Remote Onboarding: How To Ensure Your New Hires Can Ramp Up Quickly

What are the benefits of remote onboarding? Why am I having so many problems with my remote onboarding process? What are remote onboarding best practices for new hires?

These are some common questions small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are asking about implementing remote onboarding into their hiring practices.

The idea of remote onboarding is simple enough: use digital tools to assist in getting your new, remote hires familiar with your organization, its people, technology, policies, practices, and culture so that they feel welcomed and well positioned to hit the ground running.

The process is meant to ramp up staff who will be working remotely or in a hybrid role. Unlike traditional onboarding, the entire process is done virtually.

Since more people are working from home or in a hybrid capacity, many companies are embracing remote onboarding. Although remote work has its advantages, the digital onboarding process is more challenging than in-person onboarding, often leading to confusion, frustration, and productivity loss.

After reading this article, you will learn practical steps to streamline your remote onboarding process and ways to overcome common remote onboarding challenges for small businesses.

Essential Guideline For Seamless Remote Onboarding

Let’s be real: starting a new job is stressful. New hires are hit with a lot of information and tasks at once, including: filling out required forms, understanding their role within the organization, and adapting to new technology and systems.

By developing a remote onboarding plan ahead of time, you can ensure a smooth and efficient onboarding experience to allow your newest employees to quickly get up to speed.

8 Best practices for remote onboarding:

• Have a documented process in place outlining what needs to be set up so that every onboarding is consistent.
• If equipment is being shipped to a new hire, using some kind of mobile device management (MDM) tool can allow for apps to be auto-loaded onto a personal computer and save significant time setting up the remote workstation.
• Make sure you have already provided remote staff with any equipment they may need to do their job, including a laptop, docking station, monitor, mouse, keyboard, headset, mobile phone, or other device.
• Establish a secure way for your remote user to connect to your internal network such as VPN or RDS encryption.
• In case the user runs into a problem using the device at home, make sure you have a pre-established plan of action or a way to remotely troubleshoot this device.
• Provide a checklist and clear setup instructions for the new user to refer to once they receive their equipment.
• I highly recommend that you include a training video or printed tutorials for remote workers. Your videos don’t have to be stiff and formal. They can be an informative yet fun way to welcome new staff to your team.
• Providing a company “mentor” is a useful best practice for walking new hires through how to access their equipment and making sure they understand what is needed.

What Are The Most Common Remote Onboarding Problems?

Now that you know what steps to take to successfully onboard your remote hires, it’s equally important to know what common mistakes to avoid to keep them from stumbling out of the gate.

While businesses may be well-intentioned in trying to make the transition for their new staff as smooth as possible, a lack of planning will often cause avoidable problems.

3 remote onboarding mistakes to avoid:

1. Not having a thoroughly documented onboarding process is the number one cause for issues with remote set ups.

Without a detailed checklist, it’s possible that certain necessary steps get missed. Make sure your IT department has a clear understanding of any applications, printers, file shares, and other systems a new hire will need access to, depending on their role and responsibilities.

2. Lack of communication between the organization and the new hire.

The most important part of setting up any new hire is communication. All team members involved in getting the new staffer ready for day one should be in regular communication, which generally includes the hiring manager, a trainer or “mentor,” and the new hire.

The new employee also needs a direct point of contact they can reach out to for any technical issues that come up. 

3. New hires not understanding how to use their equipment or login.

All new employees should be given clear and concise instructions along with training. Since these employees are not in the office, giving instructions over the phone or in an email can raise more questions than they answer.

Providing a mentor along with training or videos to show the basics of “how to get started in your new job” are simple and cost-effective ways to ensure new hires feel confident they have all the resources they need to effectively do their jobs.

What Security Controls Help Keep My IT Network Safe With Remote Staff? 

Cyber criminals are always on the prowl for unsuspecting users they can take advantage of to gain a foothold into your IT infrastructure.

According to most estimates, human error is responsible for 95% of all cyber attacks. Untrained employees account for about one-third of phishing scams, which trick users into taking some action that could expose sensitive business information.

That’s why I highly recommend that you put cybersecurity controls in place to protect your data, devices, and systems from a ransomware attack or other cyber incident that could result in a significant hit to your finances, reputation, and business operations.

Establishing robust security measures will ensure secure onboarding for remote employees. 

Basic security controls you should use in remote onboarding:

• Have a secure way to access your organization’s internal network setup. (example: a VPN to encrypt data shared across your network) 
• Use passkeys or security keys (also known as security tokens) for application access and greater network security. 
• Implement multi-factor authentication MFA (timed passcodes) to require staff to use more than one type of login verification to help prevent cyber incidents at the user end.
• Invest in a training service to offer employee security awareness training to provide new hires (and existing staff) valuable information on cyber threats and how to recognize the latest schemes.  

Related Article: Why Employee Security Awareness Training Helps Prevent Cyber Incidents

What’s The Bottom Line On Remote Onboarding?

After reading this article, you now understand why thoughtful planning of the remote onboarding process is essential to establishing a positive working relationship with your new hires right from the start.

We’ve given you a roadmap on how to onboard your remote staff and minimize problems. No matter how much you plan and prepare, however, surprises can still happen. Be sure to have the processes and tools we’ve outlined in this article in place to ensure that your remote onboarding process is as seamless as possible.

Doing so will allow your new hires to ramp up quickly and maintain continuity to keep your business running efficiently.

If you’re considering managed IT support to assist with your remote onboarding process, learn what’s included and what’s not included. Or, find out about some of the advanced security software using AI that can help safeguard your network.

If you are thinking about hiring a managed IT services provider (MSP), we encourage you to research your options. In fact, we are so serious about this, that we’ve saved you a step by doing some of the legwork for you. Check out this article comparing Kelser to one of our competitors, Cooperative Systems. You can find other comparisons in our Learning Center.

Or, if you prefer to talk with a person, click on the button below, fill out the simple form and one of our IT experts will reach out to discuss your concerns and see if we might be a good fit to work with.