Your employees are just starting their journey with your organisation. They are just as excited as you to embark on their new journey as you are to welcome them to be part of the remote team.

Before the pandemic, your new hires will come to the office for their first day and finally meet their colleagues for the first time, get introduced to the whole department, and have a little tour of the office before they get to know their role better on the training.

But it’s not like that to onboard your remote team. You are probably not even in the same time zone as your new hires. And most likely, your whole remote teams are all in different time zones.

However, onboarding is crucial to guide the new hires to navigate within the organisation regardless of their prior professional experience. According to CareerBuilder and Silkroad Technology, up 10 per cent of the employees are leaving due to poor onboarding experience.

Onboarding is very important that even Amazon emphasizes it as part of their company culture called Day one. Day one is about being constantly curious, nimble, and experimental. A lack of guidance and direction during the first few days of a new job can be frustrating and disheartening.

What is included in the onboarding process?

Each company will tailor its onboarding process depending on its needs and culture. However, it generally consists of new hire document collection and introduction to the company.

Also Read: Why HR tech will make Asia’s next unicorns

If your company does not have one, creating a thorough onboarding process will benefit your company and new hires. Here are some of the must-have onboarding items that need to be checked after sending away the offer letter to the candidate.

Introduction to the company and culture

Every company has a different working culture, and it is essential to let your new hires understand on the get-go. Sending away a culture playbook will help your new hires know what to expect and how to act upon the company’s culture properly.

Understanding the company’s value, vision, and mission will guide your new hires to align their vision and mission with the company. To replace the traditional office tour and colleagues’ introduction in person, it is important to provide a document where they can find a certain material or who they can reach out to for a certain issue in virtual onboarding. In this session, you can provide the hierarchical structure within the company.

Introduction to the company’s communication channel and management tool should be included in this session. Be sure to explain this part as clearly as possible.

Otherwise, your remote new hires’ productivity might be in jeopardy due to the confusion in navigating their way through the remote workspace.

Product/service introduction

Not often do your new hires come from similar industry backgrounds to your company. Therefore, your product might be completely foreign to them.

Even if they come from similar industry backgrounds, it doesn’t guarantee that they know about your products/services already. Failing to educate your new hires about the product/service might result in frustrations and miscommunications.

This might result in your new hires not being able to optimally perform their roles and responsibilities aligned with the product’s growth direction.

Whether or not the new hires’ position is closely related to the development of the product/service, this part of the training should not be missed!

Legal document collection

It is necessary to collect some legal documents to proceed with the employment process. These often include personal identification, employment contract, social security number, work permits, tax forms, and other legal documents.

Authenticating these documents can also be an issue when it comes to remote hiring. What type of documents to collect varies in every country according to each country’s local labour law.

Also Read: Top 3 signs your business will need a remote tech team

Failing to collect the right documents and not promptly might result in putting your new hires’ employment status at risk and on hold. They will handle this section for you if you are hiring through the Employer of Record (EOR) service. It will save your company time and hassle when outsourcing this particular process to a staffing agency.

Legally speaking, your new hires are not officially hired unless this process is completed.

Slasify supports your company to onboard candidates within 15-30 days and will directly collect all the legal documents from the candidates and provide them with all the company’s benefits such as social contributions package and insurance.

How to conduct the onboarding process for your remote team?

Time should not be an issue because these onboarding items can be delivered in a group meeting, one-on-one meeting, or a written (pdf, ppt, printed booklet, etc.) document for the new hires to review on their own.

If time is the essence of your team, you can combine written documents with virtual meetings. However, it’s not suggested to replace the virtual meetings with only written documents completely.

Whether you are a small or big company, creating a solid onboarding plan is a great investment to build a strong and sustainable team. If you are thinking of expanding your team globally, start building your virtual onboarding program, and playbooks will be a great start for your remote workforce.

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