If you’re setting your people free to roam in the wilds of their home offices or you’re hiring 343.56 new people because reasons, you might be feeling angsty and sensitive. That’s because onboarding people remotely is quite a job. So how about we take the emo out of remote onboarding with our top tips for doing it effectively?
Let’s get started, as none of us are getting any younger.
What Does Effective Remote Onboarding Mean, Anyway?
Effective remote onboarding means:
- Your new people have a great first day because they’re guided through a frustration-free and spectacularly impressive onboarding procedure. This will make them feel super-loved and valuable and give them a shiny first impression of you that won’t fade.
- People become productive and feel part of the team quickly: they’ll have almost immediate access to all the tools, apps, and workflows they need to understand their role and connect with their colleagues.
- No one gets hacked on their first day and no corporate data disappears, even if your newbie does.
- Everything that can be automated is automated, reducing human error and getting stuff done super fast.
- Nothing goes horribly wrong, so no time or tears are wasted on fixing it. Save your tears for later.
Now that’s over, take a nibble at these tasty tips for effective remote onboarding.
Tip 1: Work With HR
It’s time to cuddle up with your HR person or people (not literally, as that’s misconduct right there) because remote onboarding isn’t just about IT. How you and HR work together will dictate the effectiveness of your remote onboarding. They’ll have the information that you need to design a super-effective, streamlined onboarding process that will make you look oh-so-worth-your-salary.
- Access to employee self-service modules, e.g., for employee benefits and vacation booking.
- Employee workflows.
- Which platforms you’ll need. Whether HR is offering Choose Your Own Device or BYOD, you’ll need to be prepared.
Atop your Cuddle Up With HR To Do List should be role provisioning. Who needs access to Slack, Dropbox, or that other thing? What level of access to corporate data does each role require? What files can be shared (or not)? Excite and bewitch your HR colleagues with the alluring principle of least privilege, AKA “People can only have access to the stuff they need to do their job.”
Tip 2: Join the Church of the Holy Checklist
Checklists make everything better. A mature onboarding checklist is a thing of beauty because it’s the process of onboarding codified. It maps out your onboarding pipeline – how your new person travels through the onboarding process. This means you’ve thought about the who, what, where, when, and how of onboarding and actually written it down. Your checklist contains everything you need to do and when to do it. It’ll also have a mechanism for checking off when stuff is done and by whom. And, if you’re squished by a stampede of rogue trash pandas tomorrow, your checklist will make sense to your successor.
A comprehensive onboarding checklist contains delights such as:
- Guides for creating and configuring accounts for each SaaS application the new hire will need.
- Platform requirements.
- Device types required, shipping dates, and delivery addresses.
- Scheduling pre-start date account creation for Microsoft 365 and Google.
- Background checks for apps that require it.
- Assigning the new person to groups, e.g., on Azure.
- Scheduling invitations for the new person to join things like Expensify and Figma.
Tip 3: Get Mobile Device Management
If you don’t have mobile device management (MDM) yet then you need to take a long, hard look at yourself. That’s because MDM is your shiniest, bestest tool for making remote onboarding not just effective, but easy. MDM does a ton of stuff, but what makes IT folk drool most is its capability to enroll devices and people quickly and effectively. Here’s why you need it:
It’s Platform-Agnostic
MDM gives you the flexibility to remotely onboard all flavors of device – OS, Android, Windows, Whatever – within your fleet. This means your people will have the device that’s right for the job, and you’ll still have the will to live.
It Loves BYOB
MDM won’t let your newbie’s personal device in the club unless it conforms to your corporate data security standards. But it helps make that happen. On day one, your new person will be guided through all the things they need to do (e.g., update their OS) to become compliant. Through the magic of mobile application management, they’ll be authorized to access corporate files and data, and they’ll be reassured that their private stuff, e.g., the first draft of their Great American Novel, won’t be read and ridiculed by your horrific sales team.
It Saves You Time and Tantrums
The miracle that is zero-touch onboarding eliminates hours of time spent unboxing, securing, provisioning, re-boxing, and sending new devices to new hires. Instead, your new device flies fresh from the Apple farm to your new person, who boots it up and follows the super-easy instructions to gain secure access to everything they need. Sprinkle it with the fairy dust of cloud single sign on, and they just need one password to use the catalog of apps assigned to them. Ta-da!
Remote Onboarding Doesn’t Have to Make You Cry
Welcoming new people to your awesome company should be a joy. It isn’t, but it should be. Effective remote onboarding can be your catalyst to a happy first day, so why not give it a whirl? P.S. We can help.
Ignition is Silicon Valley’s best (and friendliest) IT security, compliance, and support team. Call us now–chatting about IT support and cybersecurity is our favorite thing to do!