For many UK companies, working from home is here to stay for the foreseeable future. This means that many companies are looking at their physical office processes and re-working these to function within a remote environment. 

In pre-Covid days, an onboarding process might have involved taking your new team member on a walk through the office and introducing them to the wider team, getting them to physically shadow more experienced team members to meetings or arrange for your new starter to spend time in various departments– enabling them to really see the nuts and bolts of a business and its people.

With many of us now not being in a ‘physical office,’ this makes delivering an effective and successful onboarding period more of a challenge for an HR Manager. And with 66% of UK companies interviewing and recruiting during the pandemic, and 41% of these happy to continue doing so, it’s clear that we need to find an alternative to a quick intro to the team and a demonstration of the printer.

Recruitment is a vital part of business growth – Not only does it improve your business’ skill set, but bringing in new team members is shown to improve employee retention by 82% and increase productivity by 70%. So, making sure that your new starters get off to a positive start and feel like part of the wider team is important – but how do we do this from our home environments? Skeeled a provider of AI predictive talent acquisition software has offered some best practices for effectively onboarding new starters.

1. Start early

Don’t leave everything until the first day; this can be overwhelming. Send out information about the company culture and the type of projects that a new recruit will be working on in order to help them prepare.

2. Promote communication

Making sure that new starters have all the tech tools that they need to get started is paramount. Find that a business is unprepared for your arrival is disconcerting, so basics like a laptop and phone should be delivered prior to their first day. Perhaps a notebook and pen (branded would be even better to help them feel part of the team). Making sure that access to the company intranet and a copy of the company handbook will also help your new starter feel at home quicker.

3. Create a sense of belonging

Feeling like part of the team is important from day one. Make it clear to your team exactly what the new hire is here to do and why they are important to your business. Encourage a strong support network; they should be given the opportunity to interact with their managers regularly. Promoting virtual meets ups will also have a positive effect – perhaps suggest that coffee breaks are taken over a video conference or set up a buddy system with another employee. This will help your new hire bond with colleagues and feel part of the team.

4. A clear, personalised onboarding plan

Make sure that expectations are clearly defined in order to foster a motivated and productive mindset – it is easy to feel adrift when working from home and especially so when one doesn’t know exactly what is expected in terms of goals and targets. Have a clear, tailored plan on how this might be achieved over the first few months. This may need to be flexible, but agree to changes together. This blueprint will help your new starter understand where they fit into the bigger picture.

5. Move resources and paperwork online

Making the most of digital resources are key to successful onboarding. There is naturally a lot of paperwork that needs completing when a new starter joins your team, as well as a lot of reading. Making these available online via an intranet would speed up this process and keep momentum. Nicholas Speeckaert, founder of Skeeled says, “Providing a good onboarding experience is crucial to improve employee engagement, job satisfaction, and retention rates. In the post Covid-19 world this is even more essential as businesses need to nurture talent so they can recover successfully despite the global economic downturn.”

For more information, visit: www.skeeled.com. For support with your onboarding and all things HR, visit identecohr.co.uk and see how you can manage onboarding through to retirement and everything in between from one online platform that does the thinking for you.