How to Onboard Staff Remotely - A Client Perspective | The Candidate

The pandemic has meant that a lot of us are now working from home, and even starting new jobs from our kitchen tables via Zoom – but what impact has this had for businesses when bringing a new member onboard remotely?

The last year has presented many challenges when it comes to working remotely, but the idea of ‘remote onboarding’ is something that remains largely undiscussed! We spoke to Kerry Carrick, Group Account Director at Space and Time, about how the process has changed for the agency, and what they’re doing to make it easier for themselves and their new starters.

What is your remote onboarding process- had you used it before the pandemic?

Prior to lockdown our onboarding process was mainly handled within the individual regional offices, all induction and training was done face to face following a set induction & training matrix plan, but as we’re completely WFH it’s all now virtual.

How have you found transferring to a virtual process?

It has been challenging in that we’re missing the flow of natural conversation, and just the ability for the new team member to listen into different conversations within the office. Whilst the increased use of Microsoft Teams has made inter-office communication much easier, it’s also easy to overload on video calls whilst training new starters, ending up in information overload. It’s a careful balance to ensure the new starter has time out to absorb the info given to them in these calls, but isn’t also left sat at home wondering what it is they should be doing or learning next.

Have there been any challenges relating to this?

Yes, making sure the new starter has received all their relevant equipment prior to their start date and dealing with IT issues remotely when needing to replace kit isn’t as straight forward! Also, some elements of training internal systems is more difficult virtually, but we’ve overcome this by creating ‘how-to’ videos in place of face to face training sessions. But mainly ensuring the new starter feels fully supported and knows they can contact the team if they are unsure about anything. Driving home the importance of regular communication.

What about any benefits of doing this virtually?

Communication is much improved between our different offices with the regular use of Teams, making it much easier to introduce specialist teams to new starters and to involve the specialist teams in the training and development of the new starter.

Have you received any feedback from your new starters?

Yes we’ve had feedback in that some new starters have found it more challenging onboarding because of the lack of natural conversation – some feel they don’t want to interrupt existing team members with questions or queries by video calling, in an office environment it’s much easier to find an opportunity to do this. We always stress to the new starter that we actively encourage them to ask questions, our Teams chat is always open and their line managers check in with them on a daily basis at least.

Any tips for other businesses that are apprehensive, or are thinking about remote onboarding?

I think the most important thing is to encourage regular and open communication – it’s daunting starting a new role, more so when you’re sat at home alone over thinking ‘is this right’ ‘do I really understand this?’ ‘what should I be doing now’ – it’s so much easier to reassure people when you’re face to face. Also, be prepared for IT problems from the off!

A big thank you to Kerry for taking the time to give us her insight on this highly relevant topic! Has your business had to make the change to virtual onboarding due to the pandemic? Let us know how it's been for you!

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