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<\/p>\nJust moments into a\u00a0three-day virtual employee onboarding process in March, Marcus Nelson\u00a0began thinking about what\u00a0modifications he’d make as several ideas flooded his head.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was already thinking about how I can change this process for other new employees,\u201d said Nelson, marketing head for Xos Trucks, a Los Angeles-based\u00a0startup that makes electric trucks for the likes of UPS and Loomis Security. \u201cHow can we take this onboarding from clunky and crappy to less strenuous and much easier?\u201d<\/p>\n
Three months later, Nelson, who works remotely in a suburb outside of Nashville, Tennessee, introduced an overhauled virtual onboarding for a new marketing coordinator joining his team.<\/p>\n
Instead of three days, Nelson\u00a0condensed the virtual onboarding into a two-hour onscreen meeting with company leaders and shared documents\u00a0about marketing and branding, competitors and how to access key company data.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a ramp-up made specifically for him. We made it shorter, more concise and very team-oriented,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t expect him to absorb everything in one day, but we showed him in real time what his role is and who he can go to for help.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Typically, onboarding, also known by some as orientation,\u00a0is an in-person\u00a0process helping new employees understand their\u00a0position and\u00a0learning company policies. It ranges from\u00a0receiving training and\u00a0meeting colleagues to filling out paperwork.\u00a0The timetable for onboarding can vary\u00a0by the company as the\u00a0process can take\u00a0several days, weeks or\u00a0even months.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A team of managers at Xos Trucks meets with its new marketing coordinator during a recent virtual onboarding. Experts say virtual onboarding is likely to stay post-pandemic. (Photo: Xos Trucks)<\/span><\/p>\n But many executives and employment experts believe that virtual onboarding will remain post-pandemic. Why? Because traditional methods apparently haven\u2019t been working well for new hires even before COVID-19\u00a0forced many to work remotely and online, according to a 2020\u00a0Gartner recruiter survey.\u00a0<\/p>\n Only 44% of recruiting staff say their organization\u2019s onboarding process effectively integrated new hires<\/strong>into\u00a0the company culture, the survey said. That statistic is backed by employees as another Gartner survey conducted last year showed only 32% of those hired in the previous\u00a012 months felt a sense of belonging to their organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Organizations need to be a lot more intentional as they rethink the structure of onboarding,” said Lauren Smith,\u00a0vice president at Gartner research. “New hires don’t expect everything to be perfect on day one, but managers need to be authentic during\u00a0this important moment of transition.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Here are some\u00a0tips on ways\u00a0to make a virtual onboarding experience more effective.<\/p>\n As more offices are reopening with\u00a0more Americans\u00a0getting\u00a0COVID-19 vaccines,\u00a0for many\u00a0companies, the option to work from home is here to stay.\u00a0And that means\u00a0new hires will most likely need to learn the quirks and perks of their new jobs \u2013 virtually.<\/p>\n \u201cMost companies are exploring hybrid models where some people work at least part time from home,” says\u00a0Andy Challenger, senior vice president of the outplacement and business and executive coaching firm\u00a0Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “So virtual onboarding is almost certainly going to continue.”<\/p>\n Successful onboarding is key to retaining new staffers and helping them hit the ground running, several\u00a0experts say. But schooling new staffers on a company’s culture, systems and the specifics of their particular role\u00a0can be difficult when managers and colleagues are unable to interact in person.<\/p>\n That’s where communication becomes\u00a0key, said Jaime Moran, chief product officer with Sana, an Austin, Texas-based startup that helps provide health insurance benefits\u00a0to small businesses. Moran, who started at Sana in April and works remotely in Chicago, described her virtual onboarding process as “seamless,” which had fewer meetings and more interaction with colleagues who she has still never\u00a0met in person.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0“It\u2019s a different experience as I\u2019m very surprised how energized I feel being a part of the community and culture so quickly.\u00a0I wouldn\u2019t have expected it,” said Moran who is currently overseeing the virtual onboarding of her three\u00a0new hires over the next 90 days.\u00a0<\/p>\n She credits products like Loom, a platform popular with hybrid workers, to\u00a0send quick video-recorded\u00a0messages, and screen share instead of an email or a phone chat\u00a0to explain tools and demos\u00a0that are used with her staff.