{"id":15941,"date":"2020-09-07T11:29:45","date_gmt":"2020-09-07T11:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/?p=15941"},"modified":"2021-02-09T11:02:18","modified_gmt":"2021-02-09T11:02:18","slug":"are-you-onboarding-remote-employees-in-the-right-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/blog\/are-you-onboarding-remote-employees-in-the-right-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you onboarding remote employees in the right way?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is your remote onboarding process<\/a> going to be smooth and enjoyable or a lonely and difficult experience? It might sound extreme, but you do really have a choice! The word itself has two connotations, one good and one bad. If a travel agent told you an island was remote, you\u2019d probably love the sound of it, but if a sceptical estate agent warned you off a property that was too far from civilisation, you probably wouldn\u2019t move in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The numbers back up this idea too! While a <\/span>CoSo Cloud<\/span><\/a> report revealed that 42% of remote staff feel just as connected, <\/span>Buffer\u2019s research<\/span><\/a> revealed that 19% and 17% struggle with loneliness and collaborating and\/or communication, respectively. It all depends on the experience, hence why we\u2019ve put together our advice to make sure your remote onboarding is more holiday than house-hunting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"How<\/p>\n

Get your house in order before their first day<\/b><\/h2>\n

A first impression is even more important in a remote setting because there\u2019s no human interaction to ease any technical issues or delays. You\u2019ve got to make sure they have the right tools and accounts accessible from day one, with a clear timeline and schedule for at least the first week or two. It\u2019s easier to prepare those passwords and plan coffee catch-ups in advance.<\/span><\/p>\n

In general, you should also decide on how long the onboarding experience will last, determine any milestones or goals during that period, and communicate that clearly. You can\u2019t underestimate the effect of lingering anxiety or uncertainty, so it\u2019s best to banish that with a structured plan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t bother with a checklist (in the literal sense)<\/h2>\n

The thing with a checklist is that somebody\u2019s going to need to tick all those boxes. Wouldn\u2019t it be better to use software or a platform that connects employees with the resources they need and measures their progress? That\u2019s how we do things at HowNow!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Creating a custom onboarding or training course for a new joiner enables them to learn what they need at their own pace while making their progress visible to. It\u2019s like a checklist, just without the effort. And it means they\u2019ll have to ask fewer questions, which can a bit daunting for new staff and remote workers. Maybe that time saved could be used to connect more personally?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mix business with pleasure<\/b><\/h2>\n

That brings us nicely to the idea that getting to know the people and company culture is just as important as understanding how to perform their role. Remember, those that struggled with remote onboarding cited loneliness and collaboration as the key issues. Combat this by ensuring personal connections are made during those early days.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can ask staff to leave a welcome message in whichever platform they\u2019ll be using on their first morning, schedule meetings that are solely about getting to know each other or even ask that new team member to send a personal introduction to create some talking points. The importance of these exercises in breaking down communication barriers for work-related issues shouldn\u2019t be underestimated either.<\/span><\/p>\n

Connect them with the right resources<\/b><\/h2>\n

We touched on this already, and you might have wondered what the right resources are? Honestly, it depends on the employee and the role they\u2019ll be performing, and it\u2019s why it\u2019s so important that your onboarding plan is customised for each person. For example, if somebody is joining your customer service team, but they\u2019ll be focused on a particular industry or type of customer, they\u2019d arguably benefit from slightly different materials, guides and resources than the last person that joined.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is about your new joiners and not us, but we can help make this process a little less daunting or complicated. In HowNow, you can combine your best internal resources with top-notch external learning materials and create courses that wow the newest members of your team and old heads alike.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Assess the skills developed and things learned<\/b><\/h2>\n

What\u2019s more important during the onboarding period, the employee\u2019s tangible work output or the skills they\u2019re developing and things they\u2019re learning? Arguably, it\u2019s the latter in the long-term, but remote onboarding adds the challenge of being unable to see their progress for yourself or pick up feedback from their colleagues.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s why assessments are so important! How you do this is entirely up to you, you can use your LMS or an intelligent learning platform<\/a> like HowNow to combine the learning materials and tests in one place, hop on a call or send over a form. The first option sounds best to us…<\/span><\/p>\n

Catch up regularly and collect feedback<\/b><\/h2>\n

Ask for feedback and do it regularly, especially when your remote workers are fresh to the company. Firstly, you can catch any of their concerns or struggles and adjust before they become bigger issues, and you\u2019ll capture outside insights before they enter your company\u2019s bubble. Additionally, by collecting their thoughts at the end of the onboarding process, you can use that to refine your approach for the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

We could tell you to ask some fairly mundane questions, like what could we have done to improve the experience? or how do you feel it went? but surely there are more specific questions that could give you better insights! Plus, it would be a shame for your amazing onboarding experience to end on such an uninspiring note.<\/span><\/p>\n

The quality of answers is often dictated by the quality of your questions. Why not ask them what advice they\u2019d give to the next remote team member? Or the resource and meeting they found to be most useful in settling in? Which platform was most difficult to get to grips with? You get the picture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Nobody said remote onboarding was easy, but perhaps we can help make it a lot easier? Drop us a message today<\/a> and we’ll get in touch to discuss how.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is your remote onboarding process going to be smooth and enjoyable or a lonely and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":15944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3116],"tags":[1596,1599],"yst_prominent_words":[345,1691,1692,9,1690,16,1685,1686,162,964,224,1289,1684,1687,535,153,1689,280,6,1688],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15941"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15941"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18980,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15941\/revisions\/18980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15941"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.liquid-themes.com\/hownow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=15941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}