There is no denying the permanence of remote work. According to recent studies, 35% of workers only work from home on all five days.
It can take a lot of work to find the appropriate candidate who fits your company’s culture and the open position. However, maintaining staff engagement and retention within your company is typically the actual job. Meeting a lot of new people, learning new procedures, configuring technology, and completing paperwork can make an employee’s first day overwhelming. Establishing an efficient remote onboarding procedure for new personnel is the organization’s duty in order to guarantee that they get off to a good start.
This blog covers all you need to know about the remote onboarding process. Let’s get started!
What is Remote Onboarding?
The process of acquainting new hires with the company, its personnel, and its culture is known as remote onboarding. As the name implies, it is entirely remote, which sets it apart from conventional employee onboarding.
Traditional onboarding techniques are no longer adequate due to the rise in remote employment after the pandemic started in 2020. According to a McKinsey report from the spring of 2022, 35% of workers might work from home full-time.
In Europe, the figures differ by nation. According to Statista, 30% of workers did so on a regular basis in 2022. However, the Netherlands is well ahead of other nations, with 65% of its citizens working remotely at least occasionally, compared to little over 15% in the UK, for example.
This increase in remote working, particularly full-time, calls for a fresh strategy when it comes to onboarding new hires.
Remote Onboarding Best Practices
1. Have a policy for working remotely
Establishing a remote work policy is crucial if you plan to frequently onboard remote workers. This should specify your expectations for employees’ behavior when working remotely as well as your expectations for their cooperation and communication. This remote work policy should have a clear description of your HR policies.
A well-defined policy will facilitate the onboarding process for remote workers and guarantee that everyone is in agreement from the beginning.
Asking candidates about their preferences for remote work in their application is the first step in the recruiting process. Inquire about their ideal technical skills, communication style, and working style. You might want to move on if a candidate replies that they don’t like working remotely because it’s lonely.
2. Provide a virtual welcome package and equipment in advance
There aren’t many things that will aggravate you and your new hire more than having them spend the first few days of work troubleshooting technical issues. Therefore, order all of the gear they’ll need in advance and have it delivered to their house. IT configuration and equipment delivery are essential phases in the remote onboarding process for new hires.
Depending on the position’s requirements, take into account the following:
- Laptop or desktop computer
- Monitor
- Keyboard and mouse
- Headset or earphones
- Webcam
- Printer/scanner
- External hard drive or USB drives
- Phone or VOIP equipment
- Charging accessories and power strips
Make sure the software is pre-installed on the employee’s device if it isn’t cloud-based. Provide usernames, passwords, and any additional security information required so that remote hires may quickly get started.
Let’s say you are developing a variety of online marketing solutions. If so, it could be useful to compile a list of suggested tools for your new hire. Or, if you’re using a project management platform, make sure their accounts are already created so they can access it right away.
Furthermore, welcoming remote workers might help them integrate with your company and feel like a member of the team.
3. Have your virtual onboarding materials ready
As part of your remote onboarding program, compile all of your onboarding materials and create digital versions. Additionally, you might wish to send them a hard copy as part of their welcome gift. You should include the following things in your remote onboarding calendar and checklist:
For every worker:
- Values, mission, and vision
- Charts of organizations
- Directories of employees
- Protocols for communication (when and how to use chat, video calls, and email)
- Instructions for frequently used tools
- Standards for security
- Templates for common documents, such as sales follow-up emails, email invitations, and presentations
For marketing:
- Lead qualifying requirements (make use of lead verification tools)
- Guide to content style
- SEO best practices for blogs
For sales:
- Standards for CRM contact information
- How to place a business card order
- Procedures for travel and expenses
For software developers:
- How a development environment is set-up
- Codebase
- Procedures for development
- Standards for architecture
By creating videos of all the content that employees must learn in modules, you may assist them in monitoring their progress. Alternatively, you can arrange a video call so that customers can ask questions about anything they don’t understand and management can quickly respond.
4. Make use of the tools and technologies already in place
To make the transition smooth, hold team meetings online or through video calls.
When onboarding remote employees, employers can really benefit from using the right tools.
- Use Microsoft Teams to share documents and collaborate.
