For many organizations throughout different industries, the factor of ‘where’ work gets done is becoming less of a concern for employers. Although the age of remote work and the rise of ‘WFH’ have become commonplace, the matter of onboarding new recruits has continued to act as a pain point for employers and employees alike.
Statistically speaking, the work-from-home (WFH) age has been beneficial for businesses. As much as 77% of remote employees show increased productivity, while 30% have been capable of completing more work in shorter periods of time.
Regardless of where they’re working from, however, it’s essential that companies seek to provide employees with equal access to professional development opportunities and in-house resources.
The onboarding process may be the biggest challenge for startups embracing the world of remote work. For employees who are familiar with pre-existing in-house processes, the shift to online means collaborating with individuals that they already know on a personal level, but this luxury doesn’t exist for new remote workers.
With video conferencing and remote collaboration still failing to bridge the gaps left by WFH, it’s essential that HR departments seek to make new hires as comfortable as possible throughout the onboarding process. With this in mind, let’s explore seven key approaches to welcome remote workers into a startup:
Move Quick in Accommodating Your Hire
There’s no time like the present when it comes to getting your onboarding process underway. Many remote companies now look to add new employees to team Slack groups and send information surrounding company culture and their new projects weeks in advance of their start date.
For candidates who haven’t met their employers in the flesh, this proactive approach to onboarding can be a great way to help shift their mindset into becoming more ready to embrace their new company and to get stuck in. It can also help to remove some of the friction they may face in getting set up on day one.
By taking the measure of allocating and setting new employees up with a mentor prior to their first day, companies can also help to remove some of the trepidation a new hire may be feeling ahead of starting in their new role.
A Little Swag Goes a Long Way
One of the issues that employees can face more often when working in an entirely remote face revolves around imposter syndrome. In a company that they’ve never physically set foot in, and with employers they’ve never met, it can feel like their new business is a separate entity entirely.
To combat this, it can be worth sending over a welcome package that features an introduction to the company and a little taste of its culture.
“Consider sending a welcome package, hosting a virtual lunch during their first day and asking them what would make them optimally successful in their new role,” suggests Megan McCann, CEO and founder of McCann Partners. “Or, ask teammates to record welcome messages or videos and send them to the new employee’s inbox on day one.”
Ensure that Clear Expectations Have Been Set
For startups, it can be difficult to set expectations in a business that’s still finding its feet, or set to undergo a period of growth that’s determined by market variables that are tricky to pin down. However, setting new recruits up with a clear set of responsibilities and outcomes can be crucial in aiding their priorities and expected outcomes.
It can also be an essential way of protecting against burnout and dissatisfaction in a role. For instance, if your employee feels as though they should work harder to impress, it can lead to unsustainable standards that will negatively impact their performance later down the line.
Furthermore, this approach can be a great standardized measure to manage different types of remote employees. If you’re seeking to onboard new workers from freelance hiring websites, having these clear expectations and goals in mind are essential to establish a clear understanding between employer and freelancer.
Set Up Regular Check-Ins
When it comes to onboarding new recruits to startups, it’s common to expect mistakes and some teething problems. For some employees, these issues can manifest themselves into a feeling of inadequacy. This means that setting up more check-ins to help remote workers to feel like a strong part of their new teams can be key in allaying their nerves.
By setting up regular meetings with management and fellow team members, it’s also a great opportunity to provide positive and constructive feedback on an employee’s work so far.
Better still, why not set up an online portal within your company site where new employees can ask questions, book check in’s and view their onboarding documents at ease. Whether you use a website template or design your own portal, a space for employees to connect with HR digitally is essential.
These check-ins don’t have to be formal, and can be centered around more widespread team building activities such as quizzes and informal chats about hobbies, TV and books.
Create Onboarding Milestones
We’ve already discussed setting clear expectations, but creating milestones for remote employees to achieve can be an excellent way of measuring their progress, competencies, and achievements.
These milestones can follow employees throughout their time working at your startup, and can be accompanied by personalized timeframes that can act as a secondary form of structure around their performance.
In terms of milestones, they can refer to completing a certain task a certain number of times, or any other measurable metric. The timeframes imposed can start loosely and become more refined as they grow into the company. Again, this approach helps to manage productivity, but can also help to prevent burnout among workers eager to impress early on.
Arrange an In-Person Meeting Where Possible
It might be that your new recruit is based relatively close to your office. If this is the case, it may be worth inviting them to spend their first week in the office as a means of getting to know their new teams and managers.
If this isn’t possible, it’s still worth inviting your new remote workers on-site should an opportunity arise. It could even be worth having their new manager meet them in a mutual location to help them to settle into the company and build a stronger in-person bond with them.
Furthermore, if you have distributed teams and all employees work from home in some capacity, it’s key to set up quarterly or annual events or retreats that can help teams to meet beyond the confines of video conferencing platforms.
Make Sure All Onboarding Documents are Ready to Go
There’s nothing worse than having a new employee stuck at home waiting for their training materials or key documents because nobody in HR created an onboarding plan for them.
Although the life of startups can be demanding, it’s imperative that some form of plan of action is established for employees to hit the ground running on their first day.
While you don’t have to forensically plan out the first three months of an employee’s life at their new company, having a plan that documents what the new hire can expect and the problems they may need to overcome is important in aiding the lives of remote workers.
The approach that you decide to take is entirely up to you, but mapping out what the first weeks and months will have in store for new employees is an excellent way of ensuring that they have access to all the right business materials and documents at the right time.
While the onboarding process of startups can be difficult to implement due to factors like smaller teams and less free time to dedicate to bringing new hires up to speed, the boosts to employee productivity make it a key consideration for employers.
By simply dedicating more time to introducing remote employees to their teams, creating helpful documents, and maximizing the potential for in-person meetings, you can reap the rewards of having workers who are ready to go from day one.
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