The number of remote workers has increased significantly over the last decade, especially after the pandemic.

The number of remote workers has increased significantly since they were formerly the exception.

There has been a change in how businesses onboard new employees due to a growing number of people working remotely. It’s time to change onboarding and be people-focused because efficient onboarding increases employee loyalty. Many workers believe organizations don’t do an excellent job with it or place too much emphasis on paperwork.

Without project onboarding, your groundwork will be fragile, increasing the likelihood that the project won’t be completed on schedule, within budget, or according to the original project scope.

Let’s start by defining the concept of project onboarding.

What is project onboarding?

Collecting the resources and personnel required to launch a new project and ensuring that all parties adhering to the project’s timetable, budget, and objectives are known as project onboarding. An effective project onboarding procedure ensures that everyone on the team understands the roadmap and the roles, which lowers the risk of the project.

On the contrary, remote project onboarding can make the process more complex and make it difficult for project managers, in particular, to delegate work or adopt new technologies. Some entrepreneurs hire a renowned business consultant to help cope with the complexities of this process. To simplify the remote onboarding process, it is crucial to include several onboarding tasks that the project team can quickly do.

Issues with boarding distant workers

The onboarding process for remote employees will appear significantly different from that for employees who are there in person, in a good way.

When working with internationals, A good tip for better employee engagement here is to employ a professional human translation service.

Remote workers engage with their team members via emails and video conferencing, which can be exhausting, as opposed to in-person employees who have an actual workspace to settle into and several introductions and meetings on their first day.

Onboarding remote workers may become challenging as a result. Before we examine practical approaches, we must comprehend the three primary issues new remote workers frequently encounter during the onboarding process.

• Communication problems

Communication problems can negatively impact a new hire’s onboarding process, and remote workers have the additional challenge of adjusting to the absence of nonverbal communication indicators that comes with remote onboarding.

When speaking in person, we use facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice to infer meaning from the words we receive, but doing so online is more challenging.

Without these indicators, a person reading a written message may be more influenced by their emotions and mental state than they would be if they were reading it in person.

• Feeling social isolation

The primary issue that many people experience while starting a new remote job is social isolation.

When working in an office setting, employees can readily introduce themselves to new coworkers by coming up to their workstations, whereas in an online environment, it takes more work.

A minute or two of small conversation may be present during regularly scheduled video calls, but not nearly as much as you would converse with coworkers over lunch or over a cup of coffee. As a result, it is far more challenging for new remote workers to make friends at work, which can cause them to feel socially isolated.

• Flood of information

Working for a new employer, starting a new job, and getting to know new coworkers are all enormous challenges.

In every new position, there will be a period of adjustment, but giving a new employee too much information at once can make them feel uneasy and confused.

Employees may feel saturated with information if the onboarding process doesn’t adequately take into consideration all a new job entails. This can impede their ability to shift into a new role without difficulty.

Why is there a need for onboarding software?

It can be difficult to onboard distant staff for important projects. Things might quickly become complicated if you don’t make a detailed plan.

For this reason, every project manager needs a remote onboarding strategy that was established using the appropriate project onboarding software. You can intervene and modify your remote employee onboarding form to fit the capabilities of your team.

In addition, project onboarding software will simplify the process if applied with workflow automation software. These two will ease the assignment of tasks and communication issues, and keep track of project timelines and team availability.

3 suggestions for remote onboarding of new employees

• Establish a sense of community

Many new remote workers experienced imposter syndrome. They feel alone and as if they didn’t know who to ask for advice, clarification, or just to check-in.

You can promote teamwork among new hires to finish the tasks after adding all new employees to a collaborative hub channel that provides new hire learning materials. Although we love Asana, we advise adopting an Asana alternative for team chat and cross-project overview options.

Assign a mentor to serve as their orientation buddy so they can grow and learn alongside one another. Buddy programs actually improve new hire competency.

• Encourage personal and professional progress right away

More training for the workplace is sought after by the majority of remote workers. 

Give new workers the chance to take advantage of online learning resources during or after orientation and compensation for personal or professional growth of their choice. Some of the initiatives you can take include creating a useful virtual events checklist, sending out emails with important training or seminars, and more.

• Devote time to play around

The company’s messaging system, employee handbook, email, and several other things are typically presented to new workers on their first day.

As crucial as it is to have a systematic onboarding process, it’s equally crucial to allocate time for an employee to explore these new platforms and become comfortable with the work and past conversations that have been done on them.

For new hires, watching work in progress is beneficial. This encompasses anything from how documents are routinely formatted to how teams regularly communicate in social channels. 

There are many free-of-charge, open-source data visualization tools that you can use to make complex data and information seem easier to your remote staff.

When the procedure is finished, this tactic can be incredibly beneficial in ensuring that your new employee feels confident starting their task.

Last Thoughts

Do not hurry to complete your project onboarding when it comes time to get your remote team ready for a new project. By putting these suggestions into practice and concentrating on typical issues, you may boost team productivity and effectively complete projects.

Employees will move through the engagement funnel more quickly once the onboarding process is complete since they are aware of their responsibilities and how they can help other team members.