Shifting to Remote Onboarding of Engineers

With millions of tech businesses working in all-remote mode for the first time, companies are confronted with a new challenge--onboarding new employees without a physical office for the company or the employee.“For some industries, hiring is absolutely essential right now,” Doodle CEO Renato Profico wrote in Fast Company. “Virtual recruiting and onboarding is a new way forward.” Even companies that are not hiring will likely face this remote onboarding challenge, as a Gartner report says that most CFOs plan to make many positions permanently remote post-COVID-19.So, how do you onboard new engineers when they can’t come to an office?We took a detailed look at how to onboard remote engineers in this webinar, “Thriving in the New Normal: Best Practices for Onboarding Remote Engineers,” recorded April 23rd, with Liz Ojukwu, Engineering Manager at InVision and Andela VP of Partner of Engineering Wambui Kinya.Onboarding is not OrientationAccording to a report from Kronos and The Human Capital Group, “Onboarding is critically important but fundamentally broken — Some 76 percent of HR leaders say onboarding practices are underutilized in their organization.”For many businesses, onboarding is better described as orientation. It involves enrolling in benefits programs and training on company policies through an online employee handbook. This is often done in a self-service manner that leaves new employees on their own when it comes to figuring out how to do their jobs. This “sink or swim” approach that asks employees to fend for themselves risks leaving new hires frustrated and isolated--especially in a home office.Structure Brings Retention and FlexibilityA more structured approach to onboarding is associated with higher employee retention and productivity, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM):

• 69 percent of employees are more likely to stay with a company for three years if they experienced great onboarding
• New employees who went through a structured onboarding program were 58 percent more likely to be with the organization after three years
• Organizations with a standard onboarding process experience 50 percent greater new-hire productivity

Get On BoardGood onboarding for remote engineers builds and connects teams. Think about the word, “onboarding.” It means helping people “get on board” with an organization, not just by getting an ID and a computer but by engaging them in the organization’s mission. This isn’t only a matter of getting the right information into new employees’ hands. It is a matter of deeply integrating them with the company, product, and team, including inspiring them to jump onboard your team’s best practices for development.Learn more about how to do this remotely in the recorded webinar.