New employee onboarding activities for 2022 in a remote work environment
Onboarding is a critical part of creating a conducive environment in your company for new hires. It’s also an avenue to help new employees overcome the fear of meeting unfamiliar faces, settling in a new environment, and following new processes. When administered well, onboarding can improve productivity by over 70% and talent retention by 82% according to research from Brandon Hall Group. While achieving these results requires strategic planning and great implementation, it also needs to be exciting to make new hires feel comfortable. Below, we outline great new employee onboarding activities for 2022 that will help you build a conducive environment for workers.
Learn more about new employees through virtual entry interviews
The formal interview, whether organized once or twice, may not give candidates enough time to share their experiences or ask all questions. Similarly, companies may not ask all their questions for fear of crossing the line or because of time constraints. An entry interview, which should be part of your onboarding, gives every party the chance to explore. Whatever experience a new hire could not share or questions they may not have asked will be easy for them because they know they are part of your team already. Aside from the fact that both parties get to know each other more in-depth, an entry interview gives the team insights into who their new employee is and how to set them up for success.
Organize a welcome party
New employees go through a lot of activities before they settle. Processes like filing tax forms, joining Slack groups and other collaboration tools, and going through the company handbook are just a few of the requirements in the first few days of work. While these are important steps, the amount of work involved can be overwhelming and exhausting for somebody who has just started. A virtual welcome party is one of the best ways to take the stress out of new hires. Send invites to team members about the party and what you hope to achieve. Teams should try to integrate this welcome party into part of the onboarding process. Some activities to explore would include online games, virtual trivia questions, and more.
Schedule one-on-one meetings
While they meet their direct supervisors, department heads, and CEOs, these formal meetings may put pressure on new employees. One-on-one meetings give new hires the opportunity to interact with colleagues in an informal setting. These meetings don’t have to happen as part of the onboarding process but should be early enough for new hires to build rapport as soon as possible.
Prepare a physical gift for your employees
Waking up early in the morning to prepare for work, commuting, meeting colleagues, and having chats in the office are some of the major things that tell new employees about their change of jobs or environment. However, this isn’t the case for virtual teams. In a remote work atmosphere, new employees may feel isolated as they may not see any change in their physical environments even though they just accepted a new job. Lacking an office to go to, and with no colleagues to meet physically, new employees can easily feel lost amongst a new team. One way to fill this void is to send physical gifts to newly hired remote employees to show them how excited you are for them to join. Some gift ideas to consider include:
A coffee mug and sweatshirt with a customized company logo and the new employee’s name
Company stickers and graphics for laptops and walls
A new device with the company’s swag on it - it could be a laptop, noise-canceling headphones, or a tablet
