Remote teams are all the rage right now, but many managers find themselves at a loss when thinking about how to onboard a new hire.
There have been some horror stories about new recruits not knowing who their manager is after a few weeks of working for a company — and that’s not even considering day-to-day tasks and processes.
So to make this transition to the online workplace easier, we’ve put together this handy list to show you what’s the best way to onboard a new hire. It includes all the tools that Bitrix24 offers to turn your virtual onboarding nightmare into a piece of cake.
1. Set up workflows for your hiring process
When thinking about how to build an onboarding plan for a new hire, a great place to start is with a company-wide onboarding workflow. Here, you can include priorities for your line managers and your HR teams, and you can be sure you won’t forget important tasks even if you’re under pressure.
You can implement project management tools like Kanban boards to see the progress of each onboarding, and set reminders to keep you on track as you go through the process. Why try to remember all of your tasks when you can outsource your memory to Bitrix24?
2. Use forms to gather info efficiently
An onslaught of emails is no fun for anyone, so think about how to onboard a new hire in a more agile way.
With forms, you can save your new recruit, the HR department, and yourself a lot of time while keeping your records nice and organized. With Bitrix24, you can integrate your forms with your HR records so everything is updated without you lifting a finger.
It goes beyond text fields — you can upload documents, such as photocopies of ID, for a robust onboarding process. Finally, set the absolutely necessary fields as mandatory and you’ll know that if the form has been completed, your records are full.
3. Keep an up-to-date organizational chart
Now you’ve got all the personal and professional details you need, add them to your organizational chart. Keeping your structural chart in order is one of those tasks that saves a lot of time in the long run, but it can easily slip down the priority list.
As part of your hiring workflow, go through your organizational chart with your new hire to explain how it works and who is who. This way, your entire team will know where to go for requests, contact details, and anything else they may need. This is just one step in a wider idea of reducing the number of small requests you get from new workers. In short — helping them help themselves.
4. Smart document management = efficient teams
Similar to your organizational chart, it’s always a good idea to organize your documents in a clear and concise way. You can create a master document that explains the structure of your Drive, and with the best document management tools, you can restrict access so nobody makes changes by mistake.
If you find your team is still asking questions about where to find essential documents, your structure probably is not clear enough, so consider making occasional updates that you can announce in team meetings.
5. Use video calls for a personal welcome
Although the advantages of remote teams are vast, it is important to remember that when you’re thinking about how to onboard a new hire, making them feel integrated on a personal level is crucial. Make sure to schedule a video call among your team, where you allow your new recruit to introduce themselves and where you give a detailed description of everybody’s roles.
Don’t be afraid to inject this meeting with some more personal conversation — after all, the best teams aren’t only made from working relationships. And why stop at one meeting? A monthly Friday afternoon online social is a great way to keep remote teams together.
6. Assign a mentor for guidance
Depending on the size of your team, you could even use these meetings to assign your new recruit a mentor. This will save you time as a manager, but also help to integrate your new hires into your team. Virtual teams don’t have water cooler chat, and assigning a mentor can be a step in the right direction to replace that.
Use your calendar to organize a series of catch-up meetings with either you or the mentor, giving your new hires a space to ask any questions they may have. Your new hire can always contact their mentor through instant messaging too!
7. Send physical surprises to your virtual teams
The details you gather about your new recruits aren’t just for show. You’ll have a home address and a date of birth that you can use to show new team members how much you value them. Habits like this will show you not only how to onboard a new hire, but how to keep them.
If you have the resources, you can send new workers a surprise onboarding care package, with a selection of company goodies and maybe a bunch of flowers. This will send a message that they’re not just a cog in the machine, and it can play a part in reducing your turnover.
But it’s important not to welcome them to your team only to forget about them later. Birthday presents are a fantastic touch to keep morale high throughout their time with your company.
Prepare yourself for onboarding
When thinking about how to onboard a new hire, you need all the preparation you need. But anyone who is managing a team on a daily basis will know that finding extra time in your schedule isn’t too easy to do.
A smart choice is to start setting up your processes today with Bitrix24. In its super-simple interface, you can create your workflows, forms, structural charts and everything else and breathe a sigh of relief when it’s done.
If that isn’t good enough, you can even forget about the cost of onboarding a new hire. Bitrix24’s free version comes with a seemingly limitless range of features for businesses big and small.
So give it a go — the over 9,000,000 companies who are already using Bitrix24 are a testament to how easy your working life can become.