- Zoom is great for virtual meetings.
- Slack helps teams stay in touch.
- Asana is useful for managing projects.
- And HR Cloud makes HR tasks easier.
For instance, you can introduce your new team member, explain their duties, and provide support using Microsoft Teams. Employees can also communicate online with a company representative via certain apps, like Donut. Additionally, helpful information on corporate resources like knowledge bases, training software portals, and cheat sheets can be sent to newly hired staff members.
Also Read: 10 Best Employee Engagement Software Solutions to Boost Workforce Productivity in 2025
5. Inform new hires of the expectations
For most people, working from home might be something new. Throughout the remote onboarding process, make sure everyone is aware of their responsibilities. What data are they in need of? With whom are they going to meet? What resources are necessary for them to succeed? Having everyone on the same page from the beginning will help you avoid confusion and frustration later.
Setting expectations for communication is also a good idea at this point. Will you utilize video conferencing, Slack, email, or some combination of these? Inform your new hire of your preferred method of communication and the best approach to get in touch with you.
6. Create a space specifically for onboarding
Provide a specific area for their distant orientation if at all possible. They now have a destination where they can locate all the information they require in one location. It might be as basic as an intranet website with links to all the pertinent documents or a folder on the shared drive of your business.
Additionally, having a designated area makes it simple for you to monitor the progress of your new hire. It is easy to observe what they have read and what has not yet been covered.
It could be wise to think about using technologies to assist you as your firm expands. Many of the repetitive processes that accumulate as you get proficient with remote onboarding can be automated with the help of HR Cloud’s employee onboarding software.
7. Utilize checklists for self-onboarding
Self-guided checklists for remote onboarding are a useful tool for expediting the process and guaranteeing that remote workers finish all required tasks.
These checklists ought to cover things like creating business email accounts, finishing the appropriate documentation, going over the company’s policies and procedures, and gaining access to the required software and equipment.
It may also help new hires plan their first team meetings, arrange up virtual meet-and-greets with important team members, and walk them through introductory training sessions.
8. Present them to the other members of the team
Feeling like a member of the team is one of the difficulties of working remotely. Therefore, spend some time introducing your team, even if it’s only over a brief video chat or email. To help them get to know their coworkers in a more relaxed environment, schedule frequent virtual coffee conversations or happy hours.
To make it easier for them to recall who is who, you may also provide them with the organization chart for the business.
9. Take them on a virtual tour
Give your new hire a virtual tour of your company’s real office so they can see how the space looks and where their team members work. As part of their corporate orientation, you can still show them around your website, intranet, or social media accounts if you don’t have an office.
Show them around and introduce them to everyone they will be working with, even if it is only digitally, to help them feel like they are a part of the team.
10. Assign a buddy
Use video calls or online team meetings to make the transition smooth. If you’re hiring remote employees, tech tools can really help. You can use Zoom for virtual meetings and Slack to stay in touch. For managing tasks, try Asana. HR Cloud is great for HR work. And Microsoft Teams helps with teamwork and sharing documents.
A workplace mentor can provide initial guidance and help eliminate the anxiety many new remote employees experience. Moreover, use video coffee chats and other activities to break the ice.
The usefulness of having an ‘onboarding buddy’ is highlighted in this article from the Harvard Business Review. After the first week, the authors, who established a buddy program at Microsoft, discovered that new hires with pals were 23% happier with their onboarding than those who did not. Additionally, more frequent meetings with their friend were linked to increased productivity.
11.Offer resources and training
Give your new hire all the training sessions and tools they require to succeed in their position as part of the onboarding process.
Along with interactive components like Q&A sessions, hands-on activities, and chances to job shadow team members and important department heads, an onboarding training session should provide a comprehensive introduction to the corporate culture, important policies, and job-specific abilities.
By giving them everything they need to get started right away and ensuring that you both agree after their onboarding program is finished, you can position them for success.
To Sum Up
Having a strong remote onboarding procedure in place is becoming more and more crucial as the number of people working remotely keeps growing. Because of this, HR professionals need to reconsider how they handle onboarding. The procedures covered in this article are a great place to start when it comes to designing a successful remote onboarding process.
