Are You Overcomplicating Remote Employee Onboarding?

The lack of in-person interactions, asynchronous communication, and time zone differences that come with remote work can make onboarding new employees seem like mission impossible. So, in an effort to get ahead of these challenges, you devise a 20-stage remote onboarding program that's definitely going to work.

You have procedures, you've documented just about anything there is to document, scheduled check-ins, assigned buddies, lined up training sessions. Besides being a lot of preparation on your side, it's also a lot for a fresh employee to go through in the first few weeks on a new job.

But it's going to pay off, right? Right?

The recommendations vs the stats

At the point when your company went hybrid or fully remote, you've had to find a way to transition from traditional to remote onboarding. If you're like most people, you turned to Google for inspiration and guidance.

You've read all about the importance of documentation. Document policies, values, mission. Give them an overview of teams and departments. Send them the employee handbook. Get IT to give them software training.

Invest in online training videos, schedule out their one-on-one meetings, have a group meet and greet. And, a personal favorite, build in spontaneity because random conversations happen only in person (not true, by the way).

The thing is, even if you went above and beyond and implemented all the top recommendations, it's not a guarantee of a successful remote onboarding program. In fact, a survey has shown that 63% of remote workers feel undertrained, 60% were disoriented, and 36% found their onboarding confusing.

When it comes to employers, as much as 58% admit their onboarding focuses on processes and documentation. As a matter of fact, the average onboarding process consists of 54 steps, only 10 of which aren't administrative.

What this shows is that more steps, documentation, and meetings don’t translate to better outcomes. What does is helping new hires understand their role, feel welcomed, and have the resources they need to succeed.

Signs you're overcomplicating remote onboarding

1. Sending everything, all at once

Bombarding new hires with documents, links, and resources leads to information overload. If you're sending a massive PDF onboarding packet containing policies, training manuals, and company guides in one go, it's difficult to see what the priority is. Your new hires won't know where to start, resulting in frustration and feeling overwhelmed.

2. Setting up rigid schedules

Remember how we mentioned online recommendations for your remote onboarding program? Well, one of them is to set a clear schedule that looks something like this:

We'll talk about the four hours of meetings a bit later. The current focus is on the fact that this is a pretty strict, inflexible timeline that doesn't take the individual employee into account. Even the breaks are scheduled, not to mention a team meet and greet, then also a virtual team lunch a bit later in the day.

Although the idea behind it is clearly creating a sense of comfort and belonging, the rigidity of social interactions on schedule can have the opposite effect. By forcing social interactions, what you're creating is more pressure in addition to that of adjusting to a new role. Your new hire can't acclimate to the team at their own pace if all their interactions are strictly scheduled.

3. Scheduling too many meetings

Speaking of scheduled, meetings shouldn't take up half of an entire workday. Besides reducing the time for actual work, meeting overload results in feeling drained, rather than excited about a new job.

You don't need daily stand-ups to discuss progress if they haven't had enough time to accomplish tasks. You also don't need introductory meetings with every single person or department in the company.

4. Trying to emulate the office setting

The last, and the biggest problem remote onboarding programs have is trying to recreate an office environment in a remote context. Contrary to what online recommendations would like you to believe, you can't build in spontaneity.

Setting up back-to-back meetings to replicate in-person collaboration is the complete opposite of spontaneous. Coordinating team lunches across timezones to mimic an in-office lunch break beats the entire purpose of a break.

Even if your employees were in a traditional office setting, they wouldn't be taking lunch with the entire team. They'd be doing it with the people they've naturally formed connections with.

When you're trying to recreate in-person interactions by scheduling them in, you're removing all the flexibility of remote and traditional work at the same time. As a result, employees feel constantly "on", which can bring a burnout vibe into your company.

How to simplify remote onboarding

1. Focus on the essentials

The best way to keep a new employee from feeling overwhelmed is to take things step by step. Instead of sending them a host of documents regardless of whether or not they'll need them, focus on those that impact their daily work.

Identify the most important knowledge they need to succeed in their new role. Keep only the information that is relevant to their position.

2. Centralize information

Adjusting to a new role is hard enough without the added stress of needing to search through email, project management platform, and Slack to find the resources sent to you two days ago. Once accessible location beats scattering onboarding materials across all communication channels.

It doesn't have to be a fancy learning management system either. Things like Google Drive, Dropbox, and other cloud storage systems work just fine for keeping it all in one place.

3. Be flexible

Each of your new hires comes with varying experiences and learning preferences. That's why one-size-fits-all isn't a thing in remote onboarding.

If a new hire is already familiar with certain tools you use, making them go through a training session makes no sense. It's a waste of time and takes focus away from areas where they feel they need more support.

Speaking of support, some hires require more than others. Some will prefer to figure most things out on their own, while others will need more guidance. The key here is to understand each new hire has their own pace of learning. Instead of insisting on a rigid timeline, support them in their progress through check-ins.

4. Use the right tools

When you're doing work remotely, the IT department (or any other department, for that matter) isn't exactly around the corner. That's why you need to be more picky with the tools you use.

Intuitive and easy to use is the way to go. You'll need a project management tool, document software, and a communications platform. The easier they all are to use, the quicker your remote employee onboarding goes because they won't need extensive training on software.

Simplicity is the way to go

You know what employees stated as one of the things that would improve the remote onboarding process? Keeping it simple.

The reality is, new employees don't have to know everything all at once. They need clear, manageable steps that help them succeed in their new roles.