Make sure the team fully understands the new employee’s role and how it fits into the overall vision of the company. You could also hold some online team games or activities that involve the new employee as ice breakers. First, you want to introduce new hires to the team formally and provide a bit of background on them, such as their work experience and personal interests and skills.

The gift box is augmented with “2-on-1” virtual team meetings with new employees, allowing them to meet fellow team members and get a sense of the company culture. It’s a great way to combine a tactical experience with technology to enable remote interactions. By conducting frequent check-ins with your employees, you also provide yourself with a platform to get valuable feedback on your onboarding process. This feedback can then be used to refine your plan to the benefit of your company and its future employees. One way to maintain security when working with a remote team is by developing a security policy for remote workers.

Introduce the New Remote Employee to the Team

Choose buddies who are positive role models and are excited to show new employees the ropes. Ideally, they’d be colleagues rather than direct managers or supervisors so that newbies feel comfortable asking them about the culture and team. A well-thought-out plan can make all the difference in how successful your remote onboarding process is. The plan should cover everything needed to ease the new remote hire into the company in their first weeks. The virtual onboarding process only poses more challenges for your new remote workers, making the first month that much more important.

A feeling of isolation can easily remove a remote employee’s sense of belonging and, even worse, their productivity. Unless you have access to physical offices where they can spend their first few days, team lunch breaks and welcome drinks become nonexistent, which is a real shame from a team-building remote onboarding best practices perspective. We anticipate the remote onboarding process to take at least two full weeks, with the third week designated for team-specific onboarding and training. We encourage new team members to participate in their teams' work in the first two weeks, but without pressure to contribute heavily.

Introduce them to the team

LinkedIn’s five-day virtual onboarding program includes regular check-ins and touch points to make sure remote new hires don’t feel forgotten or overlooked. The week begins with a one-hour live session on the first day that covers the company culture, https://remotemode.net/ values and products, and concludes on Friday with a virtual team happy hour. On other days throughout the week new employees watch a check-in message from the leader of L&D (below) and get a live video presentation from a LinkedIn executive.

"The buddy is the new team member's point person throughout the onboarding process," said Christina Ioannou, vice president of HR at Lewis. "The buddy is available for all the 'silly' questions, to fill them in on office happenings and add them to the office social channels." To create courses, you can use iSpring Suite Max, which we mentioned when talking about organizational structure. Read more about GitLab's all-remote onboarding process in our handbook. As soon as a candidate accepts the job offer, find an opportunity to make them feel a part of the family. Reckitt, the global consumer products company, sends a care package to new employees’ homes before their start date.