Onboarding while working-from-home: Keeping inclusion at the heart of it.
COVID19 forced organisations worldwide to continue their operations with their talent working from home, and even though lockdowns are lifting in many parts of the world, more and more organisations are continuing with the work-from-home model for the foreseeable future with some even considering moving towards a work-from-home model more permanently. What does this mean for ensuring that new hires to these organisations feel included and part of the team and organisation?
Ramboll, a leading engineering, architecture and consultancy company founded in Denmark shared their practices that have helped their new hire Yasmine Khattar Larsen feel very much like part of the team even though she started working at the company just as lockdown was beginning in Denmark. I sat down with Yasmine to chat about her experience as a new hire in Ramboll and what was done to ensure inclusion through onboarding in a work-from-home model. What can we learn from companies that have successfully onboarded new hires during the pandemic?
Get creative about how to get new hires to “meet” their colleagues
For a new employee, the first few days and even weeks in a new job involve meeting and interacting with their new colleagues during meetings, over lunch and by the coffee machine — a crucial process to ensuring that they feel like they belong and are socialised into the organisational culture. When working from home, this can really be challenging so how can line managers and HR business partners help replicate this social interaction in a virtual setting?
At Ramboll, videos of colleagues in various parts of the business were recorded and placed on the intranet. These videos showcased colleagues talking about what they do in the organisation and what the organisational culture means to them. For Yasmine, the videos on the intranet that she had access to even prior to her official start date really helped her feel like she understood what the organisation did, gave her some familiar faces that she was able to recognise during the virtual meetings and helped her understand how the organisational culture was internalised by her colleagues. Another thing that really helps is utilising social media to help connect employees in a more relaxed way. Yammer is a great tool to enable workplace social and work-related interactions and in Ramboll, this group was created and called “Working Apart Together”. While the group started in Denmark, it has expanded globally with colleagues talking to each other, helping each other out and sharing experiences through a more informal channel.
Have an effective and organised online onboarding and handover process
Most organisations have a well laid out onboarding process that has been tried and tested over the many times that it has been repeated with every new hire walking through the company’s doors. What happens when this needs to be online along with handover processes? At Ramboll, having frequent meetings virtually and where possible in person are crucial between line managers and the new hire, as well as with colleagues from HR. This should also be combined with virtual handover meetings where applicable. Converting the onboarding process to an online version really helps ensure that the same level of organisation and rigor is maintained to ensure that new hires do not miss out on the very valuable onboarding experience.
Avoid micro-management but meet often
With new team members, there is a tendency for line managers to want to check in and see how that person is doing, making sure that the new hire is adjusting and performing well. This is much easier done in person over a casual chat at the new hire’s desk or by the coffee machine or even at lunch. It is also much easier to know how a new hire is coping when they are in line of sight during working hours. When working from home, this becomes a lot harder and the tendency in that situation is to require formal meetings to be scheduled to compensate for the lack of those informal chats. However, for the new hire, this can feel like they are being micro-managed because of the more formal planning involved in scheduling these check-ins. Understandably, for the line manager, this is the only way of knowing how their new team member is doing in their new role. But managers must resist the temptation to go overboard here with needing to know if the person is on top of their tasks and trust that they are fulfilling their responsibilities. Yasmine says “a lot of companies could micro-manage but not here. My manager has been extremely good at saying “I have complete faith in you delivering on your KPIs and goals even from a distance”…that has given me a sense of freedom and a sense of acceptance. It made me feel extremely welcome to the company, but it has also been motivating me.” Yasmine highlights that at Ramboll, this aligns very well with the values of the organisation with trust being an integral part of the organisational culture.
Create opportunities for everyone’s voices to be heard, including the person who is new
When working from home and through virtual formats, being inclusive to everyone’s voices is really important. Virtual meetings and not being in the same office both make it more difficult for a new hire’s voice to be heard especially in the early days when they are navigating the different personality types, team dynamics and organisational culture. The person hosting the meeting must make extra effort to ensure that the voice of the new team member is indeed heard and valued. This is an integral part of that person feeling included and like they belong in their new virtual team.
Ensure organisational culture shines through
Yasmine reflects that during her first few weeks working from home during a pandemic, the culture of Ramboll really shone through. “To be very honest, I think that although this situation is terrible…all of a sudden I got to experience the values…Ramboll has core values that are very much about the human touch, seeing things from the people’s perspective, thinking about things in terms of sustainable terms…all the core values have been translated and put into action…I don’t think I would have had that as much had I been physically in the office but I think in terms of a crisis, all of a sudden companies show their true colours and true values. Ramboll has been a place, I feel, where people have come together with everyone supporting each other.”
Organisations like Ramboll have had to find new ways of ensuring inclusion in their onboarding process through the lockdowns caused by COVID19, and the lessons learnt from this will certainly be beneficial for organisations that are looking at retaining a work-from-home model for the near future, for organisations that are adopting a solely remote working model or those that are adopting a hybrid model.
Originally published at https://talented.dk on July 21, 2020.
