As time progresses in the working world, new innovations and practices are being explored all the time. Many companies and businesses have not only adopted remote working practices, but have embraced it to accommodate for the safety, health, and personal wellbeing needs of their employees. However, the introduction to remote working is not easy and there are ways to streamline the process to make it more efficient for everyone involved.
Here is how to handle remote employee onboarding efficiently.
Running Through Welcome Packages, Contracts And Signatures
The initial steps of a hiring process tend to be straightforward but can be inefficient depending on different variables. With many companies incorporating remote opportunities, the initial hiring and introduction processes will be different than in-person processes. Providing a welcome package gives your hires an idea of your company and business, introduces them to aspects that they may not be aware of, and outlines the information that you may or may not have reviewed during the interview process. Documents, contracts, and paperwork that need signatures aren’t exciting but are important for the initial steps and help iron out legalities to the job. However, this can be tedious and time consuming to an unnecessary degree, especially when having to deal with this electronically as opposed to face-to-face. To make this step easier and more efficient, doing these steps together over video or on-call helps make the process faster. The use of different programs to create electronic signatures can avoid delays and days of waiting in order to proceed, and your hires are always free to look over saved documents later on. Being efficient with the first few steps can help save everyone's time and make the transition to working a lot easier.
Introduction To Tea
Culture is important when it comes to introducing new employees to your company. There are several steps in which you will introduce your new hires and employees during onboarding sessions. Of course, company introductions can occur from the start with the initial interviews, but once you are in the company, it is important to acclimate your team members to each other. This is especially critical for jobs and companies that work in collaborative settings where communication occurs multiple times in a day and is essential for success. Have your employees and team leads to set up introductory meetings, allowing your new hires to meet other members. This helps set up lines of communication and also introduces new members to your company culture, which is an underrated factor to a company’s success and growth internally. If nothing else, a message or email should be sent out to your team to inform them of a new hire, when they start, and what their role is. This will allow the transition to not only be easier for your hires but for your team as well. Never underestimate this step, no matter how basic it seems. Starting a job on the right foot with the right introductions can make huge differences in their adjustment periods and feeling comfortable enough to approach and ask for assistance. This will impact your employee’s future interactions and how well they can quickly adjust to communicating with others.
Assisting With Benefits Packages
Every new hire will have to review their contracts throughout their career, whether to accept the salaries of a job offer, ask for increases or raises, or seek out new opportunities. Many jobs and companies offer a variety of incentives and benefits to their employees, and much like their contracts, these need to be reviewed as well. There are many options to consider depending on what benefits your companies offer. It is not always known by new hires what is available, their eligibility, and how to apply for such benefits. To help save time in the long run, it is a good practice to go over and assist your employees with this part of the job.
Overview Of Job Expectations And Responsibilities
This should be highlighted in the initial job interview but once hired, should be reiterated to ensure that the employee expectations and your company expectations are aligned together. This will have been referenced in the job description, brought up in the interview, and highlighted again with more specifics once on staff. This reinforcement of responsibilities and expectations helps set your company and team up for success, ensuring there are no surprises on either end. Your team will know what to expect in terms of quality of work, and your new hires will understand the demand and responsibility they have to their team and your company.
Meeting System And Equipment Requirements
Transitioning to remote working comes with many obstacles and difficulties. One important factor that you need to consider when hiring your remote employee is that they are set up with the right equipment and tools to continuously perform their job consistently. This may mean ensuring they have the right computers, internet connections, cameras, hard drives, and other gears that they need. Some programs have higher requirements for demanding programs that need to be accounted for. Your company may need to factor this into their budget or have this as a requirement mentioned in the interview processes. For example, if your entire team is used to working with Apple products like MacBooks and the programs on there, you want to ensure that your new hires are familiar with the programs your team is using. Especially when working remotely, you want to ensure that you are set up for video or voice communications. As great and simple as it is to have email communications, video and voice chats allow you to exchange information at a much more efficient and rapid rate, allowing that efficiency to transfer to your work and your job. Ensure and communicate the importance of a stable connection and internet access. This should be straightforward and already expected, but because employees are not coming into a communal in-person workspace, that accountability and responsibility are now on each employee.
