If you are anything like us, you love a good checklist. Is there anything more satisfying than checking your way to success with little color-coded boxes? Before checklists, planes fell from the skies because someone forgot to refuel. Before checklists, surgeons took out the wrong kidney. A checklist has the power to tame complexity, demolish assumptions, and excrete toxic masculinity from the decision-making process. Checklists make sure that all the right things get done in the right order. They outlast the people who use them. A virtual onboarding checklist helps you onboard remote new hires quickly and effectively, ensuring a great first day and a productive, engaged workforce.
The Benefits of a Virtual Onboarding Checklist
Your virtual onboarding checklist will help make sure that your onboarding process is error-free and seamless. Your checklist should be a living, breathing document in whatever form you love best. It should live its best life online, accessible to the onboarding team.
A mature virtual onboarding checklist outlines:
- What action kicks off the process and what action completes it.
- What to do–every step of the process from beginning to end should be explicitly outlined.
- When to do it.
- Who’s responsible for each action.
- What to do and whom to contact if things don’t go to plan.
- What’s already been done and what’s yet to do. You’ll always know where you are in the process.
A great onboarding experience will support and impress your new hire, giving them the tools, confidence, and information they need to get started happily and effectively. This means:
- Improved employee retention. When your new person knows a lot of thought and care has gone into making sure they feel welcome and have everything they need for the job, they’ll feel valued.
- Increased productivity: Providing the tools they need at the right time ensures they are up and running quickly.
- Maintained or increased quality for your recruitment, retention, and data security activities.
It benefits you to map out an automated new hire onboarding checklist, but, before you set up your checklist, you’ll need to make friends with your HR buddies. They’ll be a source of the vital information you’ll need to set up your checklist and you’ll be talking to them throughout the onboarding process.
From your discussions, you’ll be able to map out:
- Onboarding scheduling: What time frames you’ll need to onboard successfully and at what stage of recruitment HR will notify you to stand by for boarders.
- Which job roles need access to which online resources, cloud accounts, data, and files.
- Which devices and OS new hires will work from: Corporate-owned, personal, Microsoft, MacOS, etc. Some could be role-dependent, which just adds to the fun.
- When and how new hires will access and complete self-service onboarding, e.g., legal forms, organizational charts, 404 documents, company handbook and policies, vacation request forms, next of kin, etc.
- How and when they’ll need access to training, team collaboration tools, work buddies, and online orientation.
- When to set up cloud accounts: Some of those bad boys make you pay from setup day rather than wait until the new hire arrives.
A Little Note on Mobile Device Management…
Time for those three little words–mobile device management (MDM). If you don’t have MDM, you might as well set fire to your checklist. MDM doesn’t just automate virtual onboarding, saving you time, money, and your sanity; it’s the magic behind the first day wow factor, enabling you to get your new person up and running in about 20 minutes. And, of course, it doubles down on security.
Your Virtual Onboarding Checklist
Checklist Part 1: Pre-Boarding Information Gathering
Donna in HR tells you that Romina, a senior software engineer, is joining the DevOps team in four weeks. According to your super-cool, role-based provisioning check sheet, Romina will need:
- A brand-spanking-new corporate-owned Windows Surface delivered to her Chicago address on her start date.
- Access to the corporate intranet, online employee self-service portal, and senior manager access to the online HR management channel.
- Access to her team channel on Slack, Figma, GitHub, and the team channel on your enterprise app WhatTheHeckDidWeJustBuild™ as well as a dozen other cool cloud apps.
- A welcome basket of gluten-free cinnamon cookies. Not part of your job, but still fun!
Checklist Part 2: Do This Now
Here’s where you’re organizing what hardware, software, and accounts Romina needs and scheduling when you’ll get her the stuff/open her accounts. It might look something like this:
- Ascertain new hire’s role and access privileges.
- Are you provisioning a new or existing computer? Contact the Surface supplier, your laptop logistics team, or IT purchasing team.
- Schedule provisioning and/or delivery arrangements and who does it.
- Schedule Microsoft 365/Azure account creation two weeks before the start date.
- Schedule all other account onboarding five days before the start date.
- Check which accounts need background checks (like GitHub) and what extra licenses you’ll need.
- Perform background checks for accounts that need them. If failed, refer to HR/new hire manager.
- Create a corporate employee username, profile, and account for new hire.
Checklist Part 3: Do This Two Weeks Before
Here’s where you set up the meaty stuff:
- Onboard new hire to Microsoft 365/Azure (or whatever you use)
- Create user
- Assign license to user
- Assign user to All Employees group
- Assign user to Manager group
- Assign user to Dev Ops group
- Schedule welcome emails to new hire for 9 a.m on start day.
- Double check provisioning and/or new device delivery date.
Checklist Part 4: Do This Five Days Before
Here’s where you set up the cloud accounts, security, and anything else valid for your new hire:
- Figma, Slack, GitHub, and other cloud accounts: Invite new hire.
- Schedule HR/Corporate welcome emails.
Checklist Part 5: Do This on Start Day
Here’s where you confirm that your new hire has received her new device, has successfully and securely onboarded herself, and is activating her accounts.
- Is the new (or provisioned) device onboarded and secured?
- Are accounts confirmed by the new hire?
- Is onboarding completed? Can you relax now? No, because you’ll be enjoying post-onboarding aftercare duties, but that’s another story.
Ignition Makes Virtual Onboarding Checklists Fun
Our fake virtual onboarding checklist is on the simplistic side, but don’t let the thought of a gazillion bullet points unsettle you. Virtual onboarding checklists make your life simpler and your head clearer, but one checklist does not fit all. If you’d like us to help put yours together (or just do it for you!), we’re here to 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!