Making Remote Onboarding Feel Human

Starting a new job is always intimidating, can feel scary and frankly a bit awkward sometimes. Usually, once you meet your new colleagues, you know, the people you’ll be spending most of  your days with, it creates a sense of ease and you start building your little work community.

Now take all of those feelings and amplify them when you start a remote job.

Think of your first day, you’re meeting people, handshakes, being shown around the break area, or even grabbing lunch together. Now think of day one, working remotely, you turn on the computer, join an onboarding call and hope someone else is on the other side of the screen. It can feel a bit disjointed, in-human and sometimes strange. 

It doesn’t have to be though. With a great team, good practices, and a well-structured onboarding plan, new team members can feel included and part of your remote team community in no time. 

Buddy Up

A really important part of remote onboarding is ensuring that every team member has a buddy they can go to for questions, a chat and support. Having a weekly meeting for buddy meetings, gives the space to discuss any questions that have come up, casual conversations and create small moments that build connection and ease someone into their role.

Hot tip: re-assign buddies every 2 -3 months. This helps team members build more meaningful relationships across the organization and get to know more of their colleagues. Plus everyone has their strengths, so learning who the best person to go to when you’ve somehow broken your Excel spreadsheet is never a bad thing. 

Check In

Don’t be that person who gives them the laydown on day one and then disappears, only to reappear weeks later asking, “So… how’s it going?”.

Make sure you are asking the right questions, make them specific, so they can elaborate and share their thoughts. Not just your basic yes or no. 

Whether it is a quick daily or weekly check in, keeping up with how they are progressing through the onboarding process will make a huge difference. And prevent feelings of being left to figure out everything on their own. 

This is also for your own good, less leaving them to guesswork, and fewer repeated mistakes. This gives more opportunity for clarification, collaboration and some bonding moments along the way. 

All Work No Play…Incorporate Fun into the Day

Obviously, we all have jobs to do and work to get done. But in a remote setting, it’s often the small, informal moments that are missing, the team events, coffee chats, pizza lunches, or end-of-week drinks with colleagues.

Remote work has plenty of perks, but those casual interactions are often what help create a sense of connection and humanity in the workplace. So it’s worth intentionally building them in.

Try incorporating the following opportunities for team members to connect, bond, and have a bit of fun:  

• Virtual coffee catch-ups
• After-hours virtual happy hours
• Virtual pub quizzes or online game days
• Team meetings where everyone is invited 
• Promote moving your body and create a Move it May, or Never Quit November active challenge for your team. 
• Informal channels for personal connection…yes, we all love a #random Slack channel for sharing pets, memes, and snapshots of the day

You don’t need to do all of these, and you definitely don’t need to do them every day. But thinking intentionally about how to weave them into your weekly or monthly rhythm can make a big difference.

Strong team morale leads to stronger retention, and setting that tone from the very beginning of onboarding helps raise the bar in the best way.