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In a traditional setup, they have more opportunities to get to know their teammates through small interactions like eating together during breaks, chatting at the water cooler, or along the hallway. But in remote work, they have limited ways of reaching out to their teammates. Don’t wait for your new hires to make the first move to onboard them. Take a proactive approach and make sure that you welcome them even before they start their first day. Set up my laptop and we arranged to meet the week before my start date. They also gave me a swag bag with a coffee mug, water bottle, stickers, and all sorts of branded ‘Curricula’ swag. Nurturing your best talent from the very start will make them feel important and valued, setting the stage for high satisfaction and a feeling of belonging.

remote onboarding tips

As soon as you’ve found the right hire, make sure you start communicating with them straight away. It’s incredible how many companies leave you hanging when you’ve accepted a job, and anxiety builds during the wait time until you start.

Moving forward (continued support and development)

Vowel offers live meeting transcriptions, which a new hire can go through afterward to make sure they haven’t missed anything important. They’ll also get meeting notes and a recap with shared links and action items.

While remote work gives employees more flexibility, it also presents some challenges—especially when it comes to onboarding. When new hires can’t meet their coworkers face-to-face and see them on a daily basis, it can be hard to foster a sense of belonging and check in on how new team members are doing. Remote hires also need to navigate remote onboarding best practices virtual communication tools like chat, video conferencing, and project management software from day one. The task of onboarding new hires remotely is not just a mere online exercise, but a complex process with multiple activities and participants. This entails that your employer has to provide you with all the tools for full integration.

tips for task prioritization when working remotely

This helps you to identify any issues or shortfalls nice and early, increases new hire engagement and motivation. To help keep people focused and engaged, use checklists of onboarding activities, and don’t be afraid to give people the occasional nudge. This also helps the course author improve and iterate on the courses, continuously improving the quality https://remotemode.net/ of the course content. Another great way to encourage collaboration is to host virtual team building activities. On top of content creation, collaborative learning should also happen during the onboarding process. Our pre-boarding modules also include detailed guidance and information on key aspects of company culture, like our communication preferences.

What are the most common mistakes during the onboarding process?

  • Zero entry-level training. If onboarding is taking less than a day, that's a problem.
  • Overloading your new hires.
  • A total lack of pre-boarding.
  • Not addressing generational gaps.
  • An unstructured onboarding process.
  • Unclear goals and expectations.
  • Negative (or not) feedback loop.