Struggling to create an inclusive onboarding experience when your new hires are scattered across the globe? Remote onboarding can be challenging, especially when trying to make everyone feel part of the team from day one. But with a few smart strategies, you can make this daunting task seamless. In this post, you’ll learn practical tips to make remote onboarding more inclusive and effective.
One simple way to make new hires feel at home is with company branded swag. It's a thoughtful gesture that shows you care and helps create a sense of belonging, even when they're miles away.
What Is Remote Onboarding?
Remote onboarding is the way new hires get to know your organization, its people, and its culture. Unlike traditional onboarding, remote onboarding happens entirely online. With the rise of remote work since 2020, companies had to change how they welcome new employees. In the U.S., a 2022 McKinsey study found that 35% of workers could work from home all the time, and 90% could work in a hybrid way. In Europe, things vary by country. Data from Eurostat and Statista shows that in 2022, 30% of workers regularly worked from home. The Netherlands leads the way with 65% of its people working remotely at least some of the time. In the UK, the number is just over 15%.
Why It Matters: The Changing Face of Work
Remote work means companies need new ways to onboard employees. But the goal is the same as in-person onboarding. You want your new hire to understand your company's mission and values. You want them to feel welcome and included. You want to help them connect with the team and give them the tools and training they need to make an impact soon.
The Tools You Need: How Remote Onboarding Works
The only difference is that virtual onboarding happens through:
• Video calls
• Webinars
• Pre-recorded videos
• Text resources
• Instant messaging
• Online training
New hires can access these on their desktop, laptop, or mobile device.
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• Small Business Onboarding • Onboarding Remote Employees • Onboarding Phases • New Team Member Announcement • Onboarding Meeting • New Hire Onboarding Survey Questions • New Hire Orientation Survey • Onboarding and Training • Onboarding Goals
15 Remote Onboarding Best Practices For A More Successful Process
1. Send a Welcome Gift (before the first day)
Want to make a positive first impression on new remote employees? Send them a welcome kit! A box filled with thoughtful gifts will help your new hire feel excited to start and reinforce your company culture.
Treat the welcome kit as a way to communicate your company's story and values. You can express your commitment to employee development by including a book to help their professional growth. Or, promote health and wellness through gifts like water bottles or step-tracking devices. Fun knick-knacks to decorate a home office, like:
• Small succulent
• Desk calendar
• Notepad
Along with your welcome kit, be sure to include a note explaining why you are excited to have them on board and reminding them to share a post about their new job on LinkedIn.
2. Introduce New Hires to the Team
On your employee's first day, give them a warm welcome by sharing an introduction to them on your team's internal communication platform (Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc.). In your post, you include more information on the new team member's professional background, the team they'll join, and a photo.
3. Leverage Employee Recognition
Starting a new position can be tough, so recognizing your new remote team member can go a long way toward making them feel at home. Show your employees that you appreciate their decision to join the team with a thoughtful shout-out or thank-you at the end of their first week.
Be sure to include specific details in your message to make it more impactful. Even if your new team member has just started learning the ropes, you can still thank them for:
• Asking great questions
• Sharing their perspective
• Simply having a positive attitude
4. Create a Virtual Onboarding Buddy Program
In addition to one-on-one check-ins with their manager, regular communication with a supportive team member can help new team members feel like they're part of the team.
Building a new hire buddy system for virtual onboarding will create an immediate connection between new team members and help drive employee engagement in the long term. A new hire buddy can be someone on the same team as the new employee or someone from a different team. During the new employee's first month, they should meet with them over Zoom (or another video conferencing tool) at least once a week, and be available to answer questions. Over time, check-ins with the virtual onboarding buddy can be reduced to once or twice a month.
5. Use Virtual Events to Foster a Sense of Belonging
In an office setting, employees get to know their team members by going out to lunch or attending an after-work happy hour. But getting to know new employees can be challenging in a virtual environment. Along with more formal training sessions, host virtual activities to help new team members feel more socially connected.
Virtual events are also a great way to introduce new employees to your company culture and reinforce company values. Even a simple getting-to-know-you icebreaker game can be powerful.
6. Encourage Feedback with Pulse Surveys
Pulse surveys are a powerful tool to track and measure new hire satisfaction. In a hybrid or remote workplace, you can leverage pulse surveys to get feedback on your hiring process, onboarding materials, employee inclusion, and more. Send onboarding surveys at key moments in the employee journey, such as:
• The first week
• Then at 30 days
• Then at 90 days
Engagement surveys should be a critical part of your employee onboarding checklist. It's important to remember that surveys are just a first step. Responding to feedback quickly is key to a positive employee experience.
7. Provide Ongoing Learning & Development Opportunities
74% of employees feel they don’t receive adequate development opportunities at work. That goes for remote employees as well as in-person workers. To ensure your new employee has access to ongoing learning and development opportunities from day one, leverage performance incentives and e-learning tools to help employees grow and upskill. Not only will it lead to happier employees, but it will also increase your employee retention over time.
Virtual onboarding can be challenging. With a strategic virtual onboarding strategy, new team members will feel engaged and supported from their very first day.
