How to improve the remote employee onboarding process
If you’re making good progress with attracting talent to your organisation despite the current climate, congratulations. Though beware of ‘counting your chickens’ until they are fully onboard and in post…
Every HR and recruitment manager knows that whilst it’s been an uncertain time, the job market is gradually beginning to pick up and will once again be highly competitive for employers looking to secure top talent. But having put in so much effort to recruit successfully, the last thing you want is for your new starter to be poached at the eleventh hour when their head is turned by another offer.
Getting new employees ‘onboard’ starts the minute they accept your offer. But from that point, until they are up and running on day one, they’re still in the danger zone, which is why it’s so important to make sure that they feel part of your team from the earliest opportunity.
That said, there’s also now the added complexity for many organisations having to facilitate the employee onboarding process remotely.
We share some simple tips on how to get onboarding right regardless of your current working practices, and how HR onboarding technology can support you.
The most effective onboarding practices
- Engage with new starters
Between the offer letter to their first day, make new hires feel welcome. This could include semi-regular touchpoints with their line manager and teammates so that they immediately begin to feel involved and part of the family. Emails, instant messaging and videos calls are all great ways to keep communication levels high before they start in their new role.
- Be organised
If you cannot organise someone’s onboarding, how can they expect you to keep track of things like their career progression, wellbeing and work-life balance in the future? Think ahead, make a standard plan for new employees and set timings for key communication throughout their onboarding to make sure you don’t miss anything, and they get regular contact.
- Make their induction hassle-free
The last thing new starters want to do is spend days filling out forms, supplying documents and watching H&S videos before they can get stuck into the work they love. With forward planning, you can save significant time in that first week on admin. Create a checklist of actions for employees to complete before their first day and ensure they have access to all the forms, documentation and training they need well in advance.
- Instil culture
Workplace culture is just as important inside the office as it is for those operating remotely and when employees feel connected to this, they’re more likely to feel as though they are making an impact. Ensure new hires are aware of the workflow, organisational values, business goals and performance expectations. You may consider a buddy system to help open up the lines of communication, where they have a dedicated go-to person to answer any questions.
- Adjust where necessary
Just because you have an employee onboarding process in place doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. By regularly collecting feedback from new hires, you can adjust your programme to ensure every employee kicks off their new role with a great start. Their first encounters with your organisation must be positive and memorable, particularly since research by Glassdoor found that those with a strong onboarding process improved new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%.
Why automate your onboarding process?
With the right onboarding solution, you can take advantage of digital onboarding functionality specifically designed to cement that emerging relationship between your organisation and your new starter.
A more formalised approach also makes it easy to get some of the practical HR new starter tasks we mentioned earlier completed so they can hit the ground running on day one. This will likely include:
- Completing role or company-specific documents
- Providing their personal data (and consent for it to be processed)
- Reviewing company policies and the employee handbook
- Getting familiar with the company culture and values
- Undergoing online health and safety or GDPR training modules
The other hidden benefit of a formalised onboarding process through software is that it helps keep your new starter engaged and focused on your organisation (rather than being distracted by other potential employers). They’ll begin to feel part of the team much sooner, which can be particularly useful if there are a few weeks of working notice to get through before their official start date.
And consider this. If a more personalised and interactive onboarding approach saves just one potential star employee from jumping ship before they’ve even arrived, then surely it will have been well worth the effort?
Discover more reasons to focus on your new hires’ onboarding experience in our new on-demand webinar.
You can also book a demo with our team to discuss your requirements and learn more about how our HR software can give your new starters an engaging and highly effective onboarding experience.
