You have completed the interview process and accepted an offer. HR sends over paperwork to fill out and you get a laptop in the mail. You start your first day by figuring out how to set up your computer and log into your new work email. You attend the meetings on your calendar and try to keep up and take notes of all the new information being given to you, hoping to understand it better later. You receive your training schedule and try to wrap your mind around what exactly you’ll be doing in this role.
You’re doing all of this while sitting alone at your kitchen table, staring into your laptop - the only portal to the company you’ve just joined.
If the above scenario sounds like the onboarding experience your new hires are getting, it’s time to make some changes.
We’ve all been there: first day of the new job. You’re full of nervous excitement to dive into your new role. You’re ready to start training, meet your colleagues, get a feel for how the company operates and find your place within the firm. It’s a lot to take on and if you’ve been hired to a new role in the last two years, chances are you’ve had to do all of that in the ambiguity of a remote environment.
Of all the changes that came with the transition to remote work, onboarding a new hire has been one of the most difficult adjustments. Research shows that one third of new hires quit within the first six months and over 30% of those resignations come within the first month. The onboarding period is critical to how your new hire will perceive the company and extends further than the logistics of making sure they have a computer and are set up with training. The experts at SHRM recommend that the onboarding period should last at least one year to ensure high retention. If that sounds surprising to you, remember that onboarding and orientation are two separate things. When designing a successful onboarding experience, the most important things to target are:
Making your new hire feel welcome
Establishing an understanding of the company culture
Providing a clear picture of their role and how it connects to the organization’s mission and goals
Creating opportunities for strong relationships to form across the organization
When you first start a new job, it is the top topic of conversation for friends and peers. Everyone wants to know how you are adjusting and if you like your new firm. When having these conversations, new hires essentially become micro influencers, telling the people closest to them their true feelings on the company they just joined. An often overlooked result of a fantastic onboarding experience is new hires inadvertently become a company’s best recruiters. When their onboarding experience includes wow-moments and positive experiences they can’t wait to share, the people around them are listening.
At Spark, helping companies perfect their onboarding experience is one of the most gratifying things we do and the impacts of it are immediately visible. If you are struggling with remote onboarding or are looking for ways to improve your existing strategy, we’re here to help. We surveyed our clients and put together the most impactful changes that improved their remote onboarding:
Onboarding Welcome Care Packages
New hires have not made a personal connection to the firm and are simply bringing on their transferable skills from their previous firm and applying them to their new role. If the only thing your new employees are receiving from the company is a laptop in the mail, you are missing a big touch point opportunity.
In order to create a tangible connection to the company, we work with our clients to design custom boxes with their branding and add company swag and a handwritten card for a personal touch. We include their laptop and wrap it all up and ship it directly to new hires:
The result is an Instagram worthy unwrapping moment that makes your new employees feel like they belong before they even start their first day. As a bonus, this sparks an easy talking point when they are asked about the company they just joined.
Introducing New Hires
Unless you are working with a new hire directly in some capacity, odds are you may not know someone new has started at the firm. We recommend sending a warm email after your new hire has accepted the offer letting them know you are excited they are starting and will be sending them a care package and need to gather some information from them. Here’s what we like to include:
What is your preferred name?
What is the best mailing address to send your welcome care package to?
What are two of your hobbies or interests?
What is your favorite food in the world?
Random icebreaker question that is different for each employee
Once you have all of this information, on the employee’s first day or week, make an announcement that they have joined your company! Using whatever method you use for company announcements, like Slack, an Intranet, or by sending a company-wide email, make a simple introduction:
Hi, Everyone!
Please help me welcome Sally to our team! Sally is starting with us as a designer in the UX department. She is into soccer and reality tv. Her favorite food in the world is anything she doesn’t have to cook for herself. A movie she can watch over and over again is Office Space!
Reach out to her via chat and introduce yourself!
If multiple people are starting on the same day, introduce them separately so each employee has their special spotlight. You can spread this out to different times throughout the day or separate days.
Creating Opportunities for Personal Connection
Joining a company remotely is a lonely experience. Establishing friendships at work is absolutely crucial for retention as well as company culture. Creating opportunities for new hires to become socialized early on makes a big difference in how quickly they begin to feel truly connected with the company. The few moments that typically prompt connection like the quick bonding with a colleague in the break room, or going out to lunch with your teammates, aren’t available when working remotely. Instead, replicate these moments by sending gift cards and scheduling virtual lunches and coffee breaks with different people for the first week or two, depending on the company size.
Teaching New Hires about the Company
Before you train your new employee on their role, invest time in doing a thorough training on what your firm does and how you do it. Include the company mission, vision and goals and use this as an opportunity to explain the company culture and what is important to your firm. Make a direct connection on how their role contributes to the overall success of the company and help employees find fulfillment in the work they are doing for your company. Often, employees know what they do task wise, but are not able to explain what the company does as a whole. Explaining how their piece of the puzzle fits into the larger goal attaches ownership and responsibility to their role and to the organization.
Routine Check Ins & Surveys
Once an employee has settled in, schedule routine check-ins to see how they are doing. The schedule we recommend is:
Checking in with new hires helps them stay on track and feel like someone cares about their development. As a bonus, receiving their valuable feedback helps you find opportunities for improvement and act on any issues quickly. Additionally, we recommend sending a standard survey at the quarterly milestones to help analyze structured data across all new hires. We recommend keeping the survey short and sweet with no more than 10 questions.
Need help designing a successful onboarding program? Let's get in touch.