Onboarding Remotely During a Pandemic
What it’s like to start work in our ‘new normal’
Let’s be honest — things still feel a bit ‘unprecedented’ right now. We’re facing a global pandemic, and what was once an occasional ‘work from home’ day is now our everyday, with even happy hours now taking place on video conference calls.
Now, in the midst of this uncertainty, imagine starting a new job.
April 13th, 2020, was my first day with Uber as a UX Researcher in the Seattle Design Studio. At the time of my start date, Washington State had been on an official ‘stay-at-home’ order for weeks in an effort to combat the spread of COVID-19. At the rate that things were moving, it had become clear that my first few weeks, if not months, with Uber would be entirely remote.
I’m now nearly 5 months into my role with Uber. While this certainly felt unique at the time, it’s likely that remote work is here to stay even after vaccines are developed and stay-at-home orders are lifted. We’ve seen that working from home can still be productive, and there’s a good chance that more opportunities for remote employment will open up in the future. So whether you’re an employee onboarding remotely to a new role, an employer bringing someone on to your team or considering hiring more remote talent in the future, I hope that my experience gives you insights into how to prepare for this new digital era.
Advice for new employees
I’ve identified a few benefits to a remote onboarding, a few detractors, and a few best-practice tips that I’ve employed to keep myself sane as I take in everything.
Zoom is your best friend…
Or Skype, or Hangouts, or whatever your company uses. My point is, leverage your available communication tools to begin building relationships with your colleagues. This is one of the most dramatic shifts that I’ve noticed between onboarding in the office vs. remotely. In the office, getting to know your coworkers is instantaneous — it takes no effort, especially since your team has likely prepared for your arrival. You have a desk to sit at, with neighbors who can help answer any questions you might have while starting out. There might be a team lunch or outing where you’re able to have natural conversations with your team, and potentially even extended team members. Almost immediately, you can begin putting faces to names and actually see how your team works together, right from the beginning. When you’re remote, things are a bit trickier.
On my second day with Uber, my team organized a remote ‘team lunch.’ Everyone on my team was encouraged to order in UberEats and have a lunchtime conversation together over Zoom. It was my first opportunity to meet all of my new coworkers, and the perfect way to break the ice for future one-on-one conversations. In the days after, I began scheduling 30-minute one-on-one calls with each new member of my immediate team. These conversations were general ‘get to know you’ chats, discussing what work they do on the team, how long they’ve been with the company, and what they like to do outside of work. I was able to hear stories of company culture, how the team liked to have fun together at the office, and some tidbits of advice as I was starting out. Carving out time for these conversations early on helped me feel integrated with my team faster than I had anticipated.
…Until it isn’t
It’s important to note that Zoom conversations are not a true replacement for in-person communication. As my network continued to grow and the list of people to meet grew longer, I began to feel the effects of Zoom fatigue. I started to notice that I would use the same anecdotes in every introductory call, making my contribution to the conversation feel stale. Amplify that with the fact that the stay-at-home orders had significantly narrowed usual conversation topics, and each call began to feel exhausting.
My advice to new employees building their network remotely:
- Stagger the number of introductory calls you have in a day, or even a week, and give yourself time to decompress after. Whether you meet someone on your first day or day 21, you’ll have a chance to get to know them sooner or later. Prioritize meeting with people that you’ll be interacting with on a regular basis. Even though it feels like an easy task to check off on your to-do list, your mind and body will thank you later.
- Keep your video camera on. You’ll build a more meaningful connection with someone when you’re able to talk to them face-to-face like you might if you were in the office together. Try to keep this as a rule as you’re starting out as a way to help your team become more and more familiar with you joining calls and participating with the team.
- Use Virtual Backgrounds! If you’re using Zoom, this is a subtle way to mix up an otherwise standard meeting, and it can even serve as conversation inspiration. Maybe your background is a travel destination on your (post-Covid) bucket list. Perhaps it’s a favorite photo that you’ve taken, or a picture of a beloved pet. Leveraging the virtual background feature can help you avoid repetitive conversations and help you connect more personally to your teammates.
