Onboarding is as important as the hiring process itself, if not more. They say first impressions matter the most so your onboarding experience must be informative, smooth, streamlined and a wonderful experience for new joinees.
Due to Covid – 19, and with lockdowns happening frequently, many organizations are opting for virtual onboarding. Virtual onboarding is similar to traditional in-person onboarding. It gives your new joinees an overview of your company, mission, values, business goals, etc.—the only difference is that these sessions are held virtually.
This year, businesses across the globe went from just talking to implementing remote working plans. As a result of the pandemic, millions of people – including many who had never worked from home – have been suddenly forced to work their homes. The organisations who already practiced and offered remote working and virtual meetings have managed to continue their business operations without any challenges. Hence, the current COVID 19 situation is a perfect example when most companies started to utilise different tool to Onboard Virtually.
How Does Virtual Onboarding Differ from Regular Onboarding?
Virtual onboarding, also known as remote onboarding, is a process for introducing new hires into an organization without bringing them into the workplace for conventional onboarding meetings and training. Instead, these activities take place via video conferencing, webinars, online interactive exercises, and other technologies.
Whether you are dealing with a pandemic, a natural disaster, or some other emergency, virtual onboarding can make onboarding during a crisis smoother and more efficient for both employers and new hires. And, as you will see, it does not have to feel cold or impersonal.
Benefits and Impact
- Employee Engagement for Geographically Dispersed Workforce
- Enhanced Experience for Multigenerational Workplace
- Promotes Cost Saving
- Helps to reduce TAT for hiring
- Facilitates Social Interaction
Elements Of Successful Onboarding Program
- Selection
- Preboarding
- Onboarding
- Integration
- Execution
Onboarding new employees when working remotely.
- How can you do this?
- With no physical office to welcome and connect new employees, how should the onboarding process adjust to match the times?
- What Are the Goals and Benefits of Virtual Onboarding?
- What Should You Include in a Remote Employee Onboarding Checklist?
Pre-Boarding
- Signing offer letter till first day of Job
- Setting up The Email ID
- Introduce Team & Team/Reporting Manager.
- Give a clear agenda to the Newbie, on what they can expect for their first few days
- What time will their onboarding sessions will begin and end?
Hardware Setup
- Who is responsible for shipping their hardware?
- Before sharing the Laptops, make sure that you have done all the configurations in the system.
- Setting up & Managing systems over video conferences can be a painful experience for the new employee. The more you can do in advance, the better!
- How can passwords and login credentials be shared safely?
Onboarding Process – HR
Preboarding
- Create Employee Profile
- Ensure Offer letter has been accepted
- Complete background check
- Send across any new hire onboarding videos and literature
- Coordinate with admin to designate a workstation, Print Business card, name tag, passkey etc.
- Coordinate with IT to designate machine, obtain passwords, create email/messaging accounts work cell phone if needed.
Onboarding – Day 1
- Complete all relevant paper works and policy documentation
- Inform about benefits and HR processes.
- Inform about business culture policies and practices
- Inform about technology usage polices in the organisation
- Introduce to manager and other Team members
Onboarding – Week 1
- Follow up on any questions that the employee may have
- Follow up on their first week in the office and get to know how the experience was.
- Follow up with reporting manager on new joinees first week in the office
- Introduce to senior leadership along with reporting manager
Onboarding Process – Team Manager
Preboarding
- Prepare new employee’s schedule
- Assign a new Hire buddy and a mentor
- Schedule training sessions for the onboarding period
Onboarding – Day 1
- Take Over from HR after orientation
- Introduce to team members, new hire buddy and mentor
- Inform about any probation period
- Ensure They have received all IT and admin-related items such as Laptop, workstation, nametag, passkey etc.
Onboarding – Week 1
- Follow up on any questions the employee may have
- Follow up on their experience of the first week
- Follow up with the new hire buddy and mentor about new hire’s First week
- Inform about new hires project
- Discuss Immediate and future training requirements
- Inform about the Company’s Core offering
- Inform about the Company’s target customers
- Inform about the Company’s Overall Culture
Onboarding – First 3 Months
- Assess Performance and progress
- Address any queries of the employee
- Complete immediate trainings and prepare for future training needs
- Increase Responsibility and projects based on performance
- Follow up on their experience of the first three months,
- Define short term and long-term goals
Onboarding – First Year
- Review Performance
- Review their training needs and prepare a training schedule, if needed.
- Revisit short term and long-term goals and discuss their career path in the organization.
Onboarding is very crucial and matters a lot for your new joiness! It’s all about the combination of Efforts and dedication towards a holistic approach to hiring that would make the employer experience and candidate experience worthwhile.
If these strategies are applied, then this valuable information can help improve a hiring process and optimize future candidate experiences. There are so many ways for companies to differentiate themselves as an employer of choice, however the top challenge will always be staying ahead of competition and ensuring that jobseekers find your organization better than others.
This Blog is part of a series which aims to answer commonly faced challenges in recruitment.
Please click on the links to know more about essential tips on hiring sucessfully:
- Employer Branding: The How & Why?
- Competitive CTC: An effective recruitment strategy to gain competitive advantage
- How to Interview Candidates Effectively
- Interview Feedback – why is it so important?
- How to optimise the Task Round during Interviews
- Reducing TAT & Increasing Hiring Efficiency
- POFU (Post offer Follow Up) Initiatives to help improve joining conversions
- Offer Strategies – How to avoid losing candidates to counteroffers
- Virtual Onboarding the new norm!