Did you know that telecommuting has increased by 115% over the past ten years?
This speaks to the growing popularity of remote work, especially among millennials. They value flexibility over other employment benefits, increasing the need for virtual processes. Without efficient onboarding, you can’t have an efficient remote or hybrid team.
It’s normal to be skeptical about the digital onboarding process. After all, we’ve all heard some horror stories about online inductions. However, when done right, virtual onboarding can be your company’s greatest asset.
We are here to ensure that happens by guiding you through efficient onboarding. Read on as we explore everything you need to know about the process.
What Is Digital Onboarding?
Digital onboarding involves introducing new hires to their roles using online tools. It eliminates physical constraints, allowing businesses to access skilled employees globally. The approach solves many recruitment challenges for companies looking to cut recruitment costs.
Before the pandemic, most businesses were facing employee retention challenges. The problem was partially solved by digital onboarding. The process is here to stay as more companies realize its value in the modern workplace.
The Digital Onboarding Process
Onboarding shouldn’t begin when an employee reports to work. Instead, it should start when a candidate passes their interview. Here are crucial steps in the onboarding process:
Preboarding
Your role as an HR personnel is to ensure you portray your business in the best light. It’s essential to be proactive to create a good first impression on new employees.
Conduct most of the required administrative processes before an employee’s first day. These processes include asking for employees’ documentation and setting up all necessary accounts. Doing this streamlines the onboarding process for you and your new hire.
Welcome New Hires Virtually
The next step involves setting up meetings with the new hires to discuss their new roles. Ensure all of them are comfortable with their new responsibilities before assigning tasks.
It’d also be best to take this time to make your employees feel welcome. Don’t focus so much on the business side of things that you forget they’re also humans.
Be sure to introduce the new employees to existing ones and encourage them to interact. Remember, personal connections are crucial for efficient teamwork.
Optimize Communication Channels
Did you know that a third of new employees start looking for a new job after less than six months? This results partly from rushing the onboarding process.
Standard onboarding should last a few months, during which you should be accessible. Ensure new hires can reach HR personnel, managers, and team members. Doing so reduces the risk of losing them before their productivity peaks.
Tips for Efficient Digital Onboarding
Digital onboarding is a new process in the recruitment space. Many HR managers don’t know how to do it well to ensure maximum benefits.
But, we’ve got you covered as we’ll be giving you surefire tips to ensure virtual onboarding works for you. Let’s get started!
Do Your Research
Odds are, you’ve tried digital onboarding at least once. After all, this became a necessity during the pandemic because of social distancing. You can learn a lot from your previous processes by talking to the employees you onboarded then.
Ask them to pinpoint the challenges they faced and suggest onboarding improvements. That’ll make them feel valued and allow you to structure a better process for new employees. It’s a win-win situation.
Invest in Proper Technology
Digital onboarding is different from in-person onboarding in that the former leverages technology. You’ll need to invest in infrastructure to ease learning and streamline onboarding.
Join business chat and video conferencing platforms to ease communication. 55% of businesses report increased employee engagement over online meetings. So, investing in video meeting tools could improve your interactions with new hires.
You’ll also need software to streamline the recruitment process. Sites like WorkBright.com provide tools that allow you to collect forms online. This increases accuracy while also improving new hires’ impression of your company.
Prepare New Hires Beforehand
Nothing beats starting your first day of work equipped. Knowing what to expect and having all the tools needed to perform tasks makes a difference for new hires.
Ensure all your new employees have all they need before the scheduled first day. Send them a schedule of the onboarding process, a laptop, and an employee handbook.
You can also send them some company swag to increase their sense of belonging in your company. Doing so gets rid of first-day jitters and reduces disruptions during the process.
Present Your Company’s Values
Some HR managers assume that a handbook is enough to communicate company values. Though it contains valuable information, it isn’t enough. New employees will have questions about your company culture and codes of conduct.
Take time to answer all of them and address all the issues they may present. Remember, most employees are nervous during the onboarding process. Be patient with them, and make them feel welcome.
Explain Company Goals and Performance Metrics
Onboarding isn’t a one-person job. HR personnel collaborates with managers and project leaders, especially when communicating goals.
For efficient onboarding, the parties should communicate company, team, and individual goals. They should also discuss the performance metrics they’ll use to check performance. This way, new hires know what they’re supposed to do before being assigned tasks.
This reduces friction between management and employees in the long run.
Set Realistic Timelines
Getting used to doing things a certain way takes time, so onboarding may take several months. Your new employees can’t be as productive or work as fast as existing employees.
So, you’ll need to assign varying tasks and evaluate them differently. Ensure you only give manageable tasks to keep the new employees interested.
Ideally, you should start with a few responsibilities and increase them over time. Always ensure the new hires understand their unique goals and work towards them.
