Employee onboarding checklists can help you make remote employees feel comfortable and informed. They are a fantastic tool for introducing your recruit to the ways of the company. It can also help them get to know the company culture.

Remote hiring is becoming more and more popular these days. It can lower your overhead costs as people work from home. It can also dramatically widen your talent pool by opening up the role to people who live anywhere. It does usually help if they are in a similar time zone to you, however. So, how can you ensure that remote employees have a fantastic onboarding experience? With an employee onboarding checklist.

What Is Employee Onboarding

Let’s start by describing employee onboarding. Employee onboarding is the process through which a new employee learns about the company. This must still be done for remote employees too. Distilling everything they need to know down into one document can be a challenge. However, it can be done with the help of an employee onboarding checklist.

From job offer through to high productivity, how can you as the human resources representative help a recruit get there? By creating a wonderful employee onboarding checklist for hiring managers to work through.

As the HR professionals or hiring manager of a remote employee, onboarding new employees is your job. Having a fantastic onboarding program can help them to settle quickly into the company and become productive faster.

Great onboarding can result in:

• Higher employee retention rates

• More job satisfaction amongst staff

• Better performance

• More organizational commitment

Employee Onboarding Checklist – Step-by-step

So, you’ve decided who’s got the job and you’ve told them and given them an offer letter - what next? Just follow the below checklist to tick off all things you need to do to get the formal onboarding process right.

Before They Start

Email the Employee

Welcome the employee to your organization and let them know what time and date they are expected to start. Explain to them what they will need to start working on the first day. This can reduce much of the stress of those first-day jitters. Remind them to send through anything you need them to and let them know the name and number of their contact person. This may be you as their hiring manager or HR person.

Prepare Their Tools

It’s essential to ensure that the recruit has everything they need before they start, and this is no different when they are working remotely. It may even be more important as they won’t have anyone next to them there to help them get their software working. Make sure they have everything they need at home. This may include a computer, mouse, software, IT login, and more.

Day 1

WelcomeEither their hiring manager or HR contact set up a videoconference meeting to welcome the new employee at their start time. This may be you or someone else. It’s great if you can do this 1 on 1 and include them in a virtual team meeting later in the day. That way, you can explain everything they need to know to start working and they can meet their team members later on.Set Up Desk

Hopefully, you did the work earlier of getting the person everything they need for their role. It’s still important to help them set up their computer and other tools on the day. Set up a time later in the day to see how they went with their logins and software. This ensures that they have someone to ask if all does not go smoothly.

Paperwork

There is likely to be some paperwork to be done on the first day. They should have already signed and returned their contract, however, there are other essential documents to go over. These may include details of your internal policies, code of conduct, security, employee handbook, and more. Make sure to run them through your benefits packages as well, so they can start taking advantage of this as soon as possible.

1st Week

Meet with Key Team Members

The employee needs to know what the different departments around the organization do. By meeting virtually with someone from each department, they can gain a fuller understanding of the company. Make sure that you include the HR team in this.

Regular MeetingsWith remote employees, it is even more important that you have regular meetings with them. That’s because they don’t have anyone next to them to ask if they aren’t sure about something. By having regular meetings with them, they will have the chance to ask you any questions.TrainingBy the end of the first week, you should have organized any training they require for the role. This might be software training, HR training, or anything else they need.Tools

Check-in with the employee to ask whether they have all the tools they need for the role. Especially if you don’t usually hire remote employees, you may be unaware of barriers for them to do their work. If you can make this any easier for them, you should.

1st Month

ProgressBy the end of the first month, they should have had a progress review with the hiring manager to find out how their performance is tracking. This is vital to do with remote employees because they have different needs than your other staff. It’s a chance to check-in and see how they are going as well as offer feedback.