Provide Programs And Applications
As mentioned earlier regarding being equipped for success with the right tools, programs, applications, and other software play just as much of a key role as the hardware each employee should be outfitted with. There are many programs designed for different processes, including the onboarding aspect of your company. Using resources from https://workbright.com/remote-onboarding/ will allow you to focus on other aspects to aid your employees. Depending on your industry, free to use programs won’t always provide the same quality or utility as other programs. As your company grows and expands, you might also consider software that not everyone has. Some programs need to be purchased or subscribed to. If your applicants have come from the school where programs are paid for or transitioning from other jobs, they can’t all be expected to have the programs your company needs or uses. This comes back down to setting your employees up for success, which ultimately impacts your company and business.
Ensure Reliable And Consistent Communication
In addition to the tools that you need to perform your job, you also want to have your new team introduced to the lines of communication that your company and your teams use. This can be through different applications for conferences and messaging. It is important that you introduce your new hires to the programs, guiding them through registrations and ultimately how to use your different programs. You cannot expect everyone to understand how to use every tool your company uses. Even those familiar with certain communication channels and programs will benefit from a refresher course as well as insight on any communications your team uses such as lingo and terminology. Communication is the most crucial aspect of success with remote jobs and any company failing to prioritize this will not find much success.
Educate On Program Familiarity
Your new employees may not always be up to date or familiar with the programs and tools you use within your business operations. This can be for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they are familiar with other programs, or completely new to the role they have taken on but their potential for success and internal growth within the company were the reasons they were hired or promoted. Regardless of the reasoning for their unfamiliarity, you may be required to teach them or get them up to speed with different programs or applications. Depending on the program and the person, this can be done through walkthroughs or learning on the job. However, not every workplace can provide on the spot learning, and if that is the case, alternative learning and education measures should be considered.
Availability Of Training Sessions
As mentioned, not everyone is familiar with all the tools a company uses. If the demand for certain programs has a high learning curve, you may need to provide access to training sessions or even classes to have your new team learn how to use such programs. Maybe they won’t need to have that grasp right away, with the ability to grow into their job at a later point, but that could come in handy as your company grows. By encouraging your company to have this open mindset to develop their talent within and grow, this helps build on your company values and helps retain talent that might otherwise want to depart for other opportunities. Additionally, if you are aware of the growth that is required in your industry and is prepared with class offerings to your employees, you can encourage a proactive culture that provides your team with the tools they need to be more independent, solve their problems, and accomplish their work without having to seek out the resources themselves. This can make the difference in a company with exponential growth and success from another company that is stagnant, constantly worrying about rehiring and retaining their employees.
Maintain Regular Goals And Milestones
One way to create an efficient onboarding process is through the creation of weekly goals. This encourages good work habits for employees and colleagues as these goals provide teammates the opportunity to feel accomplished by giving them a visual representation of their completed objectives. Not only does this give your employees that sense of accomplishment, having shared goals allows your team to collectively celebrate milestones by sharing your completed tasks. This also ensures that people carry their own weight, as collaborative goals force you to hold your team accountable in order to be successful. When left to do work independently, and depending on the deadlines of your work, you might leave your tasks for later. Working within the constraints of a team and relying on others to progress can help increase efficiency and make teamwork faster as no one wants to be seen as the weak link. This may translate to meeting deadlines earlier and accomplishing jobs at a much faster rate.
Schedule Meetings Or Check-Ins
In order to maintain a set of goals and monitor the completion of tasks to celebrate milestones, you need to have consistent and structured communication in the form of meetings with your team. Similar to any job, there needs to be a set of goals and objectives provided for periods such as by the end of the day, week, or month. Additionally, you want to have consistent meetings in order to review the results of the time frame given and see if you hit your objectives. Having regularly scheduled meetings allows you to do just that. Having a daily meeting allows you to not only celebrate accomplishments met from the previous day but also allows you to check on the progress of longer objectives such as goals and targets for the week or month. Having this routine built into your daily routine can help increase employee efficiency when they are working remotely as it helps maintain the expectations and accountability of each employee.
Introducing new employees and team members is an important step in the hiring and growth process of any company. With the changes of remote working needing to be considered, so too do your onboarding practices. Adapting and being flexible to industry needs and changes will ensure your company is set up for success the way your employees are.
