Remote Onboarding Best Practices

Onboarding should inspire, align, enable and connect.

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With workspaces experiencing stark shifts to remote work, even before COVID-19 changed the world, the onboarding process for employees has made a virtual move as well. Onboarding virtually has become a necessary protocol, and digital approaches to the onboarding process have advanced to fill this need. But remote onboarding presents its own set of unique challenges, and it can be a daunting task trying to navigate it. What are best practices that show you how to onboard a new employee virtually?

Filo has an approach to remote onboarding that we believe will produce the best results for your business. Onboardings should seek to:

  • Inspire with your brand, mission and culture.
  • Align on what you do, how you do it, who you do it for and why it is needed.
  • Enable new hires to get their hands dirty by doing, practicing, and receiving feedback.
  • Connect with organizational leaders and new peers to establish relationships.

Filo’s virtual onboarding training enables you to conduct the remote onboarding process with efficiency and success. Remote onboarding during COVID saw many companies face new challenges without significant experience. Filo has a proven track record of success in this field. 

Filo’s services ensure that your remote onboarding process is as hassle-free as possible.

A significant portion of employee turnover occurs in the first 45 days of work, so making the right impression with your onboarding can help to ensure your employees are committed and empowered. When considering what the most effective remote onboarding best practices 2021 has to offer are, check out some of Filo’s virtual onboardings your employees will be sure to love.

See how Filo takes events, workshops and meetings to the next level.

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Virtual Onboarding

Virtual onboarding may be a new experience for some businesses, and navigating this world with minimal expertise can be an incredibly stressful task. In a new employee's first significant exposure to their workplace, success is crucial to ensure that your workers are endeared by and trust your brand, mission, and values. Filo is a trustworthy partner to undertake the virtual onboarding process. Check out previous use cases.

As an example of what you can expect with virtual onboarding, let's mention some popular methods and what they entail.

  • Live onboarding covers the meetings and parts of your experience that involve live communication between employees.
  • Asynchronous training experiences are learning and training that occurs simultaneously, such as watching training videos and interacting with other learning materials.
  • Blended onboarding approaches combine the live and asynchronous methods mentioned before.

One area where a lot of businesses can fall short is how to address the live elements of their onboarding, especially when adopting a more blended approach. But Filo’s goals for virtual onboarding best practices include more support for these live functions, as they can play an integral role in making your employees feel comfortable and welcome in their new work environment. The virtual onboarding software offerings from Filo are a powerful ally to help your business navigate the virtual onboarding process confidently and competently.

As remote work dominates more and more of the work environment, making sure that your business can adapt and prepare for these changes is a necessary step; and even if your workforce is still primarily or in some number in-person, digital approaches to onboarding are still becoming more frequently adopted. For a strong partner to help your business efficiently establish a virtual onboarding process, consider Filo for training and onboardings that your employees will remember and appreciate.

Onboarding Remote Employees

As COVID-19 has left an even greater impact on a workforce already increasingly moving towards remote work, the need to accommodate these new employees in their new virtual environments has become greater as well. A traditional physical workspace is one that many businesses are more comfortable with; the process of training new employees and enlightening them to your business culture might be more natural for some in a typical office environment. But for onboarding remote employees, the process may appear to be a bit more involved. Filo offers incredible services that can help make this crucial process painless and intuitive.

With some businesses feeling a sense of wariness around the remote onboarding process, there is a desire to act more passively and avoid what seems like more difficult tasks. These might include resorting to a remote onboarding checklist; completing items required of them, marking in the right boxes, but not obtaining any meaningful connections in their new workplace. This is understandable, for an untested business to put their focus on onboarding remote employees the process can feel very unfamiliar. For some virtual onboarding ideas, Filo’s site offers helpful suggestions that can help guide you through your remote onboarding process and take your experience to the next level.

Your onboarding process should be one of the essential focuses of your business. Providing a strong introduction to your business culture, mission and values are how you endear employees to your workplace and retain dedicated workers who are comfortable in their environment. Build their confidence and provide ample time early on to showcase your business offerings and make your workspace feel more familiar. For more useful tips for onboarding remote employees, Filo has shared key points to focus on that may ensure your remote onboarding process is an effective one.

Remote Onboarding Challenges

While the benefits of virtual onboarding are quite extensive, the remote onboarding process does have its own set of challenges that should be considered if you want to prevent employee turnover and provide a strong introduction to your business.

For a brief overview, we’ll mention three common virtual onboarding challenges here:

1. Being Passive: 

An onboarding presentation that is not engaging and involves employees mostly sitting around and observing or going through the motions and completing checklists is an onboarding presentation that fails to make new employees an active member in their introduction. Making employees more active in their onboarding helps to make them feel comfortable and valued in their new environment.

2. Being Disorganized: 

A new employee entering a new work environment is surely facing some natural weariness and unfamiliarity. Asking too much of them and forcing them to scramble and face more confusion in a space that is already foreign to them is an easy way to make the onboarding experience a negative one. Making sure your process is streamlined and simple is essential to ensuring that your employees can have a smooth transition into their new environment.

3. Being Forgettable: 

While onboarding is the necessary beginning, it is not the end of your employee’s transition into this new workspace. It is good to make sure that materials and guidance provided in onboarding can be accessible and memorable for employees so that they do not feel lost and unprepared as they continue their journey in your business.

These remote onboarding challenges are important to take note of, but they should not deter you from proceeding with your virtual onboarding process. The benefits are more than worth it, and this is not a challenge that you have to undertake on your own. Filo offers helpful advice and guidance that has enabled businesses to accomplish their onboarding goals.

Remote Onboarding Culture

The onboarding process is the step in an employee’s journey that gives them their strongest impression of what they can expect from their workplace. It is important to acknowledge how significant of a time this is, and why providing an impressive virtual onboarding experience should be a key focus in your business operations. More than just a basic run-through of responsibilities and tasks, it is important to establish remote onboarding culture in your process. Defining your business culture, explaining what your mission and values are, and introducing your new employees to how things have been run and what your vision is for moving forward are all helpful pieces in providing for a welcoming environment.

COVID has had more effects on the work environment than just increasing movement to remote work. Increasing rates of turnover and resignation have also been a new reality that businesses have to face. Acknowledging this disillusionment is key to ensuring that your employees have a workplace where they feel welcome and eager to return. A comfortable and familiar environment provides a sense of belonging and reaffirms the thought that your employee is valued and important in your business. Emphasizing and defining your business culture through your remote onboarding process is a crucial time for you to make this move.

The remote onboarding process is not one that any business can afford to be passive on. Resigning this introductory experience to a virtual onboarding checklist can be a worrying start to your employee’s careers and may set a bad example of what they can expect moving forward. Invite existing employees to come and speak on their experiences with the company. Layout clear values and what your mission as a business is. Make your new employees feel like their presence and addition to the team is one that will be essential to moving this business forward and that your goals are ones worth standing behind. Filo is an excellent source for virtual onboarding feedback, and a valuable ally to help provide a memorable, engaging, and informative onboarding process for your new hires.