Don’t be afraid to ask for (a lot) of help
When I started with Uber, I took note of how much uninterrupted time I had just after I joined. This gave me a chance for me to dive deep into documentation and try and problem solve on my own, but I quickly learned that there are many cases where, no matter how much digging into the internal archives that you do, you’ll just never come up with the answer. Sometimes it can be shared knowledge that exists with your team, or perhaps the folder structure is a bit ‘quirky’ and takes some getting used to — whatever the case may be, don’t spend too much time spinning your wheels before asking for help.
In an office setting, this might be leaning over to a coworker for a quick resolution to whatever question you have. Remotely, though, these short exchanges can feel a bit more challenging. Try to get a sense for how your team communicates best. Is it email all the way? What about Slack? When should you use one vs. the other? And when does it make sense to jump on a Zoom call? These are great questions to cover with your manager early on so that you can feel comfortable and confident when reaching out to your team when you need help.
I won’t lie — this will feel like extra work, and that’s because it is extra work. It can be hard to find the right words to ask your question, keeping it focused and succinct, limiting the chance for misinterpretation, and striking that balance between warm & professional. This is a skill that everyone new to remote culture is facing, so don’t worry if you’re feeling like asking a question takes 3 times longer than it used to. Without in-office communication to serve as a guide, we’re now working on learning what to ask, who to ask, and how to ask it like we’ve never had to before. If you’re worried about how your electronic conversations are coming across, lean on a team member, manager, or onboarding buddy to be your gut-check before you press ‘Send’.
My advice to new employees navigating the challenges of remote communication:
- Keep a list of ‘who knows what’ as you start to meet your colleagues, that way you know exactly who to reach out to the next time you have a question. Continue to update this list as you learn more about your colleagues in your first few weeks.
- If your company uses communication channels like Slack or Microsoft Teams, take a look through previous channels to see what types of topics are usually discussed and how employees are engaging with each other.
- Get comfortable asking questions often. I used to hover my mouse over the ‘Send’ button, reading and re-reading my message to make sure it was perfect before I sent it (imposter syndrome, anyone?) But the more comfortable I got asking questions, the faster I was able to get back to my work, armed with new information that made it easier to tackle than before.
You don’t know what you don’t know
In each of my one-on-one calls with my colleagues, I also included an ask of them to help in my onboarding. A few days into my new role, I realized that there were probably meetings and calls that I could be sitting in on as an observer, but without the physical reminder of seeing me at my desk in the office, there was a chance that I could be an oversight on the invite list. So in each call, I asked if there were any meetings that I should be on that would help me understand the team, culture, and projects happening today. In doing this, I was invited to monthly business reviews and research readouts that weren’t even on my radar. Even if the work wasn’t directly related to what I would eventually be doing, it was a great way to get exposure to other parts of the business that I would have otherwise missed out on.
Months into my new role, I still felt like I had just as many questions as when I first joined the team. I had to remind myself (and in some cases, my teammates) that I was still new and learning about how things worked. There will always be a knowledge gap that you’ll be working on closing, so don’t be afraid to raise your hand when there’s a new acronym mentioned in a meeting or an unfamiliar process that you’re expected to follow.
My advice to employees in your first few weeks (let’s be honest, months) on the team:
- Be a sponge. Absorb as much information as you possibly can, knowing that some of it isn’t always going to stick with you later on. Being aware of what’s going on around you, at a team or company level, will help you later on as you start to become more familiar with your work and how it relates to the rest of the company.
Give yourself a break
Finally, my advice to new employees navigating a new remote workplace — give yourself a break! What you’re doing is incredibly new, exciting, and at times, taxing. Take credit for the fact that you’re navigating something new and unfamiliar for many people in the workplace today, and that it’s ok to feel overwhelmed. In my first few weeks, I could feel the imposter syndrome creeping in, making me feel like I wasn’t performing to my own standards. The thing is — all standards are different now. No one should be expected to consistently be at their ‘peak performance’, especially those who are also working as parents or caregivers (and in some cases, teachers) in addition to their day jobs. Many of us are pushing ourselves to limits we couldn’t have anticipated, and combining that with the already-stressful experience of starting a new job is no small feat. Recognize the expectations that you’re putting on yourself and consider whether it’s fair to you. Have open conversations with your manager and figure out the best plan that works for you. Take care of yourself and find the balance in your new work/life structure that keeps you safe and healthy.
