As countries roll out social distancing measures, keep your onboarding practices intact by going virtual, without risking the spread of COVID-19. In this article, we look at four ways to onboard employees remotely, using the latest technologies.
Given the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19, employee onboarding teams are caught between a rock and a hard place.
On the one hand, employees are staying home to practice social distancing, unable to be physically present for onboarding sessions. But on the other hand, industries like healthcare, retail (essentials), the public sector, and even software development must continue hiring to stay productive.
As a result, companies are turning to onboard employees remotely, maintaining business continuity without compromising individual safety and health. Recently, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announcedOpens a new window directives for onboarding employees remotely, conducting their oaths of office through Skype/FaceTime and signing all documents electronically.
Remote employee onboarding could prove to be an essential solution on the road ahead, mitigating any disruption to your business during these critical times.
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4 Ways to Deliver a Stellar Onboarding Experience Despite COVID-19 Related Challenges
Onboarding demands special attention, even in the best of times.
Research suggests that most onboarding experiences are sub-optimal, leaving a lot of room for improvement. According to a U.S. surveyOpens a new window of 1,000+ respondents, only 12% of employees said that their companies did a “great job†while onboarding. In the U.K., a study of 2,000+ employeesOpens a new window found that only 29% had complete documentation when they started their role. Inefficiencies like these negatively impact the onboarding experience, making it difficult for recruits to reach their full productivity.
And when onboarding employees remotely, these issues become even more difficult. Different stakeholders may struggle to collaborate, and the recruit could become disengaged as there is no in-person contact.
How can companies address this? Here are four ideas:
1. Switch to G Suite for collaboration
This is a foundational step with very low barriers to entry. A company still holding onto paper-intensive onboarding processes can transition to G Suite in response to COVID-19. Google recently madeOpens a new window the premium version of Meet (its video conferencing app) free to all G Suite users – so you have another benefit from switching.
G Suite has all the tools you need to onboard employees remotely.
You can create an employee checklist using Sheets, add online events to the calendar, and synchronize with your recruit’s and colleagues’ calendars so that everyone is on the same page. All learning material can be stored on the Team Drive accessible via any device. You can also export all the data in widely compatible formats – Sheets as .xlsx, Drive documents as .docx, etc. – if required. G Suite can aid employee onboarding in myriad ways.
2. Replace in-person meetings and presentations with webinars
In a traditional onboarding setup, you would have stakeholders from various departments speak to employees and take them through multiple aspects of the workplace. In the current social distancing scenario, this is simply not possible.
So, how can you make day one of the onboarding experience meaningful and informative for the recruit? Here’s where webinars could help.
A webinar lets multiple participants (your recruits) log-in to a video feed. One or more instructor(s) share a presentation, and recruits can jump in at any time either via chat.
Webinars are useful for onboarding employees remotely, as you can pre-record a session for later use. Let’s say a recruit is working from home, taking care of their children, and can only log-in during the afternoon, when a key onboarding stakeholder isn’t available. Pre-recorded webinars are exactly what you need in these situations.
Try ClickMeetingOpens a new window for this purpose, which has a free version with up to 25 attendees.
3. Add a detailed FAQ to your Slack knowledge repository
Employee onboarding isn’t a one-day process. Across those initial days, weeks, or even months, the new employee will have several queries, their manager will regularly check in on them, and maintaining two-way communication will be essential for sustained engagement.
Slack is a highly popular free tool for communication – what if you could integrate an FAQ for new employees into Slack? This is what ObieOpens a new window addresses. Obie Access grafts an entire knowledge management system on to Slack, letting you build an intelligent library of searchable FAQs. You can integrate your existing knowledge (i.e., from G Suite) so that recruits can quickly find an answer to their queries.
When onboarding employees remotely, query resolution can be a big challenge, as there is no one physically present to help out a recruit. Obie addresses this at an affordable price point of $59 per month for up to 50 users.
4. Deploy a gamified onboarding experience to engage recruits
Remote employee engagement has been a long-standing priority for HR.
With COVID-19, this becomes an even more critical issue. How do you ensure that recruits stay engaged across the entire onboarding process, through its multiple steps, checks, and training milestones? A gamified platform repositions these tasks as “gaming goals,†complete with leaderboards and ranking.
Take a look at 1HuddleOpens a new window , an employee experience gamification platform that lets you build onboarding games in minutes. Instead of lengthy manuals and documentation, recruits play “quick-burst†learning games alongside their peers.
1Huddle is ideal for companies looking to onboard multiple employees remotely at the same time – like a retail chain hiring workers in different cities or a logistics company recruiting delivery personnel.
1Huddle is available at $3,000 per month – in this plan, you get gamification for onboarding, leadership development, employee training, and compliance as well.
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Toward a COVID-19 Resilient Onboarding Function
The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed how we work, but companies cannot let work come to a halt altogether. Already, academicians expect a major on the global economy; by continuing to hire and onboard new employees, you can mitigate this impact to a significant degree.
Gamification, digital FAQs, readily accessible webinars, and cloud-based collaboration are at the heart of an engaging yet resilient onboarding function. They allow companies to onboard employees remotely, alleviating candidates’ fear of losing an offer due to COVID-19. This ensures an engaged, motivated workforce ready to hit full productivity right from day one – from the safety of their homes!
Are you ready to onboard employees remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic?