More and more businesses have started realizing the benefits of remote work, including increased productivity, decreased employee turnover rate, and reduced absenteeism. These benefits have made hiring remote software developers a significant preference.
However, the needs of remote working engineers are different from those of office workers, and this applies to their onboarding process as well.
Here are ten ways you can make your remote onboarding program successful:
Maintain equal prioritization of software developers working in-office and remotely
Onboarding remote and on-site employees together is a challenging task. Ensuring that all new software developers feel comfortable and sufficiently welcomed to participate and ask questions is essential. Create an inclusive environment where everyone can see the onboarding presentation and hear what the presenter and other participants say. Place microphones and cameras to cover the entire space to make sure that everyone can learn effectively.
Eliminate stress with a structured approach
Provide the new hires with information to help them understand their role and how they can be successful.
Talk about their potential career path. Let them know what resources you provide that can help them grow.
Have a conversation about how high-level decisions are made within the company.
Host get-to-know-you sessions
Onboarding is not only about sharing information about the company. It’s also about getting to know each other. During your onboarding program, you can conduct random breakout sessions to give your remote employees the chance to talk to their coworkers and build relationships.
Make your onboarding process fun!
A presentation format can become monotonous quickly; however, you can’t afford to let your software developers get distracted while you’re sharing important information. To ensure your new hires don’t burn out with too much information, you can make your onboarding program fun by gamifying a few sessions with trivia and more.
Encourage new hires to participate
While providing information about your organization is essential, you also need to encourage software developers to ask questions. However, new hires are more guarded during this phase and may not feel very comfortable doing so. Hiring remote working software developers comes with the added challenge of being proactive and constantly encouraging them to participate. For example, you can set Q&A sessions where people can vocalize queries they may have had during the presentation.
Play some music!
It is a struggle to keep your energy up during hours of presentations. You can play some music during your session breaks to help your remote-working employees feel refreshed. This way, they are ready to focus when the session starts again. At Turing, we encourage employees to add their favorite regional music to a Spotify playlist. This practice helps everyone realize the diversity of the team and feel more connected.
Cater lunch
New hires feel special when the company goes out of its way to show them how much they care. You can arrange to deliver lunch to your remote employees. If that seems like too much of a hassle, you can let them enjoy a free lunch of their choice and cover the cost. This small touch will encourage them to feel even more connected to the company during the second half of the presentation.
Host happy hour
While the get-to-know sessions can help participants engage with their coworkers, you can’t host these sessions for long. You can arrange for an informal after-work meeting to conduct games, ice-breaker sessions, or simply get a cup of coffee and talk to your coworkers.
Create an accessible resource library
During the onboarding sessions, the information you share will be pretty extensive, especially for software developers unfamiliar with the company. As a result, it can be difficult for them to retain and recall everything necessary. You may find it helpful to create a resource library with vital information and documents and share it with your new hires. Such a library will make it easier for them to look for information when they need it without asking others about it.
Make it memorable
Regardless of where the software developers reside, you can always do something to make their onboarding program memorable. Sharing company-swag like t-shirts and coffee mugs or putting together a ‘welcome to the company’ kit, including branded stickers, diaries, and more, can be an excellent way to get started.
Summary
Creating a welcoming remote employee onboarding experience is essential to ensure you set your software developers up for success from day one.
Therefore, while hiring remote software developers, it’s vital to create a clearly defined onboarding process. This process helps them gain a better understanding of their responsibilities and makes them feel valued.
If you’d like to know more about how you can make your onboarding process successful, you can read the complete article here.
But before working on creating an excellent onboarding process, you need to find and hire skilled and experienced software developers. If you’re looking to hire remote developers for your team, Turing can help.
Turing’s automated platform lets companies “push a button” to hire senior, pre-vetted remote software developers. Access a talent pool of the top 1% of 1M+ developers with strong technical and communication skills who work in your time zone. There’s no risk.
Turing offers a free two-week trial period to make sure your developers deliver to your standards.
For more information, visit Turing’s Hire page.
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Jaya is a copywriter & content writer & has worked for businesses in over 27 different niches. When she’s not writing, she can be found obsessing over a book.