Advice for employers
So, you have a new employee joining your team — congrats! Whether they’re joining full time or perhaps temporarily as a contractor or intern, this is going to be a challenging transition. In my experience, here are a few ways that Uber really stood out in my first few weeks of onboarding.
Have a plan for remote onboarding
Another obvious one, but it’s worth mentioning. Think about what your typical onboarding day in the office looks like — maybe it’s a half-day overview of the company culture, perhaps it’s an hour of Q&A with HR, or maybe it’s different on a team-by-team basis. Whatever your typical experience is, think about how much of that experience is based on the in-person interactions between you and your staff. Break down your new-hire’s day piece-by-piece to see where the gaps may be between your in-person process and a new remote structure. For example, who do they interact with first when they reach the office? What’s the expectation of that interaction? Who else is with them on their first day? What information is crucial to success for a new employee? And what about equipment? Break down all the components of a successful new-hire orientation and consider how much of their experience is based on them being onsite.
Now, think about how you might conduct the same onboarding experience remotely? Does the order of activities still make sense? For example, is equipment usually handed out to employees at the beginning or end of their orientation? In order for me to be successful on day one, Uber had to coordinate sending my equipment to me in advance of my first day. In addition, they sent me several emails that detailed what my orientation would look like and any documentation that I needed to complete prior to my first day. These details put me at ease and helped me feel confident that Uber would be able to support me remotely in my first few months.
In addition, HR held a one-hour Zoom onboarding call for all new employees. This call had over a hundred new employees online, far more than I would expect to meet if I were to be in the office. However, the onboarding team still managed to find a way to create opportunity for personal connections. By leveraging the breakout room feature in Zoom, the onboarding team divided all new hires into groups of 3, with an Uber employee acting as a facilitator. In these groups, we had a total of 5 minutes to introduce ourselves and answer a question that had been posed by the onboarding team. Though brief, this created just the right amount of interaction with other eager new hires who were in the same position as me. After the call, all employees were invited to a nUber Slack Channel where we could check in with the HR team about general onboarding questions. It was a small, but impactful way to create community and introduce us to our colleagues in a remote setting.
Sweat the small stuff
In this crazy, unpredictable time, small acts of kindness can go a long way. Prior to your new hire’s arrival, make sure your team is aware that they’re coming onboard. Your team should know your new employee’s name, role, and their start date. All these details can help your new hire feel like a part of the team from the beginning.
Wherever possible, try to find small ways to make your new team member feel included. One of the ways that my team at Uber did this was with a custom Zoom background during our first team lunch. One by one, each member of my team joined the call with a ‘Welcome to Uber’ background already set. It was a small, but meaningful, gesture that helped me acclimate to being on the team.
Make time for your team to be a team
This tip is useful whether you have a new team member joining your or not. In a time where work can feel lonelier than ever, carve out time for your team to be themselves without thinking about work. At Uber, my team hosts ‘design team check-in’ daily for 30 minutes in the afternoon. This check-in time is completely optional, but is a dedicated time for team members to join and chat with each other about anything. Some days have more attendance than others, but the time is always there if we need it. As I’m getting to know my team, I find that joining the call and listening in on the conversations can give me a glimpse into what life at the office must look like. On Thursdays, the check-in is an optional ‘happy hour,’ as the team celebrates nearing the end of another work-from-home week (and good weather, if we’re lucky).
One of the reasons that I think this format has been successful for my team is because it’s encouraged by leadership. Leaders on the team regularly attend, giving ‘permission’ for employees to take 30 minutes to not focus on work and give yourself a well-deserved break. If this is something that you’re interested in spinning up with your team, make sure your employees are aware that it’s supported (and encouraged!) by their leadership.
Whether you’re onboarding remotely, or preparing to onboard a new employee, I hope that some of what I’ve shared might be useful to you. While some of us may wish that this way of working won’t last forever, we’ve already seen that a successful work-from-home lifestyle can be supported. As our teams become more and more virtual and global, consider these tips as best practices for supporting a positive remote workplace both at the beginning and throughout an employee’s career.
