There’s no doubt about it: the world has changed. The COVID-19 global pandemic touched all our lives and livelihoods, challenging the way we communicate.
For many businesses that means their new reality became surprisingly virtual. Hiring is still straight forward with video technology guiding the way. But what about new employees? How can you make them feel welcomed and provide support and training in those first few formative months?
We’ve got a few tricks up our sleeve to make your onboarding a success. Here’s our top tips that worked in 2020:
1. Get started before the first day
Most people are nervous their first day on the job and if you throw in a slew of virtual meetings it can be outright panic inducing.
Rather than bombarding newbies on day one, consider creating a virtual tour of the workplace to get the newcomer up to speed with ease. With 360 videos and images, you can mimic the workplace and give the new hire an opportunity to explore the premises and discover without actually being there. Imbed a few information hotspots into the tour, such as welcome videos from staff, and the new hire will get a good feel for how things roll and they’ll know a few familiar faces before meeting the full team.
If you can’t have 360 photos taken, there are plenty of high-quality stock photo options on Shutterstock, for example.
Another thing to consider is sending new hires ahead of time is a short “How-To” manual covering your business’ vision, mission, and internal workings. It allows the new employee to get familiar with the core ideas of the company before diving into more role-specific tasks.
2. Plan a learning path
Now that you’ve got pre-onboarding activities planned, don’t forget to map out the first few weeks. There’s a lot of information to learn from internal communications to project flow and everything in between.
Try to avoid talking “at” the employee for the first full day. Instead, turn some of your common procedures into interesting animations or videos and let them do the talking for you. Choose a topic that often needs reiteration, so that when you transform it into a video, you can highlight key information while captivating and interesting the new hire. Most importantly, the newcomer can pause, rewind, and revisit the information anytime they’d like and use it as a resource in the future.
If possible, you can consider some blended learning options where the new hire completes some tasks online and others with a small group face-to-face. Try to stagger these at regular intervals so that F2F and remote learning are woven together in a natural way. This keeps things interesting for the new hire without getting repetitive.
3. Make the first day a social event
Making it through the interview process is a reason to celebrate—so make the first day a welcome party.
A fun way for new hires to get to know the team is to answer some quiz questions about them. You can use apps like Kahoot or Mentimeter to make interactive games that everyone can participate in, no matter their location. So, gather the team, celebrate the new employee, and host the quiz.
This ice breaker peaks everyone’s interest—newbies and veterans alike.
4. Gather feedback regularly
Once your onboarding plan is in place and the new employee is on their way, don’t forget to check in and see how things are going.
A successful onboarding is crucial for employee success and satisfaction so gathering feedback from your new hires is a great way to keep things moving in the right direction. You can gather feedback face-to-face or in video meetings, but you can also send survey links using sites like Typeform to make customized surveys that target the feedback you’d like.
With feedback in tow, you can make sure your onboarding process continues to be a success.
That’s just the beginning…
A good onboarding program requires review and reiteration. There are many ways to get the job done and of course, we’re always open to new ideas.
Let us know what you think or if you need a hand with your own onboarding needs!