<\/p>\n The “onboarding experience, in general, is about building relationships with people who are going to be key to your success in the company,” Challenger said, “And it\u2019s markedly harder to do that via Zoom.”\u00a0<\/p>\n True to a degree, said Daniel Chait, the\u00a0CEO and co-founder of\u00a0Greenhouse, the hiring software company. He believes one\u00a0in five\u00a0hires will leave in 45 days if they have a bad onboarding experience and that organizations have a very short amount of time\u00a0to make a strong\u00a0impression.<\/p>\n “The question\u00a0they have to ask\u00a0is what are you<\/strong>going to do\u00a0to make them stay?” Chait said. “If you haven’t impressed them with the possibilities for career opportunities and\u00a0growth, as well as\u00a0a sense that they belong,\u00a0they can easily go elsewhere as an onboarding experience that lives up to that promise is essential.”<\/p>\n Yes, the internet fails: <\/strong>Outages like Fastly’s will happen. Here’s how to protect yourself<\/span><\/p>\n Apple iOS 15: <\/strong>FaceTime coming to Android and Windows, Notifications get smarter and everything gets more shareable<\/span><\/p>\n In that first meeting, give\u00a0a new hire an overview of the business, as managers should carve out some time, perhaps 10-15\u00a0minutes just to get to know each other. “Make that specifically a part of the work because that’s the piece that gets so lost in a virtual setting,” Challenger said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nelson of Xos Trucks<\/strong>felt by adding\u00a0 manager group meeting\u00a0to the virtual onboarding process for his new marketing coordinator, it helped streamline the introductions.\u00a0<\/p>\n “By refining it,\u00a0being deliberate and customizing the onboarding (experience, it)\u00a0creates a whole new level of team building, not that kind of classroom experience where you take notes and try to remember everything,” Nelson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n As for Xos’ new marketing coordinator, John Dire, said he enjoyed the quick pace and thought his virtual onboarding went better than expected. Dire, 26, who’s starting his third job, said he’s gone through onboarding that’s taken up to two weeks. He\u00a0appreciated that before his orientation with Xos, he\u00a0received an\u00a0email\u00a0that answered most of his questions.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n “I definitely enjoyed how fast everything went as I don’t have to wonder what’s next. I can look at what needs to be done, do it myself, and I know who to ask if I have any questions,” said Dire, who’s based in L.A. “I honestly feel a lot better, I have a better idea of what we\u2019re working on.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Dire’s supervisor, Nelson, said he plans to keep tweaking\u00a0his onboarding “experiment” with the hopes other departments at Xos Trucks\u00a0adopt a similar plan.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n “I would love to tell them how we did it,” Nelson said. “I would love to evangelize this across the company.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Organizations should consider giving new hires\u00a0their equipment long before they start work so they’re ready to go, says\u00a0Matt Martin, CEO of\u00a0Clockwise, the maker of a smart calendar assistant that helps employees with scheduling time.\u00a0<\/p>\n Also, if possible, organizations should provide new hires with preboarding\u00a0opportunities before they officially start their jobs, experts say.\u00a0Chait, Greenhouse’s CEO, mentions in his book with Greenhouse co-founder and president Jon Stross, “Talent Makers:\u00a0How the Best Organizations Win Through Structured and Inclusive Hiring,” they strongly encourage early onboarding prior to that start date.\u00a0<\/p>\n “What can get done before the start day and not after? It may be that two weeks before that day, IT needs to contact the person with a welcome email, explaining what sort of systems they\u2019ll be tied into, and asking for certain information, so systems are up and running on day one,” the execs wrote.\u00a0“Then one week before start day, the hiring manager might write to voice enthusiasm once more at the person\u2019s joining the team.”<\/p>\n Chait and Stross also wrote\u00a0the goal isn’t “to load up the new employee with tasks or any sense of pressure,” but to reinforce that the hire\u00a0is valued.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gretchen Alarcon, vice president and general manager of HR Service Delivery\u00a0business unit\u00a0at\u00a0ServiceNow, said she was\u00a0able to get several tasks done with early onboarding in her current role after leaving Oracle last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n “That preboarding content where\u00a0I could see the process I was going through made me feel more confident going into my new job,” Alarcon said.\u00a0<\/p>\nVirtual quirks and perks<\/h2>\n
Make sure it’s not all about business<\/h2>\n
Onboard\u00a0early, send\u00a0equipment before the first day\u00a0<\/h2>\n