Building Digital Culture – Virtual Onboarding For Your Remote Team
Your employees are just starting their journey with your organization. They are just as excited as you to embark on their new journey as you are to welcome them to be part of the 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 themselves within the organization regardless of their prior professional experience. Up 10% of the employees are leaving due to poor onboarding experience according to CareerBuilder and Silkroad Technology. Onboarding is very important that Amazon emphasizes it as part of their company culture called Day One. Day 1 is about being constantly curious, nimble, and experimental. A lack of guidance and direction on 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, in general, it consists of new hire document collection and introduction to the company. If your company does not have one, creating a thorough onboarding process will be very beneficial for your company and new hires. Here are some of the must-have onboarding items that need to be checked after you send 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 that consists of (insert here) will help your new hires know what to expect and how to properly act upon the company’s culture.
Understanding the company’s value, vision, and mission will guide your new hires to align their personal vision and mission with the company. To replace the traditional office tour and colleagues’ introduction in person, in virtual onboarding, 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 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 on navigating their way through the remote workspace.
Product/Service Introduction
Not often your new hires come from similar industry backgrounds of your company. Therefore, your product might be completely foreign to them. Even if they are coming from similar industry backgrounds, it doesn’t guarantee that they are knowledgeable 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 role and responsibilities that align with the product’s growth direction.
Whether or not the position that the new hires will perform is closely related to the development of the product/service, this part of the training should not be missed!
Legal Document Collection
It is a must to collect some legal documents to proceed with the employment process. These often include personal identification, employment contract, social security number, work permits, tax form, and many other legal documents. When it comes to remote hiring, authenticating these documents can also be an issue. What type of documents to collect varies in every country according to each countries’ local labor law.
Failing to collect the right documents and not in a timely manner might result in putting your new hires’ employment status at risk and on hold. If you are hiring through Employer of Record (EOR) service, they will handle this section for you. 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. In Slasify, we can support your company to onboard candidates within 15-30 days. Slasify 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?
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 completely replace the virtual meetings with only written documents.
Whether you are a small company or a big one, 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.
If you have trouble dealing with the legal employment, get in touch with us and we will provide you with the best solution to your cross border and remote employment issue!
Slasify is designed for remote worker. We provide payroll calculation, social security payment and tax filing in more than 150 countries around the world, allowing business owners/talents to seamlessly connect with the world. We have practical experience in serving the world’s top 100 companies. If you have relevant needs, please feel free to contact us.
In addition, if you are a “remote worker” or are on the way to becoming a “remote worker”, and if you want to know more about it, you are welcome to visit Slasify’s website. If you have any questions, you are welcome to write an email to us!
Author: Agnes Mutiara | Editor: Ting-Yin, Hsiao
