Their approach includes immediate check-ins on day one, assignment of Slack buddies for informal support, and encouragement of new hires to introduce themselves in public channels. This shift isn’t just about replacing physical elements with digital ones, it’s about reimagining the entire onboarding experience to maximize flexibility, accessibility, and scalability. A strong virtual onboarding process boosts retention and productivity, mirroring (and often exceeding) the outcomes of traditional, on-site programs. In addition to onboarding software to automate and structure your onboarding process, onboarding checklists can help you ensure every new hire gets a fully optimized onboarding.
With Staffbase’s intranet, employee app, internal newsletters, and content hubs, HR teams can create a seamless onboarding experience that keeps new hires informed, engaged, and connected from the jump. Whether it’s delivering essential training, reinforcing company culture, or providing real-time updates, Staffbase ensures that new employees have everything they need in one place. 🔹 Shift in employee expectations – New hires feel remote onboarding best practices frustrated with outdated onboarding practices. For remote and hybrid teams, this approach isn’t just convenient — it’s necessary. New hires can complete paperwork, meet their team, and access job-specific training from anywhere. For companies onboarding remote employees across the U.S., compliance workflows are critical.
- While HR can provide the onboarding framework and take care of the administrative, legal, and compliance aspects of employee onboarding, other things mostly depend on the hiring manager.
- It can be customized to unique roles as well as personal work styles and preferences.
- Publish a comprehensive remote work policy that clearly defines working hours, communication channels, security requirements, and performance expectations.
- In this process, learners receive instruction face to face but from the comfort of their homes.
The key to long-term remote onboarding success
Once day one wraps up, the emphasis shifts to organizing training sessions covering various dimensions crucial for enhancing employee competencies. Take the opportunity to make the new hires better known of the company culture, such as casual Fridays and monthly potlucks. When you take the time to do your pre-boarding right, it sets you up for a super smooth day one. Amongst employee onboarding best practices, this is a foundational one. If you would like further resources on virtual work and onboarding, reference remote management best practices and thought leadership from Harvard Business School faculty.
- Impact Groups are employee-led groups dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusion within a company.
- Not only has this number skyrocketed in the past 5 years, but it’s predicted to continue to rise in the following years as more employees embrace and expect flexible working environments.
- In addition to onboarding software to automate and structure your onboarding process, onboarding checklists can help you ensure every new hire gets a fully optimized onboarding.
- Ultimately, investing in a well-structured onboarding strategy leads to better integration, reduced turnover, and a more engaged, high-performing workforce.
- Studies indicate that employees with positive onboarding feel more prepared and supported.
Onboarding best practices: boost your new hire experience
The goal of using remote tools is to ensure seamless communication and collaboration. They need to keep your employees connected, no matter their geographical locations. When onboarding new hires, you can’t afford missed opportunities, miscommunication, and stalled progress due to issues with work tools. Remote onboarding best practices can be a challenge to navigate when hiring new employees you never meet in-person. Employee onboarding is just as important as the hiring process and even more so when onboarding virtually. In fact, companies with a strong onboarding process is shown to increase employee productivity by over 70 percent and improves new hire retention by 82 percent according to a report by Glassdoor.
This includes learning about values, mission, products and services – as well as undergoing compliance training, gaining access to key systems, and accepting and signing key documentation. It’s also an opportunity to meet members of their new team and introduce themselves to the wider business. It’s the same process for new starters who’ll work remotely and not in the office – it just needs to be virtual. Starting a new role is a critical time for recruits – especially if they work in a remote or hybrid way. Discover how your remote onboarding process can support new starters, and which best practices to follow to ensure a positive experience and higher retention rate “The onboarding process should be built around the desired experience we want to create for employees.
First Week: Focus on Foundation and
Stay in touch with your remote employees even before onboarding, keep them engaged, build trust, and use the best onboarding tools to streamline the process. Onboarding software such as a Learning Management System (LMS) helps to onboard remote employees easily, quickly, and more impactfully. It accelerates the onboarding process by eliminating the need for hiring expensive trainers, physical classrooms, and printed materials. For remote onboarding, the best way is to complete all paper works virtually.
Employee Experience vs. Employee Engagement: 4 Differences To Know
From clear communication to robust training and fostering a sense of belonging, these strategies empower both employers and remote hires to thrive in the digital workplace. It indicates the company’s commitment to upholding a positive and supportive work environment as well as to the success and wellbeing of its workers. Second, it allows new employees an opportunity to voice any concerns, request clarification, or pose general inquiries. Allowing remote workers an opportunity to improve in their jobs and enhance their abilities is an important part of professional growth. They will continue to learn and advance professionally if given access to online training, mentorship programs, and skill-building tools, just as they would in a workplace environment.
Remote Onboarding Best Practices to Skyrocket Productivity and Retention
Gallup research reveals that employees who work exclusively remote or hybrid tend to have higher levels of engagement (37% engaged in both groups) than those who work solely on-site (29% engaged). Simple modifications can help you have better continuity between your in-office culture and remote work culture. Make sure you involve the rest of the company in your intern’s success too.
If it’s outdated, inconsistent, or scattered, it can quickly create bottlenecks. This step involves more of the logistical prep that needs to be done, such as sending equipment, setting up accounts, and sharing the onboarding roadmap. It’s also the best time to assign an onboarding buddy and build early rapport.
How is onboarding related to employee retention?
Many companies underestimate the financial impact of ineffective onboarding. Studies show that a poor onboarding experience increases turnover rates, leading to higher hiring and onboarding costs per employee. As organizations look to improve their processes, they must align with bold onboarding trends in 2025, which focus on structured, engaging, and retention-driven onboarding programs to reduce employee churn.
Negative feedback about your remote onboarding process is inevitable, but look at it as an opportunity. Such feedback can reveal problems and allow your company to address them immediately and for future hires. Some employers also list specific, time-based goals that they expect the new employee to complete as part of the onboarding process.
If you want to revise your onboarding documents or welcome package, editing a PDF or email is easy. At Deel, candidates meet several team members before their start date, including hiring staff, direct managers, and leadership. Then, during their first few days at Deel, they meet more People team members, receive training from their team members, and meet other new hires in their onboarding cohort.
Lacking resources to point your new team member towards might indicate that your documentation processes require review. While there’s general information that every new hire should know about your business, onboarding should eventually diverge depending on what team your new employee is joining. This portion of onboarding is one of the most important and will likely extend into weeks or months into a new hire’s tenure.