The initial experience sets the tone for an employee’s engagement and his association with the organization. It is essential for companies to get their virtual onboarding right. An exemplary onboarding journey can strike the right chord and lead to higher productivity and retention, while a poor experience will have the opposite effect.
Continuing from our previous blog we are now looking forward to some more interesting tips to enhance employees’ onboarding experience.
Plan the First Week of Work
Many a times new employees find themselves sitting around or asking for work, once the on-boarding process is complete. This can lead to frustration. Hence, an efficient plan for the first week after they join helps smoothen the process in. If first impressions are important, the first week sets the tone. Help them settle in and introduce them to the company’s work culture, ethical values, history and its vision for the future. Make them understand the big picture and where they fit in and how their contributions matter to the larger outcomes. The first week is the best time to communicate and understand each other better.
Getting Video Call Friendly
Video is your friend, get comfortable with video calls. This cannot be emphasized strongly enough and applies to managers as well as new hires. These video calls are necessary for the face-to-face component when working remotely. They provide significant value add as they enable employees to build rapport within and across teams at a time. It is important to make such space for personal connections to remain productive as a workplace.
Training Sessions
Effective and video-friendly training sessions are crucial. It is easier to handover tons of information to a new employee and expect them to interpret them via virtual onboarding. This approach is counterproductive. Employees will most likely struggle to structure this information efficiently. Even with a mentor or work buddy this cloud be challenging.
Organizations should therefore restructure and make their training programs to be compatible with virtual onboarding. This will help new employees develop an organic understanding of the organization and their role in it. Remote learning should involve increased interactive training sessions making onboarding experience more manageable and rewarding.
Feedback
Taking feedback is one of the most important steps. Virtual onboarding is a developing science. Take feedback from new employees and managers to improve or refine a company's virtual onboarding process. Conduct a feedback session soon after the completion of the onboarding process to understand what works, what doesn't. This is vital for an improved employee engagement.
Final Thoughts
As organizations get used to remote work and engaging employees across geographies, these tips for virtual onboarding will help smoothen the onboarding processes of your company, improve employee experience retention and enhance overall engagement with your organization.
Also See:
Employee Engagement and Retention: Virtual Onboarding Experience
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