Home » Blog » 10 Tips to Onboard Employees Virtually and Manage Performance
Onboarding work-from-home, remote employees and managing their performance poses a challenge to organizations, which can be managed if they follow some strategies and best practices:
1. Digitally transform the onboarding processes.
2. Help the remote employee to make the required social connections within the organization.
3. Provide the required support through coaching, training and buddy support to help the remote employee move up the learning curve.
4. Get recognition for the remote employee, so that they can pitch in during a discussion with an opinion.
5. Use technology to connect everyone and plan activities to boost the acceptance.
6. Offer the right tools and items to provide a sense of belonging to the employee.
7. Make the employee imbibe the organizational culture and vision to become a part of the organization.
8. Be clear about your policies, and expectations.
9. Set clear guidelines for performance and shared purpose.
10. Record the details of the remote employee’s performance, to inform their appraisal process later.
Learn how PossibleWorks can help you
Recent developments clearly demonstrate the innovative mindset and resilience of organizations. When the pandemic resulted inevitably in lockdowns, a few organizations were already in the habit of allowing work-from-home as an occasional perk. The rest of them were caught completely unawares and had to go up the learning curve, in a hurry. Once they were all caught up and familiar with the practice, many are now looking at not just work-from-home, but also work-from-anywhere options. Many are also looking at hiring people from anywhere to work for them. In this post, we want to discuss how such remote employees need to be onboarded and some best practices which need to be practiced, when virtually onboarding someone.
Virtually onboarding remote employees is definitely an alien concept to many, and people definitely fare better with some basic handholding. Starting work-from-home, without having met a single person as an employer would prove equally unnerving to the remote employee. The employee will need the employer to provide the right structure and to do it right. Provide an outstanding onboarding experience to your remote employees, using some of the best practices discussed here:
Employees have a high level of enthusiasm when they start any new job and the onus of ensuring that it is sustained lies with the onboarding plan itself. Make the employee feel valued and heard. Provide them with all the resources needed to enable them to fulfill the responsibilities of their role. Offer them the required support and collaboration. These are important for any onboarding plan, but more so when the employee is being onboarded virtually. Onboarding someone remotely requires a fine balance between logistics and emotional support. Celebrate any achievements and milestones reached, like completing a month, six months and before you know, the work anniversary rolls around. It calls for a definite celebration only if you have managed to keep the employee as committed on Day 1 as on Day 366.
Read the following blog posts to learn how to increase employee engagement and essential competencies of remote employees.