5 Ways to Onboard New Hires in a Remote Recruitment Process
Today’s onboarding process is quite different, especially in remote recruitment. There are no handshakes anymore, contracts are signed virtually, new hires are often trained online, and the online onboarding process is about to kick off.
Are you ready, though?
The goal of onboarding your new hires in a remote recruitment process is to acquaint them with your company culture, their new roles, and get them up to speed with videos. Through these videos, you’re technically orienting them remotely and providing them with all the tools and resources they need to kick off their first week on a great note.
However, if your videos aren’t evoking a sense of enthusiasm or engagement, new hires might get a tad bit disappointed and walk away without glancing back. An engaging onboarding experience is always going to be a big part of your remote recruitment process. It’s the impression that will either entice new hires to stay or find a new opportunity somewhere else.
So, how can you create videos that instill a memorable onboarding experience for candidates in a remote recruitment process? Keep reading to figure out how.
Welcoming Candidates to the Company
The first video in your virtual onboarding process is probably the most important one in remote recruitment. In this video, you will either grip new hires’ attention from the start or lose their interest altogether. This video should warmly welcome them to your company, and the message should come from an authoritative figure, such as the CEO, the manager, or even both. This will serve to calm their nerves and jitters on their very first day.
In addition, this video is a great way to show new hires what you believe in and that their contribution to the company is important. Through this video, you’ll instill a sense of purpose in them. Even though you’re working remotely, new hires will still feel like they’re about to fulfill a vital mission and aren’t just hired for the role.
Stating the Goals for New Hires
New hires shouldn’t start their jobs and just pray to wing it. That’s not what remote recruitment is about. Throughout every stage of the remote recruitment process, new hires need to understand what’s expected of them.
Therefore, when sending them this video, make sure it includes a roadmap of objectives, goals, responsibilities, and a sensible timeframe. You don’t want to overwhelm new hires with an unreasonable roadmap, which could initially scare them off. You want to fully express who will be working with the new hire remotely and how they will get all the help they need.
This video should also be accompanied by a checklist that new hires can use to track their accomplishments along the way.
Transferring Knowledge
Perhaps your new hire is replacing a former employee, and a handover or training session needs to take place. In this case, you can send new hires a video that gets them up to speed on the skills, tips, hacks, and knowledge required for the job.
The best way to do this is by sending them videos that include intricacies related to the particular job role. A former employee, manager, or experienced teammate can capture behaviors and approaches that are needed for the job.
Providing Role-Specific Knowledge
For example, if the former employee conducted an employee assessment before, with video interviewing software, you can easily send new hires a previous video assessment taken by the former employee. This video would encompass the knowledge and useful know-how for the job role. This way, new hires will have a video they can refer back to at any time and keep as a point of reference when they aren’t sure how to get something done at work.
Skills Training
Apart from knowledge transferring, new hires are going to need to be trained. It’s an essential part of the remote recruitment process. There are certain skills that your new hires probably need to learn for their new jobs, such as day-to-day and task-specific skills.
Guiding the Training Process
Either way, new hires must be thoroughly trained, and you shouldn’t dump a massive amount of training material on them from the start. Instead, guide them!
Also, don’t expect them to be fully trained overnight. This is where videos will help when there’s an overload of information that new hires need to absorb. Therefore, drip-feed content to them at a reasonable rate throughout the remote recruitment process. Give them time to retain and implement the new skills they’re learning.
Make sure your videos contain examples and step-by-step guides. Afterward, you can always opt to test your new hires on what they learned during the training period.
Clarifying Company Rules and Regulations
Briefing your new hires on your company’s policies can be quite a challenge in remote recruitment. Luckily, videos can still explicitly do the job. When sending these videos to new hires, make sure they include the basic rules and regulations, in addition to other policies such as nondiscrimination, cybersecurity, and a code of ethics and conduct.
Don’t forget that you can always include a section about your company’s culture, values, and work environment. Try to make this light and endearing because you don’t want to scare off new hires by presenting a company that is too rigid and dry. Instead, thoroughly and expressively go through all the dos and don’ts and their designated consequences.
Additional Tips for a Successful Remote Onboarding
To make your remote onboarding process even smoother, there are several additional tips that you can implement to keep your new hires engaged and motivated:
- Interactive sessions: Schedule live Q&A or virtual meet-and-greet sessions where new hires can interact with their teams, ask questions, and get immediate feedback.
- Assign mentors or buddies: Pair new hires with an experienced team member who can guide them through their first few weeks and help them adjust to the new role.
- Use gamification: Add quizzes, challenges, or small rewards to make the onboarding process more fun and engaging.
- Regular check-ins: Schedule weekly or bi-weekly check-ins to discuss progress, answer questions, and address any challenges the new hire might face.
- Feedback loop: Encourage new hires to provide feedback on the onboarding process, which will help you improve the experience for future employees.
Bottom Line
To wrap up, your onboarding videos will not only benefit your new hires but also your team and the entire company. Simply because building an awesome onboarding experience can engage new hires, keep the momentum going, and retain them in the long run.
This way, your remote recruitment strategy will continue to make employees and new hires happy to have joined your company.