Focus on the Basics
It’s tempting to want to explain every single aspect of a role to your new employees. Most people think that this saves them time as they won’t have to keep explaining tasks to the new hires. But, all it does is overwhelm them and affect their perception of the new roles.
Instead, limit your information to the basics. Give the employees a basic overview of their roles and responsibilities. They’ll learn the rest from their co-workers and their personal experiences.
Show, Don’t Tell
Don’t take new employees through long lecture hours explaining your processes. This is exhausting for you and boring for them.
Instead, use videos that capture what you do and their new roles. You may need to record existing employees performing their tasks. If you can’t, look for videos that mirror what you do online and send them to the employees before your meeting.
Assign a Mentor
A buddy can make onboarding easier for new hires. Find a team member who understands your new hire’s roles and pair them up.
The team member will act as a mentor, showing the new employee the ins and outs of your company. They’ll also ease them into your company’s social interactions, so they don’t feel left out of the social life. A friendly face can go a long way in making onboarding efficient.
Ensure the Employee Understands Office Technology
Technology is constantly evolving, leaving some businesses ahead of others. After all, not all companies have similar financial capabilities.
New hires may not have worked with your technology before, so an introduction is vital. It’s also essential to re-introduce those who’ve worked with the technology before. Remember, every organization has a unique way of doing things.
Usually, HR personnel does this during the first few days of onboarding. This allows new employees to be more engaging during training.
Schedule Meetings With People at Different Management Levels
The new employees should meet all critical stakeholders during onboarding. You don’t want new hires who don’t recognize their managers and team members. If possible, schedule a meeting with the top boss to make the employees feel welcome.
While work-related discussions are essential, don’t forget to encourage personal conversations. Ask the employees to introduce themselves and talk about their likes and aspirations. This way, the employees’ relationships can go beyond the basic co-worker relationship.
Schedule Frequent Meetings
One of the dangers of remote working is that management can lose touch with their employees. After all, it’s unlike working in the office, where people interact constantly.
You can prevent this by holding regular meetings with the new employees. Use the meetings to understand how they find their new roles and identify challenges.
But, don’t hold too many meetings as this may come off as micromanagement. Ideally, you only need to have one session lasting less than 30 minutes per day. This allows employees to discuss challenges and doesn’t interfere with their work.
Replicate the Human Connection
Digital onboarding can be challenging because of the lack of human interactions. But, exchanges don’t have to be physical to be effective.
With proper planning, you’ll achieve just as much as with in-person onboarding. Invest in tools like Zoom, which allow face-to-face conversations. Then, schedule meetings where new hires interact among themselves and with other employees.
Also, encourage management to join in the conversations. Doing so enables employees to know each other beyond their laptop cameras.
Benefits of Digital Onboarding
Digital onboarding can be tasking, but it’s also worthwhile. Let’s look at some of the benefits of an efficient onboarding process.
It’s Cost-Efficient
Unlike other onboarding methods like in-person onboarding, you don’t need printing materials. New employees can read the paperwork and sign all necessary documents online. You’ll see a significant difference in your profits over time when you cut printing expenses.
The process is also cost-efficient for new employees as they don’t need to come to your physical location. This is a considerable benefit seeing as fuel prices are continually rising.
It Promotes Better Organization
One of the main drawbacks of in-person onboarding is that it involves a lot of paperwork. It’s difficult for HR personnel to organize all the paperwork because of limited space.
That’s one of the reasons digital onboarding is so valuable for companies. HR personnel store employees’ documents in a central database, thus freeing their offices. Better document organization also means easier retrieval when needed.
It Promotes Consistency
You can ensure all your employees undergo the same process with digital onboarding. Giving every new hire a similar process promotes a consistent company culture.
Besides, you get more control over employees’ first impressions. Using digital tools presents your company as modern and willing to adapt. This is crucial for millennials and Gen Z, who occupy a significant part of the current workforce.
It Gives You Access to a Diverse Workforce
Many companies lose their chances of working with skilled minds because of geography. However, this doesn’t have to be the case for you since you can conduct everything online.
People from all over the world will be willing to work with you if they don’t have to travel for onboarding. Accessing a diverse workforce gives you better perspectives on your products and services.
It Streamlines Administrative Processes
There’s more to human resource management than recruiting and training employees. It also involves dealing with a copious amount of paperwork, which is time-consuming.
HR managers only need to upload and send documents to new hires with the right software. By eliminating paperwork, virtual onboarding reduces repetitive tasks.
It gives HR personnel more time to focus on the employees. This results in better management and increased retention rates.
Boost Business Growth by Investing in Efficient Digital Onboarding Process
Onboarding is vital since it determines employees’ perceptions and retention rates. HR personnel needs to be careful when offering digital onboarding.
Virtual onboarding starts from the minute you confirm a new hire for a role and continues for months. Ensure you equip new employees with all the tools necessary for their functions. Also, don’t forget to create personal connections as they determine employees’ interactions.
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