5 Best Practices for Onboarding Employees Remotely

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Over the past few months, I’ve interviewed dozens of CEOs whose companies have adopted a hybrid or remote business model. One of the most pressing issues these leaders confront is the need for a more effective onboarding approach for their remote teams.

Many companies think of “onboarding” as a training process to help remote employees get up to speed on the tasks, procedures, and expectations for their new role. But onboarding is so much more than that. According to Gallup, onboarding fulfills the promises made during the hiring process. It also lays the groundwork for the rest of the employee experience, and it paints a clear picture of your workplace culture.

Onboarding is the first impression your company makes on new workers—as such, it’s vital to leave them with a snapshot that conforms to why they chose to join your organization in the first place. According to Glassdoor, employees who rate their onboarding experience as highly effective were 18 times more likely to feel highly committed to their organization. Other research finds that companies with a robust onboarding process improve new hire retention by a whopping 82% and productivity by 70%.

With 65% of employees currently seeking a new job amidst the Great Resignation, it’s more important than ever to create an onboarding experience that works from day one. This is easier said than done, of course!

In fact, many employees find a disconnect between their company’s onboarding and what they expected or thought they were promised in their job interviews. And workers who experience a negative onboarding experience are twice as likely to seek new opportunities elsewhere. According to Harvard Business Review, 33% of new hires look for a new job within their first six months on the job—a percentage that scales even higher among Millennials.

But there are unique onboarding challenges that arise in today’s hybrid or remote workplace. Many of the leaders I’ve talked to find it harder to convey their workplace culture to new hires, some of whom may have come on board during the pandemic and have never set foot in the bricks-and-mortar office. It’s also difficult to pass on institutional knowledge in a formalized way, and newcomers may not know where to turn to for help.

In collaboration with Airspeed, I recently interviewed the CEOs of Suzy, Sketch, and Toptal to gather their insights around this issue. These CEOs are operating within fully remote companies, and they have a great deal of expertise when it comes to onboarding remote team members.

In this week’s article, I share 5 best practices for onboarding remote employees, supported by CEO insights and examples.

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And don’t forget to join the conversation below—let me know any best practices that your company uses to onboard remote team members.