The onboarding process introduces new employees to a company and helps to integrate them into the organization’s processes and culture. Virtual onboarding does this all from a distance when employees cannot physically be at the company’s facilities.
Why Your Business Should Be Using Virtual Onboarding
Up until a year or so ago, most companies onboarded new employees in-person at the company’s facilities. With the onslaught of the COVID-19 crisis, however, many offices were closed and company functions were relocated off-site for a newly remote workforce. New employees today are likely to be remote employees, unable or unwilling to come into the office for traditional onboarding. The onboarding process has to take place virtually, from employees’ homes.
4 Challenges of Virtual Onboarding
When new hires have a bad onboarding experience, they may not learn what they need to know to be successful. Some may even leave the company prematurely. Employees who have a bad onboarding experience are twice as likely to look for a different job in the near future.
Virtual onboarding is even more challenging. Fortunately, CBR can help you follow virtual onboarding best practices to meet the following common challenges.
Providing a Welcoming Day-One Experience
In traditional onboarding a new hire gets a tour of the offices, introduced to key players, and perhaps even given a welcome basket on his or her desk. How can that experience be replicated virtually? To ease the process, CBR can help onboard hires virtually or in our offices.
Getting to Know Co-Workers
It’s difficult to get to know new colleagues when they’re not physically there. For current employees, a new hire is just one more square in a Zoom meeting. In today’s environment, there are no group lunches or gatherings in the lunchroom to get to know someone. CBR can work with staff to include new hires in their existing routines and to go out of their way to learn more about the new person on the screen.
Avoiding Information Overload
All new hires are given a wealth of information about their new job and what’s expected of them. New remote workers must not be overloaded with so much information – all digital, now – that they simply ignore it. New hires need to be brought up to speed in a way that doesn’t make them feel overwhelmed. CBR can provide the one-on-one interaction necessary to gauge the new hire’s response to everything he or she is experiencing.
Continuing the Welcome
It’s easy to forget about someone who’s not there – especially a new person who isn’t known by the team. An effort needs to be made to continue welcoming and interacting with new hires or they’ll just be left behind. CBR can provide regular check-ins with new hires to ease the experience.
Let CBR Help You Improve Your Virtual Onboarding Process
When you’re charged with onboarding new employees in today’s virtual environment, turn to CBR for assistance. We have the expertise and experience to help you with any challenges you may face and can help you make your new employees more productive from day one. We’ve been helping businesses work with new hires since 1998, and can help you with virtual onboarding today.
Contact CBR today to learn more about our virtual onboarding solutions.
