together some tips and tricks below on how to best help your new staff get onboarded.
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Set Expectations from the Interview Process
The recruitment process is the beginning of the onboarding experience for the candidate, especially for remote employees. It’s really important that expectations are set from the interview stage.
Be aware of the common struggles for remote workers and share your ideas for solutions to these problems. Managing workloads, ill-defined hours of work, and lack of accountability are always amongst remote workers’ top negative feedback.
Be transparent and honest about workload, hours of work, and any key performance goals for their role. Defining these at an early stage will help you avoid confusion or conflict further down the line.
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Create a Process
Take some time to create a foolproof remote onboarding checklist. While you may already have one for new hires, be sure you have a seperate one for remote hires. While some points may remain the same, others won’t be relevant and others will have to be created especially.
You always want new staff to feel comfortable as soon as possible, so think about what tools and information they’ll need to get up to speed and always be as detailed as possible. If your office manager, or the employee themselves are responsible for fulfilling a checkpoint, they should know exactly what they need to do. Be clear about this so your employee can have a much better experience as a new-starter.
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Make Them Feel Welcome
While some things like your company handbook, offer letter and contract can be sent digitally, others need some advanced planning. This is a great opportunity to also send a welcome package in the mail. Little things non-remote employees would have, such as branded hoodies, notepads and pens will help them feel appreciated in their new role from day one. It doesn’t have to be huge, but something a little extra that says ‘Welcome to the team!’ will make them feel included with your company.
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Connect Your Team
Helping your new employee meet the team is easy when they’re in the office. This definitely is a little trickier with remote workers, but don’t let that be a reason to not do it. It’s a better experience for them to do this over video, so the new starter can still put faces to names. This will also help curb the feelings of isolation and nervousness about reaching out to others with questions, while also helping them get a sense of the company’s culture.
Not feeling properly part of the business can be really disheartening for a new start, which in turn is likely to hinder their performance. So make sure they know the social calendar so they can join in on events, even if it is just on a video platform.
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Ask what works for them, accommodate and adapt
Take the time to ask your new hires about their preferences for things you are prepared to be flexible on as a company. This can be things from how they’d prefer to hear feedback, take meetings, or be issued tasks. Taking the time to hear their thoughts gives them confidence that as a company you’re prepared to listen to them and consider their specific needs.
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Keep Learning
Since remote onboarding is looking like it will become the new norm, make sure you continually nail your onboarding process. A great way to do this is by asking your new starters for feedback on how they found the onboarding process and if they have any suggestions on how to improve for future remote employees.
Looking for more tips and tricks on hiring new staff? Be sure to stay tuned and check in with the Discovered People blog.
If you need help finding new staff, be sure to contact us here.