What was once an interesting concept that some brands were experimenting with has now become the new normal. Work from home is no more a trend, it has become a necessity in a world that requires us to maintain physical distance from one another.
Many would agree that it isn’t really a step down from working from an office. In fact, many organisations have realised the sheer benefits of working from home and have decided to let the majority of their employees work from home permanently. The most well known examples are Twitter and Shopify.
If your organisation is new to the work from home approach, there are several things that you must figure out to ensure efficiency from your business machine.
Among these, onboarding work from home employees is a known concern. If you are also confused about how you can go about onboarding your new work from home employees, read on:
Set The Right Expectations
In order to ensure your remote employees can remain productive from day one, it is important to set the right expectations. They should not need to wait for you (or their manager) to come online and assign them tasks.
To do this, create a weekly task calendar and share it with them. This way, they will always have something to do. Any ad hoc work that comes along can be fitted within the calendar.
Similarly, it is also a good idea to hold regular calls/virtual meetings to discuss upcoming tasks and projects.
Rethink Onboarding Training
Training is one of the most pressing tasks associated with the onboarding process. When it comes to onboarding remote employees, this task becomes even more important. Training for remote employees goes one step further than training for in-office employees.
Not only would they require role specific training, but will also require a few training sessions aimed at understanding the technological tools your organisation uses to stay connected with its employees.
To deliver this training efficiently, it is important that your organisation invests in the right training software, since physical instructor led sessions are not an option anymore.
Similarly, it is also important to develop training material that is designed to train a remote employee. Moreover, you must build a process that answers the queries a new employee may have during the onboarding training process.
Setup Group And One-On-One Meetings With Team Members
Just because an employee is working remotely doesn’t mean it is not important for them to get to know their team members. An acquaintance session can help your employees better adapt to the company culture and more importantly, find friendly faces in a new and alien workplace.
During their initial days, you must ensure that the new employees have virtual meetings/calls scheduled with their team members, their managers, and people from other teams that they will be expected to collaborate with.
Rethink HR Documentation
Traditionally, new employees would be asked to sign a bunch of contracts and other legal documents before they can start their journey with your company. However, in a remote working scenario, sending a new employee the documents, expecting them to print them, sign them, scan them, and send them back can turn out to be a time consuming process.
For this reason, it is advisable to adapt to digital signature tools like Docusign that can help you get the whole process completed in a completely virtual environment.
Conclusion
Onboarding remote employees does not have to be a complex process. All you need to do is come up with a plan and have the right tools in place.
What are the challenges you have faced with onboarding remote employees? Share them with us in the comment section below.
