Onboarding is a clever term from human resources research and industry to refer to employee socialization within an organization. Nowadays, business owners, recruiters, and human resources specialists can use onboarding to make employees fit into a business culture through specific techniques, strategies, and activities.
By incorporating onboarding in recruitment and hiring processes, you can promote recognition and solidarity between co-workers and create a warm organizational environment.
What is, then, onboarding? How to socialize and encourage employees’ integration when the corporate atmosphere is remote?
In this article, we explain what onboarding is. Also, we show you how to implement organizational socialization on remote working and suggest you a checklist to onboard your employees during their first week in the company.
What is employee onboarding?
According to Bamboo HR, Onboarding refers to how bonds are promoted between employees in the organization.
This concept is based on the idea that businesses must help employees understand their new position and its challenges during the recruitment and hiring processes. As a result, corporate management and human resources departments can allow employees to acquire the essential knowledge, skills, and behaviors to become influential members of our companies.
Hence, onboarding will make employees work with greater motivation, interest, and effectiveness while filling the organizational environment with virtues and positive feelings resulting from respect diversity.
For developing a remarkable onboarding process, you can design strategies based on these activities based on suggestions presented by Netsuite:
• Making job proposals and proposing salary negotiations to employees during the hiring process.
• Preparing formal meetings to engage and motivate employees.
• Incorporating employees in training and lectures and supporting their educational projects.
• Presenting employees in executive meetings, highlighting their virtues, capabilities, and contributions to the organization.
• Calling employees to express that they are essential to the organization and maintain their enthusiasm.
• Sending them presents.
• Inviting employees to meetings with the organization managers, such as dinners or social events.
• Sending them books, manuals, and resources to work in the office or home.
How to onboard remote employees?
In pandemic times, remote employees have become a crucial part of the workforce. Subsequently, companies need to learn how to develop onboarding processes weighing virtuality. The faster companies adapt to the new labor realities, the more they can enjoy the benefits of organizational socialization.
To implement remote onboarding, you can design strategies including these actions:
- Inviting them to meetings to introduce them to co-workers and the organization’s leaders.
- Encouraging the employees’ participation in virtual training and supporting their educational projects from home.
- Sending them presents to their homes.
- Sending online books and materials so they can do their jobs better.
- Organize virtual meetings to ask them how they feel in the company, how they work remotely, and if the organization can do something for them.
- Celebrating special dates in virtual meetings, such as birthdays.
Ideas for onboarding employees during their first week
In Remoto Workforce we suggest you a checklist for implementing onboarding activities with your employees during their first week at the job. You can mark with an “X” the action you have already carried out and include it in your virtual calendar.
Monday
- Welcome message for employees in social networks and corporate emails. ____
Tuesday
- Welcome meeting to the work team. ____
Wednesday
- Call employees to ask how they feel about the organization. ___
Thursday
- Welcome meeting with the leaders of the organization. ___
Friday
- Gift for employees.