Remote Hacks: Onboarding New Employees Remotely
Starting a new job and maybe even moving to a new city is always an exciting time. But when you’re told not to come to the office on your first day, spending this special day alone at home can be very disappointing. It can take away a lot of the thrill of starting a new job. In this situation, remote new joiners immediately start asking themselves questions stemming from the uncertainty of starting remotely. “How will I know who is who?” “How will I get to know my new colleagues if we’re not in the office together?” “How does remote onboarding work?”. To answer these questions, the People Operations team (POPs) and the hiring managers at Freeletics had to get creative.
Before the big day
It’s not unusual that people have a lot of questions around their first day and the onboarding process. But if the new company is currently working almost entirely remotely, there is way more uncertainty for new employees. For this reason, it’s very important to share all necessary information with new team members as early as possible. This makes the new joiner feel secure and reassures them that their team will take care of them despite the distance.
This doesn’t just apply to the onboarding information, but also the IT setup, which needs much more time and preparation than usual in a remote situation. Our IT team gets in touch with new joiners and their managers to figure out what is needed for a smooth start at Freeletics. This means ordering and preparing devices and equipping new joiners with all the necessary accounts, software, licenses and access rights. Once this is done, everything can either be picked up at the office or delivered straight to their door. To make the setup as easy as possible, everybody receives a step-by-step guide via email. If something goes wrong, help is at hand from IT, POPs, the new joiner’s manager or their onboarding buddy (more on our buddy system later). In short: preparation is absolutely key.
Spreading the Freeletics spirit at home
Of course, feeling as if you are a part of a company takes time. The strong company culture at Freeletics certainly helps, but now it has become much more difficult to get settled and adapt to the new (digital) environment. To help with a good kick-off, POPs sends a personalized welcome package to everyone’s home, complete with a gift, a personal note and a “We are Freeletics” T-Shirt. This is a good first step to build a personal connection and makes the new joiner feel welcomed and appreciated.
Fostering digital social interaction
During the preparation for remote onboarding, it became clear that one of the biggest worries of new starters is the lack of social interaction while they are in home office. Our new Content Strategist Sheeva explains that “I was a bit disappointed I wouldn’t be able to meet everyone on my first day face-to-face. A digital introduction wasn’t what I had in mind for my first day, and relying on a strong internet connection for a solid first impression can be nerve-wracking.” Realizing this fact, POPs started to create initiatives to make it easier to get to know the team remotely.
The first step is to communicate the new addition to the Freeletics family. This is why new joiners now fill out a questionnaire about themselves with fun facts such as their favorite book or series. This is then turned into a handy fact sheet for the team. In addition, newcomers are introduced in our bi-weekly, company-wide all-hands meeting. POPs also encourages everyone who starts at Freeletics to participate in our remote events such as Team Training, pub quizzes or virtual coffee breaks. Getting to know individual people from the team is then organized by their buddy and manager. “Being able to see my teammates’ faces, even if it was only on a screen, definitely helped me connect to them. You could even say there’s a certain charm of meeting someone for the first time while you’re each in your own homes,“ says Sheeva.
The Freeletics buddy: your personal wingman
Having a buddy for each new joiner at the very beginning is invaluable. A tradition since the early days of Freeletics, a buddy acts as a source of knowledge, motivation and inspiration and helps the new team member settle into their new role and get familiar with the Freeletics spirit. Usually, buddy tasks include an office tour, introducing the team one by one, helping with the IT setup and inviting the new joiner out to lunch. Now that everyone is working from home, we decided to also take the buddy program digital.
The sentiment is still the same, but the experience is just a little bit different. Now, the pair have a video call on the first day to get to know each other so that the first questions can be answered. Later on in the week, they have a small check-in call to ensure everything is going smoothly. The remote buddy is still responsible for introducing the new joiner to the whole Freeletics team — a quick photo and welcome shared on Slack helps the new joiner connect with colleagues from other departments.
Onboarding sessions
We always hold onboarding sessions for each new joiner. We explain why it is special to work at Freeletics, talk about our history and describe the special quirks that makes our company unique. We share our own experiences and try to describe what life at Freeletics feels like. We also host a workshop on the company values that make up our DNA.
Senior Product Designer Lauren, who joined the team in March, can’t wait to experience all this in person “I’m just looking forward to being onsite with everyone and finally meeting people face to face! The Freeletics culture is what I was looking forward to most about this job. I think the company has done a great job at trying to continue that remotely, but there’s definitely something missing :)”
Looking Ahead
We totally agree with Lauren and think that despite all these efforts, the digital experience can never replace reality, so we hope, especially for our newcomers, that we will soon be able to enjoy our everyday office life again as a whole team.
