How To Onboard Remote Workers Successfully

Tips for turning new hires into teammates

Bringing new members onto a team and onboarding them so they can quickly be productive has always been a challenge. In the current climate of minimal office presence and work-from-home, it has become more difficult than ever.
 

There is a lot for new hires to figure out. They need to learn about the company, the processes and procedures, even where the bathrooms are. And that’s before they begin to meet the people on their team.
 
Traditionally, people would show up at the office on their first day and spend that time filling out paperwork and getting their IT needs met, then spend hours, days or even a week in “boot camp”: a firehose of introductions, paperwork and training. Managers complain it takes too long to get someone up to speed to do “real work” and employees are often overwhelmed and frustrated.

When we bring new people onto a virtual team, the onboarding process becomes more complicated. Rather than simply recreate that process, now is the time to reimagine the purpose of onboarding, and how to make the process more effective.

Wherever the employee is going to sit, the goal of preparing them for success remains the same. We need to:
 

• Set the employee up in the payroll, HR and IT systems as quickly and painlessly as possible
• Begin the formal relationship between the worker and their manager
• Introduce the new member to their teammates along with their roles and responsibilities to forge working relationships
• Offer training and support as needed
• Get them doing “real work” and being productive as quickly as possible.

These aims don’t change based on whether the person will work in-house, from home, or a combination of the two. What does change is the timeline and the way people can access (and process) information. Here are some considerations HR professionals should take into account when reimagining virtual onboarding processes.

Set the Employee up for Success. When working from home, people can’t wander the corridors, sit in waiting rooms and fill out paperwork by hand the way they often would on the first day in traditional jobs. Not without going crazy, at least. 

If you want new hires to be engaged, focused, and feeling like they are welcome, have them ready to go on day one. Have all information sent BEFORE the first day, as well as instructions on accessing the online forms they’ll need to complete and sign. They’ll need set appointment times with the HR person who can walk them through the paperwork, the IT person who will get them up and running, and their manager. It’s important those meetings take place on a webcam, so people are talking to other humans, not disembodied voices, and can put faces to names quickly.

Begin the Formal Relationships with the Manager. No relationship is more important than that between the employee and their direct manager. The first days of employment should include plenty of conversation between these parties. If feasible, a face-to-face meeting as soon as possible is preferred. If that can’t be done due to distance, time, or health concerns such as Covid, those conversations should be frequent, short and rich. Webcams and screen sharing are important tools to ensure both parties are communicating with more than their words, but body language, facial expressions, and that everyone is looking at the same documents at the same time. They should literally be on the same page.

Those conversations should be more than transactional. The leader needs to block the time for purposeful conversation, including the “getting to know you” questions that make up so much of our relationship building. When working with remote employees, additional topics for conversation include what the person’s workspace is like, who else shares their physical space, and any potential barriers or distractions they think might occur.

If possible, schedule time at the beginning of each day to discuss expectations and end of each day to debrief the day’s events. Over time you can agree on a check-in schedule that works for both parties, but early on it’s almost impossible to over-communicate.

Introduce the Team to Each Other in Meaningful Ways. Unlike in the traditional office, where people sit next to each other and it’s easy to have a pizza day for people to interact, interaction on a virtual team takes place only when we make it happen. Besides introducing the new team member on a group call, good team leaders create opportunities for individual team members to have meaningful interactions. 

This can happen in a number of ways. At one large Canadian insurance company, one of the first assignments a new hire receives is to schedule a 30-minute webcam conversation with every other member of the team, whether they will interact with that person often or not. The goal is to have real “get to know you” conversations. Thirty minutes is enough time to find out what people do, and also learn about their family, background, and what they feel they do for the team. These conversations might have taken place organically in the break room or across cubicle walls, but when people are in different places and even time zones - they don’t happen unless people make them happen. 

It’s helpful to provide a list of sample questions and to prepare the team so that both parties get value from the conversation.

Many teams work in a hybrid environment where some people are in the office and others work remotely. Make sure the new person has access to people in both groups. You want to form one team, not a “home” and an “away” team.

Traditional onboarding has often involved making one member of the team the newbie’s mentor or primary resource. If you want as many people to build working relationships as possible, a good solution is to assign a team member for each role. Bob can help with work processes, while Alice knows the ins and outs of where to find the resources people need. The more people work together early in the process, the faster trust and communication pathways are established.

Offer Training and Support. Newbies often need lots of training in a variety of areas. This can be time-consuming for the manager whose calendar and task list is already full. When bringing someone up to speed rapidly, consider spreading out the work between multiple people. This not only frees the manager up but means the employee can interact with more team members. 

More importantly, create a list of non-human resources (YouTube videos, eLearning, websites) people can access on-demand. Often new hires will have a simple question that requires a quick answer, not a day in the classroom.

Get Them Doing “Real Work” as Quickly as Possible. When people aren’t spending days on end in the classroom or filling out forms, you can focus on helping them be productive as fast as possible. After all, that’s why they were hired. Not everyone is ready to be left alone or even know what their job is on day one, but by breaking up training over a period of time, a manager can schedule short blocks of time where people can shadow other members of the team, begin work and then get feedback immediately. By working in small blocks of time with plenty of interaction, the new hire won’t feel abandoned and can be connected to various team members from the first day.

Final Thoughts

The thread running through all of these suggestions is that in the early days, the employee has access to other people pretty much constantly. Not only will they feel supported, but team bonds will form faster and more naturally which will increase the speed at which they become productive teammates.

Organizations and Human Resources professionals like you need to consider the new way people work as they build onboarding strategies for the 21st century workplace. In being mindful of the dynamics of remote work, they might make meaningful changes to the way they onboard throughout the organization.

Wayne Turmel is Co-Founder of the Remote Leadership Institute and Co-Author of The Long-Distance Teammate: Stay Engaged and Connected While Working Anywhere (Berrett-Koehler; January 19, 2021). Visit www.remoteleadershipinstitute.com  Connect Wayne Turmel