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Onboarding new staff remotely - in a pandemic
businesses to carry out much of their business remotely, causing stress and strain throughout. Different businesses had various experiences
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of the peak of the pandemic madness; some sadly had to freeze any recruitment and rely on furlough, others needed to expand their workforce quickly and onboarding remotely became a challenge. Hiring new staff became, for many, a logistical
nightmare – interviews were held via video conference, training newbies was challenging and helping people settle in via Teams or similar was frankly bizarre. So how can we onboard new staff remotely in this new weird world we currently find ourselves in?
REMOTE RECRUITMENT Many forward-thinking companies were quick to embrace digital recruiting processes. Most businesses receive CVs and applications digitally anyway so this wasn’t a big change. The majority of assessments, psychometrics and tests can also be carried out online too. Interviews can now be held via video
conference but do make allowances for those people who haven’t used Zoom/Teams etc. before and/or who have technology issues. It’s just typical that when you’re trying to nail an interview, the Wi-Fi goes down or the kids decide to jump on Fortnite and the connection becomes fuzzy due to a lack of bandwidth! The realisation that a large number of people
would now want to work from home really opened the eyes of many business owners. Contracts needed to be reconsidered and new policies developed. Many businesses realised that by working remotely, they no longer needed to be restricted to local talent and could recruit from anywhere in the UK.
SETTLING IN NEW STARTERS REMOTELY Starting a new job can feel daunting at the best of times but to start a new job from your spare bedroom is on another level! Companies should work especially hard to make new starters feel at home and a checklist like this may help:
• Make sure you’ve sent all relevant paperwork for signing before they start
• Have them set up on all of your company systems before they start and provide training
• Send them a full timetable of events for the first few weeks; include virtual coffees with teammates/important people in the business
• Send them a photo, bio and contact details for all of their team and the wider company before day one so they know whom they’ll be speaking to
80 business network February 2021 • Ensure they have the right IT set up at home
• Set up a call with their manager (and team) first thing on their first day
• Consider sending them a company welcome pack
• Make sure that they understand the company culture, vision and values – keep reiterating these in everything that you do
Consider moving all training and inductions online with any important recorded presentations and business updates available for viewing on demand. If you carry out any one-to-one training with
your new employee, record it and make the recording available for them to re-visit as often as they need. Also, make sure they have a point of contact for any questions or queries they have. This is a brilliant time to get those ‘how we do
things around here’ and ‘how-to’ manuals written and distributed around the company. Remember to focus on your company culture and values in these. Make sure during the first few weeks of the
newbie’s life with your company that you have regular ‘how’s it going’ calls. Introduce them to the company feedback process (if you aren’t already giving regular performance feedback to your employees then its an ideal time to start) Help them understand their importance in the
For more information contact HR Lincs Ltd on tel: 07528 889150 or via email at:
kelly@hrlincs.com
Alternatively visit:
www.hrlincs.com
business and how their role influences the rest of the processes and people in the company. When you can, you may find it useful to bring
teams together face to face (safely) from time to time. If this isn’t possible, it’s important for your team members to get to know each other as people and not just work colleagues, so allow time during the working week for team members to have a virtual chat that they’d normally have in the kitchen whilst making a brew or over lunch. This has been shown to really improve teamwork and cohesion. This is a fab time to get creative in helping to
onboard new people into your business. Have some fun with it, and remember to ask your existing team what they’d like to see and contribute to the process.
he Covid-19 pandemic has forced most businesses to embrace new technology overnight. Outdated working practices were unburied and had to be overhauled to enable
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