Recruiting employees and having a smooth onboarding process can be quite challenging, especially when you are doing it remotely. The onboarding process is, no doubt, crucial for businesses’ growth. The following stats are proof of that:

  1. If you provide a great onboarding experience, 69% of employees are likely to stay with you for at least 3 years.
  2. By having a well-structured onboarding process, 58% of your employees are likely to stay with you for more than 3 years.
  3. Businesses that offer a good onboarding experience tend to see 50% more productivity amongst new employees!

Such is the importance of a good, well-structured onboarding process. Offering such a great experience in a remote work environment can be extremely difficult. The main problem with a remote onboarding process is the missing in-person interaction which can make your new employees feel more welcome.

The good news is that you can overcome all these drawbacks and design the perfect remote onboarding process for your new hires. Let’s look at some best practices you can follow for the same.

#1 Offer Personalized Onboarding Experience

Think about the time when you were a new hire. Probably you remember being nervous about fitting in. Your new employees are also going through the same. Providing a personalized employee onboarding process is extremely important for putting them at ease and making them feel welcome.

You can offer a personalized remote onboarding experience by personally connecting with them through video calls, welcoming them with a call to action which is specific to their role, and providing guided tours to help them navigate your applications.

#2 Design Interactive Walkthroughs

Your new employees are likely to feel lost and confused about your applications and systems, especially when there are no in-person interactions to guide them through. This can leave your new employees extremely frustrated and demotivated.

You can overcome such situations by offering interactive walkthroughs for your applications. Such walkthroughs can be completely automated and customized, thus saving your time while educating new hires. This step will make your employees’ onboarding experience fun, and will also make them proficient with your applications within a few days or weeks.

#3 Set Clear Goals

Setting clear goals and expectations is essential while onboarding your employees. Setting goals will help set boundaries, guide, and motivate your employees to kick start their journey in your company.

Hence, connect with your new employees one-on-one, and communicate with them about your company’s values and objectives. Also, let them know exactly what is expected of them. Explain your expectations and their role in detail, breakdown their work into smaller tasks, and set deadlines for each task. 

Create personalized task lists for each employee and track their task completion rates. If possible, reward your employees when they complete their tasks on time. Schedule frequent meetings with them to understand their progress. Setting goals will be a great motivation for your new employees.

#4 Share Important Tools and Applications

To help your new employees get started and to help them work independently, it is essential that you provide them with access to the necessary applications and tools. You can start by providing restricted access to them. Such a step will ensure that your employees get familiar with your business processes, critical tools, and features, right from the start.

By providing access to tools and applications, you can reduce dependency and thus ultimately reduce numerous unnecessary meetings. This practice will also make your new employees feel empowered and confident, ensuring that they stay with your company for longer.

#5 Connect and Interact Frequently

Communication is key to making your new employees feel welcome and inclusive. Doing so in a remote work environment can be challenging. You can overcome this by creating a work environment where collaborative learning, face-to-face calls, group meetings, and webinars are encouraged.

  • Schedule frequent one-on-one meetings with HRs and managers to observe your new employees’ progress, understand their concerns, and gather their feedback. 
  • Encourage collaborative learning by hiring employees in groups (if possible) and letting them undergo walkthroughs and training together. This will make your new hires feel more inclusive and comfortable.
  • Include your new hires in all group meetings, webinars, etc. to help them familiarise themselves with your company culture and interact with other senior employees of the company.
  • Create a remote-friendly culture by turning most of your calls into video calls. Video calls can be extremely useful for building the much-needed employer-employee connection.

#6 Collect Feedback and Finetune the Onboarding Process

An onboarding process that you designed 2 years back may not be relevant to your employees anymore. Or, a process that works for employees for a certain role might not be engaging enough for new employees hired for another role. 

Hence, it’s crucial that you keep pivoting and updating your onboarding process by making it more relevant, engaging, and interactive for your current new-hire batch. And the best way to do this is by collecting feedback from your employees after completion of their onboarding process and using these insights to understand their pain points with your existing onboarding process.


It’s now your time to take action! Follow these best practices, and create the best possible remote onboarding plan for your new employees. By following these, you will definitely see an increased employee-retention rate.

Author Bio

Hazel Raoult is a freelance marketing writer and works with PRmention. She has 6+ years of experience in writing about business, entrepreneurship, marketing, and all things SaaS. Hazel loves to split her time between writing, editing, and hanging out with her family.