VIRTUAL HIRING PART 3 - HOW TO ONBOARD NEW STARTERS REMOTELY

In the final section of my write-up of our webinar on virtual hiring, I’m going to talk about how you can approach onboarding new starters remotely. You can find part one here and part two here.

If you’re making an investment in a new hire during these uncertain times, it’s more important than ever that you get onboarding right. First things first, you will need to readjust your own expectations – It’s going to take the new employee longer to add value to your team.

Firstly, let’s cover some housekeeping. Here are some things to prioritise:

• Ensure that your new hire has full access to tech and your network from home.
• Replace any traditional forms with online versions using Echosign or similar software to make this process easier.
• Any mandatory training that is normally carried out when starting a new role, health & safety etc, should be accessible online for new users to complete. If they can’t – Make sure they aren’t inundated with reminders to complete until they are able to.

In terms of opportunities, the new starter can fully immerse themselves on the induction rather than having to also do the job right away. Of course there is a trade-off here as we do expect employees to start adding value straight away, however, allowing staff more time to get up to speed should help make them more engaged throughout their career with you.

More than anything the biggest worries a candidate will have will be around fitting into their new team and organisation, but also, new candidates want to be useful. They want to feel as though they are making a difference and able to contribute. Welcome your new starter to the team with video calls and schedule regular catch-up's, but also ensure that they also engage with other teams and the wider business so they can better understand their contribution. Make sure that they are prepped and provided with all the materials before any calls so that they can prepare questions and add more value. The faster the new starter feels as though they can contribute, the faster they will achieve a sense of belonging.

Make your new starter feel welcome by introducing them on a group conference call – ideally over video so they can begin to put faces to names. However, this can be overwhelming, so give them plenty of one-on-one time with the people they’re going to be working with. There’s also value in having them join the virtual meetings of other teams, so they can get to know what everyone else does. This will make it easier for them to more quickly contribute to you and it will also be beneficial when they finally do meet colleagues in person.

Moving jobs is a stressful experience at the best of times, so the best thing that we can do as employers is really look out for the overall wellbeing of new starters and make sure that they feel supported and secure.

The biggest risk of onboarding during this time will be the transition for when people return to the workplace. We need to make sure that when we do return, new starters feel as though they have relationships in place with their colleagues and don’t have the feeling of being brand-new all over again.

Final thing would be to ensure that as HR and hirers that we acknowledge the additional strain on ourselves. Onboarding is going to take longer and new processes take time and effort to put together, so make sure that you are kind to yourselves and that this is factored in to your planning and communication to leadership and stakeholders.

Reach out to me if you have any questions about onboarding new starters, or any elements of making the recruitment process work for you remotely. You can also contact me and the team at [email protected] for advice on managing your recruitment strategy during this challenging time. To access the full recording of our webinar on virtual hiring, please click here.