According to recent studies, 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for three years if they experience great onboarding.
Every student who was educated in a system of formal learning typically passed through the early childhood education, primary education, secondary education and eventually the tertiary education.
This is a standard educational onboarding system for students to brush them up from the known to the unknown.
The same process applies to new employees.
Onboarding is a process of orienting new employees and helping them fit in with your organisation and with the tool they need to carry out their jobs. Share on XNew hire orientation is necessary because it sets the standard and pace for the rest of their time at your organisation. Onboarding also helps you introduce your company’s culture to new employees.
However, times have changed, with the Covid19 pandemic it’s becoming increasingly difficult to conduct one-on-one onboarding of new hires. This has resulted in the use of a more accommodating virtual onboarding process for remote workers.
What is Virtual Onboarding?
Virtual onboarding is an offshoot of the traditional in-person onboarding, with the only difference being that these processes are carried out virtually.
The virtual onboarding process includes:
- Scheduled training session for new hires
- Introduction of new employees to co-workers and managers
- One-on-one meeting with assigned ambassador or buddy program
Onboarding remote workers helps to bring them to speed with regards to their jobs. Studies show that new employees who went through a structured onboarding program were 58% more likely to be with the organisation for more than 3years.
Companies can use a combination of the following for new hire orientation:
- Video conferencing
- Interactive exercises
- Text resources
- Videos
- Webinars
Virtual Onboarding Tips and Best Practices
The following tips can help you create a seamless virtual onboarding process for new employees, boosting their speed and confidence.
With these, you can create a virtual onboarding checklist tailored specifically for your organisation. Virtual onboarding processes aren’t a one-size-fits-all, ensure you tweak according to your company’s culture and resources.
1. Start virtual onboarding early:
Up to 20% of employee turnover happens in the first 45 days.
Onboarding should commence as soon as the candidate accepts your job offer. This will help ease your new hires into their job.
The pre-boarding process is a necessary first step, and it can also set the tone for what’s to come.
- Start with a welcome email showing how excited you are to have them
- Outline the softwares they’ll need during the onboarding process
- Include necessary details such as training videos and company brochures
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2. Equip new hires with technology:
For remote workers, their office environment is their phones, laptops and any other devices they need in order to get their work done.
Liaise with your IT personnel as well as logistics company on the timely delivery of tech devices new hires need to get started.
Ensure the needed softwares and programs come preinstalled or at least draft procedures for easy installations.
Your IT personnel should be on standby to receive feedback from new employees
3. Spread out onboarding process:
We know that you want to get your employees up and running and off to a good time. However, ensure you don’t choke new hires with training.
By spreading out training and the rate of information in-take, you’ll give your new hires a chance to absorb the information and give necessary feedback.
Employees whose companies have longer onboarding programs gain full proficiency 34% faster than those in the shorter programs.
4. Introduce new hires to company culture:
Can remote employees feel the impact of your company culture virtually?
For new hires, this may be a bit difficult. You have to take your time to expose new employees to your company’s value and organisational culture.
The fastest way to introduce remote employees to your company’s culture is by introducing them to colleagues and direct managers.
In a Linkedin survey, 72% of respondents said that one-on-one time with direct managers is the most important aspect of onboarding.
They can pick up cues and work vibes from co-workers and form social bonds that can help them settle in quickly. Ensure that new employees are able to understand your company’s culture and feel at home with it.
According to a study by the Society of Human Resource Management, one in five employees said they would leave a workplace because of poor culture.
5. Assign buddy programs to new hires:
Assigning new hires a mentor during their onboarding process has been known to speed up onboarding time and provide a fully immersive experience in the form of guidance to new employees.
A buddy program can help remote workers to:
- Learn more about company culture from a personal perspective
- Provide necessary assistance with paperwork and documents.
- Meet expected deadlines
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6. Feedback:
At the tail-end of onboarding processes is the feedback. You need to encourage your new hires to raise any challenges they’re facing during the onboarding process.
Addressing these challenges will enable you to manage their virtual onboarding process successfully. For starters, you should:
- Conduct short surveys to gauge onboarding process
- Regular check-ins to determine progress
- Provide needed requirements and ask for their needs
- Introduce one-on-one meetings with key stakeholders
- Offer constructive feedback and highlight areas for improvement
Onboarding should be a regular process for new employees for the first couple of months. It typically takes eight months for a newly hired employee to reach full productivity.
Conduct regular feedback to analyse employee progress and recommend areas for feedback. Be supportive as well as understanding.