How to help your new employees fit in from afar

By Sylvia Luneau

We, at PsiNapse, are so happy to be a part of successful remote hiring and are encouraged to see many of our client companies growing remotely, as well. During these times, we’re all working hard to adjust to this new normal and find new best practices and work-arounds. After all, never “let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do” (John Wooden). Here are some tips to help you succeed with new remote hires.

Celebrate the new hire

Sometimes (nearly always) your new employee is starting during a busy time. If you were in the office, the norm for celebration might be to grab a plant for their desk or promise to take them to lunch on their first day. These small moments of acknowledgement and celebration are easy to lose while working from home. In order to help your new hire feel part of the team, planning now is more essential than ever. Schedule a one week (or one month) anniversary gift to be sent to their home to let them know you are grateful to have them on the team. Take the time to learn about who they are and make that small gift more thoughtful and personalized by highlighting their personal and professional strengths.

Learn about the new hire

The constant Zoom meetings are tough and often exhausting. Are you having two, three, eight a day? Make it a point to slow down at the beginning of each call and ask for a check in. One that I like is highlighting three categories of focus: Personal, Health, and Business. Go around to each person as the meeting starts and ask them to quickly rate themselves on a scale from one to ten in each category.  For instance, “My Personal is a 10. It was my sister’s birthday last night and we had a great, remote happy hour together. My Health is a 7 because I have not been sleeping as well but I’m working on it, and Business is an 8 because I am 80% through with XYZ project.” This gives your new employee insight into their teammate’s lives and lets them share more about their own lives so that you can hopefully get to know them better.

Introduce the person around

Even remotely (and maybe even more so), it is important to make an effort to introduce your new team member to everyone and summarize their strengths and experience to make sure all team members are aware of who this person is and what they are doing.  Make sure team members get connected with the new hire on LinkedIn and ask everyone to read up on and learn about the individual!  

Set up training and a mentor relationship (!)

No one can read minds (at least as far as we know). Your new employee will have questions that you, as their direct manager, may not be aware of and that may be better answered by a mentor or coworker. Assign your new hire to a mentor in their second week to help them find their place and gain some comfort and support. Do you have a complicated database or system? Set up training and make sure they feel confident in their ability to be a constructive and productive team member.

Give of oneself

One-on-one’s are more critical than ever. Schedule them!

Plan for the future

People want to know that you care. They want to know that what they are doing matters and they want measurable goals with which to track their success. Give reviews that are meaningful, set goals that make sense, and create honest feedback that will set you, your new hire, and your business up for success.

We will all be stronger with a well thought-out process for welcoming each new member onto our team! Let’s keep growing!