​Onboarding a new employee is an imperative process that sets the tone for that person’s engagement with your company, team and brand. As HR and Talent specialists, we constantly highlight this process as one of the most critical steps towards ensuring a new employee has a positive introduction to your business, becoming “part of the team” as soon as possible. 

Of course, you want them to feel welcome through meeting all the key stakeholders within and around the business, knowing where to find everything – be that in the physical office or document library – plus a clear understanding of company expectations and WHS policies.  When we think onboarding, imagine a 90-day plan; which in 2020 is now a 60-day plan!

But when you’re remote … how do we achieve this?

I’ve been working remotely for a couple of weeks now.  Last Friday, I had a colleague who was actually in the office filming the experience of walking in, past our meeting rooms, communal areas and then onto our open floor working space. The reason for this? Because with everything that’s happening right now, I know we may need to recruit people on a casual, contract or permanent basis in the near future. What I don’t know is if we’ll be working remotely when we have to do this or not? Thus, we need to reconceptualise our virtual onboarding process, I know of some clients who are already adapting.

OnTalent has a deeply committed pool of contractors and an ecosystem of consultants located throughout Australia, from Far North Queensland to the Apple Isle of Tasmania.  All of our staff are used to multi-site scheduling and we are well-practiced in remote training and professional engagement. However, for those employees that would normally be located in our offices, we are having to think differently. 

How can our experience assist you? Well, we don’t exactly know how long our team will be remote and when we will return to our head office in the Brisbane CBD, however, what we do understand is the need to plan and continually adapt during these uniquely unsettling times.

1. Record a walkthrough of your office/site:  If you do have anyone still on-site or in your office, ask them to record a quick video walkthrough of the location on their phone or office camera. Subsequently, this can be edited and shared with potential employees at the short-listing stage or added to your website. Everyone likes to know what their potential environment looks like.
2. Ensure you know which video conferencing tool IT recommends for interviews:  We regularly interview candidates that are intrastate, interstate and overseas. We’ve found Zoom is a great tool for us as it allows for multiple people to be online, the ability to record the conversation and can be performed on a computer or phone. I’ve even conducted first-round panel interviews with a board and an international candidate via Zoom. I wish I bought shares in their early days!
3. Virtual OnBoarding:  With your HR team, plan the best way to do this. If you are looking for some tips or support, we have created bespoke online onboarding programs that include one-on-one conversations for all relevant stakeholders.  For us, this is similar to a leadership development program which we run for an organisation, except the development is welcoming the participant to their new job with a supporting focus on their 60-day plan.

The new BAU is unknown, I think we’re all grappling with the concept of normality in this storm. What I do know is that the way we work is indeed evolving quickly, ultimately, I’m hoping that the positives will far out way the negatives. Once the storm has passed…

Be Safe, Be kind, Be Connected.