What to Expect when Onboarding Remotely
#TeamThinkific has been working remotely for over 6 months now and in that time, we’ve also brought on almost 100 new Thinkers! As we continue to grow and hire across all of our departments, one of the questions we get asked the most is:
What does onboarding look like if you’re working from home?
Starting a new role can feel like a big step, and even more so when you won’t be sitting next to your coworkers in an office. To help shed some more light on what to expect, we’re sharing a glimpse of our distributed onboarding process at Thinkific and have asked a few of our newest Thinkers to share about their remote onboarding experience, as well as some of their best tips for those looking to make a career move during this time!
Our goal is to set-up our new Thinkers for success by focusing on our product and our people over the first few weeks. During their first week, new Thinkers have a chance to learn more about Thinkific’s history, values, team, and product — one of your first tasks is to create your very own course using Thinkific. Our team has created courses on everything from finishing triathlons and geology to drawing and pasta making!
In the second week, our team dives deep into learning about our customers and our tools. During this week, our newest team members will partner with our Support team to live our core value of Be Fanatical About Customer Success, which means that everyone has the chance to get involved and support our customers! This is the time you’ll be familiarizing yourself with our tools and platforms, learning about our internal processes and policies, and going over goals for your first few months.
Throughout the entire process, we ensure that there are plenty of opportunities to connect with those on your team as well as Thinkers across the company by setting up a handful of video meet and greets that work in tandem with our Donut pairings. You’ll have multiple check-ins with both your team lead and our People team, and we encourage feedback to flow both ways, as we’re always looking for suggestions on how we can continue to iterate on our onboarding!
Now that you have an idea of what to expect when onboarding at Thinkific, learn more about our team members’ own experiences below:
Were you worried about anything when it came to onboarding remotely?
Steph, Intermediate Full Stack Engineer: I read in a recent blog post that the onboarding was 2 weeks long. I was intimidated by this as I wasn’t sure what exactly was involved during those two weeks. I was worried that if it wasn’t for dev onboarding, I’d be useless to my team. And if it was for dev onboarding, I was worried that I’d be overwhelmed with information and I’d be jumping into the deep end right away.
Being remote due to COVID, I knew I wouldn’t be able to meet any of my teammates, so I was also worried I wouldn’t get to have a chance to get to know them without lunch chats or meeting new faces for the first time in the hallways.
Jacob, Engineering Team Lead: I didn’t really know what the expectations were around onboarding time. Engineering departments at some companies expect you to have your development environment set up by day one, your first code merged by day two, and be working on your first ticket by day three.
Thinkific is on the other side of the spectrum: you’re not expected to start setting up your development environment until week three. That’s right, WEEK three. In the interim you’ll be given a tremendous amount of support as you learn more about the company and product, meet people from different departments, and work your way through a checklist of tasks designed to make you feel very welcome at your new job.
Pegah, Partnerships Specialist: This was my first time working from home full time, and I was entering a role that was people facing and focused on building relationships. I was nervous about coming on board, having to learn everything about this new job, and meeting my new teammates, and I was particularly worried about being siloed since we were all remote. Particularly with the COVID pandemic, I was expecting to have to onboard on the fly since so many companies had to adjust so quickly.
How would you describe onboarding and your first couple of weeks at Thinkific?
Steph: It was amazing!! My first two weeks were structured and laid out for me so clearly. All I had to do on my first day was sign into my account and look at my Google Calendar and Asana tasks.
The pace of the first two weeks was very manageable. While there was a lot of information, it was more about getting my bearings at Thinkific rather than a data dump. There was lots of face-time with meet and greets, team huddles, and chatting with my buddy. I had two whole weeks to get to know my team before diving into the code. It made making code changes less intimidating as I had already gotten a sense of how to communicate and work with my team.
Jacob: Thinkific has a highly structured onboarding process that emphasizes understanding the company’s customers. In the first week you’ll experience the product from the customer’s perspective; you’re given several days to create your very own Thinkific course and share it with real people. The second week is spent in the support queue and learning the knowledge management systems used at Thinkific (such as the company wiki and product wiki). After that, you’ll move into the responsibilities of your individual role.
Pegah: It was great — I was given all of the information I needed during my first two weeks and everyone on the team was really friendly and welcoming! There were lots of opportunities to meet the team through meet and greets — the process was really well thought out and everyone was engaged during my onboarding. I was super excited to join the team but was pleasantly surprised by how much Thinkific actually follows through with their core values and with making sure people are happy, fulfilled, and thriving in their job.
Did you have a favourite part of the onboarding process?
Steph: I really appreciated the pace of the first two weeks. My favourite part was that my schedule had time set aside for meet-and-greets with teammates within and across teams! Also, the scavenger hunt was the best. It was a great excuse to talk to people!
Jacob: Getting to know so many people! I feel like there are friendly, familiar faces in every department I might need to contact as part of my role.
Pegah: My favourite part was getting to make my own course and use the Thinkific platform. I had heard that it was great, but to make it part of the onboarding process and be able to experience it, I came to understand how easy it is to set up a course. It made me even more excited to be part of the company!
What advice do you have for someone starting a new job remotely?
Steph: Turn your camera on in meetings, even if they’re big meetings. This helps you have face-time with your peers and they can see your face light up when their pets make cameos.
Jacob: Get another monitor for your home office. Already have three? You’re doing great, but four would be even better. Thinkific has a heap of great team, product, monitoring, and social channels on Slack and having somewhere to keep your conversations open is really useful.
Pegah: My biggest piece of advice is to stick to your routine! Make sure you take breaks, go for walks at lunch, and take care of your mental health. Get a proper set up at home with a desk and chair and walk away from it at the end of the day — being disciplined with your routine means not overworking, too!
Is there anything else that you want to share about your experience?
Steph: I want to reiterate how supported I feel! The culture here is amazing. I truly feel like the team cares about me taking care of myself :)
Jacob: It’s amazing how quickly remote work feels normal and completely comfortable. Thinkific is making a real effort to involve people in a remote-friendly culture.
Pegah: If anyone’s nervous about making a career transition while working from home, you shouldn’t be! When you’re looking to make the next step in your career, pick a company that is supportive, sets you up for success, and prioritizes you as an individual.
With these fresh insights about what to expect when starting a new role remotely, are you ready to explore new career opportunities? Thinkific is looking for passionate, talented, and impact-driven people to join our team—we’re hiring 350 people over the next 18 months!
Learn more about current openings with our team on our Careers page and stay connected with #TeamThinkific on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.