8. Host a Virtual Welcome Lunch
Just because you’re not in an office together doesn’t mean you can’t spend your first lunch hour as a team! Delivery services like Grubhub, Caviar, Uber Eats, and catering services are excellent for planning something special for your team’s first lunch. Have your human resources team schedule a meal delivery well in advance for your new hires, then put a time on the calendar for everyone to join a video call on Zoom or Google Meet.
Make it a time to kick back by encouraging folks to go camera-off and come back on once they’ve eaten. You can play music while everyone chows down and kick off a fun conversation in the chat, or ask everyone to add links to their favorite TikTok or YouTube video to the virtual chat and play them while everyone eats. The goal is to provide everyone with a great meal and a creative way to eat together on their first day!
9. Plan an In-person “New Hire Retreat”
You’re starting things off virtually, but planning an in-person event will keep your new hires looking forward to something! Planning at least one in-person event each quarter is a great way to humanize your team if your budget allows.
You can make the first event a “new hires only” exclusive so that they have time to chat about what they’ve learned and their experience so far. Schedule some time to go over company culture and your organization’s mission, then plan an outing to go with it. Maybe a yoga class and a trip to a local brewery, or dinner and an escape room afterward! Plan your in-person event before new hires come on board and put it on the calendar so that they know when it’s coming up.
10. Send a Personalized Gift at the End of Their First Week
Virtual settings often feel more isolated and less personal than in-person offices–but this doesn’t have to be the case! As you get to know your new remote workforce during their first week by asking ice-breakers and learning more about their backgrounds, note what they value. Then, at the end of their first week, they plan to send a small, personalized gift their way. This could be a:
• Book
• Gift card to their local coffee shop
• Bottle of bubbly
11. Offer a Digital Handbook of the Company
A company handbook is a vital part of any successful virtual onboarding process. It's a guide to the organizational values, culture, history, and stories the new hire should know. Turn this information into a digital form you can send to the remote worker to help them start their journey.
12. Schedule Video Check-ins as Part of an Individualized Plan
As mentioned earlier, video check-ins should be a main ingredient of the remote onboarding process. While many will include multiple team members, one-on-one face time with leaders and managers is essential for an individualized plan to make new hires at least 58% more likely to stick around after three years. This support should continue beyond the first two weeks, including the first few months of an employee's tenure.
Pro tip: Encourage new hires to ask questions for a more efficient remote onboarding experience. Similarly, ask for their feedback on how the process is going so far and what would make it better.
13. Encourage Employee Development From the Get-go
According to a McKinsey Global Survey on future workforce needs, 87% of companies are either currently experiencing skill gaps among employees or expect them to happen within a few years. So why not work on bridging the looming gap from the get-go?
Not only will this benefit the organization, but it'll also make for more loyal employees as they feel that their company cares about their professional growth. Information from Clear Company research shows that organizations offering employee training programs show 34% higher retention rates. 94% of employees said they would stay longer at companies that invest in professional development.
14. Set Clear, Reasonable Expectations and Tie Them to the Company's Goals
When you set expectations for new hires, they get a clear picture of their responsibilities and how their performance should align with the organization's objectives. This helps them prioritize and organize work depending on the company's goals, leading to a smoother fit into their appointed role.
15. Establish Conversation Spaces Focused on Wellbeing
Some companies have instigated documents that include fields to report on overall work-life balance, including topics like nutrition and sleep goals and professional work goals. Another suggestion is to use a health or productivity app with a social element and get team members to connect through the app.
This could substitute for a lunchtime yoga class or wellness seminar but with more emphasis on connecting organically. The idea here is not to push people to divulge personal health information but to encourage and support work-life balance as people adjust to working from home.
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Why The Onboarding Experience Matters
The Power of First Impressions
Imagine walking into a new job and immediately feeling lost. That’s the reality for many employees, and it’s not a great start. Onboarding sets the tone for everything that follows in a new hire’s experience. It builds a bridge from the unknown to the familiar when done right. Employees who feel welcomed and informed are ready to hit the ground running. They’re engaged, productive, and satisfied—qualities that directly benefit your company. Research shows that 89% of employees with effective onboarding are more engaged at work.
The Financial Stakes
Now, let’s talk money. Onboarding isn’t just about warm fuzzies; it’s a financial necessity. The average cost is around $4,100 per new hire while replacing a lost employee can cost up to twice their salary. That’s not pocket change. And when you consider that 70% of employees decide within the first month whether to stay with a job, the stakes are high. A poor onboarding experience can lead to early resignations, which are costly and disruptive. Prioritizing onboarding saves money, plain and simple.
The Training Connection
Training is a big piece of the onboarding puzzle. Companies with strong onboarding and training programs are twice as likely to retain employees. Nearly 40% of resignations come from poor training alone. Combine that with bad onboarding, and you have a recipe for high turnover. Effective onboarding and training sets employees up for success, reduces turnover, and keeps your company running smoothly.
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How Long Should Remote Onboarding Take?
Remote onboarding can feel like a solo mission. Unlike in-person onboarding, where there’s a lot of immediate support, remote onboarding is more of a gradual process. It often extends over a longer period.
Typically, onboarding takes about two weeks to three months, but it depends on the role, responsibilities, and seniority. For remote employees, active onboarding (the more intense parts of training) might last two to three weeks. After that, passive onboarding might continue for several months, maybe even up to six months.
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