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Did you know that 36% of employers don’t have a structured onboarding process? Without a clear plan in place, you risk losing valuable talent quickly.
When you’re working remotely, you can’t just shout across the office for quick help. Instead, you have to ask in a chat, wait for a response, and during that time, the issue may escalate—along with your frustration.
That’s why, in this article, we’re giving you practical tips to help you navigate and structure the remote onboarding process efficiently. So you can engage new hires, and set them up for long-term success.
Remote onboarding is the process of integrating and training new hires and ensuring they have everything they need to succeed while working from home or elsewhere. Without the luxury of in-person interactions, companies need to be more intentional in welcoming new team members. It’s not just about getting them access to the right tools—it’s about making sure they feel connected, supported, and engaged right from the start.
Think about it: without the ability to casually drop by a colleague’s desk, remote employees can quickly feel isolated or overwhelmed. That’s why having a structured process is critical.
Without the in-person experience to guide new hires, small problems can easily snowball into larger issues.
Here are some of the key challenges:
Isolation and Disconnection
Remote workers can feel isolated, especially if they’re not immediately integrated into the team. The lack of face-to-face interactions makes it harder to build relationships, which are essential for a sense of belonging. Over time, this isolation can lead to disengagement and even turnover. This is particularly important when you consider that remote workers can be up to 25% more productive than their onsite counterparts—but only if they feel connected and supported.
Information Overload
Starting a new job is always overwhelming, but for remote employees, it can be even more daunting. With no in-person guidance, they’re left sifting through documents and chat threads. Without someone to quickly clarify questions, critical details can be missed, leaving employees lost or unsure.
Lack of Immediate Access to Information
On the other side of the information overload is the lack of access to important information. In an office, new hires can quickly get answers by asking someone nearby. But when working remotely, waiting for replies via chat or email can lead to delays, increasing frustration and slowing down their progress.
Longer Workdays Without Immediate Support
While remote employees can be more productive, they also tend to work 13% longer hours than their onsite colleagues. When new hires are left waiting for responses to simple questions, their longer workdays become even more draining.
Misaligned Expectations
Clear communication is essential for establishing expectations with remote employees. Since regular face-to-face check-ins might not always be feasible, new hires can sometimes misinterpret their roles or the company’s priorities. This can result in mistakes, inefficient use of time, and a gap between management and new team members.
These challenges highlight the need for a structured and supportive onboarding process—one that ensures new hires feel connected, informed, and empowered from day one. In the next section, we’ll explore how to tackle these challenges with practical strategies and tools designed to streamline onboarding remote employees.
A clear, step-by-step onboarding plan ensures that employees are well-prepared for their role. This plan should cover the first 30, 60, and 90 days and outline key tasks, learning goals, and milestones. With only 12% of US employees saying their organization has a good onboarding process, a well-documented plan makes all the difference.
Don’t wait until the first day to give new hires their work equipment. Sending their laptops, monitors, and other essential tools ahead of time makes sure that employees can dive straight into their tasks on day one, leaving any tech setup worries behind.
Make your new employee feel valued even before they start. A welcome email, along with a kit containing company swag, an employee handbook, and personal touches (like a snack box or coffee voucher), shows that the company cares about their experience from the start. And since you’re sending technology anyway, you can also send a nice kit.
Remote employees miss out on spontaneous office interactions. Organizing a virtual team meeting on day one helps introduce the new hire to the team, build relationships, and establish a connection to the company culture. Remember: Social integration is key. You don’t want your productive remote workers to feel lonely.
Culture isn’t always easy to convey remotely. Take the time to explain the core values, mission, and typical practices of the company. Help employees understand the norms—such as expected working hours, communication preferences, and formal vs. informal etiquette.
A welcome buddy is like a friendly guide for your new hire, helping them feel at home and making it super easy to ask questions and get quick feedback without the need for formal meetings. This is particularly handy in a remote environment, where those spontaneous questions might otherwise linger without answers.
Not knowing where to find the best fit for your new virtual employee? You can use your intranet’s People Directory and Skill Finder to assign buddies based on skills and departments, ensuring a smooth and personalized experience.
Remote onboarding shouldn’t be a one-way street. Provide regular feedback loops where new hires can express any challenges they face and ask for guidance. If you’re using a social Intranet in your company, like Mantra for Confluence Cloud, you can easily create polls online to gather insights from new hires and adjust the onboarding process to better meet their needs.
Having a structured checklist for new hires can make remote onboarding less overwhelming. These checklists guide employees through key steps like setting up email accounts, reviewing company policies, and getting familiar with tools.
Sample Remote Onboarding Checklist:
First Day:
Set up your work email account and calendar.
Log into the company intranet (e.g., Mantra) and complete your profile.
Attend virtual orientation meeting with HR.
Review IT policies and set up security tools (VPN, password manager).
Join your team’s virtual meet-and-greet session.
Schedule regular check-ins with your manager for the first 30 days.
First Week:
Complete compliance and training modules.
Familiarize yourself with key company software (e.g., Jira, Confluence).
Set up your workspace in the company intranet.
…
Onboarding doesn’t stop with setting up technology—it’s essential to equip new hires with the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in their roles. Offer interactive training sessions, webinars, and access to a knowledge base like Confluence where employees can find the information they need. Having these resources readily available helps employees feel confident as they settle into their new roles, especially without the benefit of in-person assistance.
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel! Use technology that your team is already familiar with, like Slack for communication, Zoom for virtual meetings, or Confluence for document management. In particular, tools like Mantra for Confluence Cloud can help create a well-organized, accessible hub for all training materials, making it easy for remote employees to find what they need when they need it.
As we’ve shown in our article, a social intranet is way more than just a document repository. It creates a digital workspace where communication, collaboration, and employee engagement thrive. If you already use Confluence in your company anyway, it’s worth taking a look at Mantra. Mantra is a social intranet solution that is 100% seamlessly integrated into Confluence cloud.
It transforms Confluence into a dynamic workspace where remote employees can access everything they need in one place—news updates, team-specific content, and corporate policies—all tailored to their department, region, or specific role. This keeps remote workers engaged and informed without feeling overwhelmed.
With Mantra Intranet, your Confluence spaces can be fully customized, allowing you to create dedicated workspaces for different departments or projects. This means that each new hire, no matter where they are located, gets a personalized onboarding experience with relevant information available at their fingertips. The ability to customize extends beyond documents—you can brand workspaces, ensuring the company’s identity shines through, even remotely.
Mantra integrates a variety of collaboration tools, like social walls and posts, where teams can interact in real-time, share feedback, and participate in virtual discussions. For remote employees, this is crucial, as it encourages social bonding and real-time communication, replacing the casual office conversations they would otherwise miss.
Remote employees often not only feel FOMO (the fear of missing out), they often actually miss out on company-wide events or informal catch-ups. Mantra solves this with its event management feature, which integrates seamlessly into Confluence. HR teams or managers can schedule onboarding sessions, training, or team-building activities in the intranet itself.
One of the most important aspects of successful remote onboarding is ensuring that new hires feel a sense of belonging right from the start. While training and access to tools are crucial, creating opportunities for social interaction and networking can make all the difference. This is where the community feature in Mantra becomes invaluable.
Communities are the heart of every social intranet, fostering engagement, collaboration, and a sense of belonging. Whether it’s project-related work groups or spaces for employees to connect over shared interests, communities create opportunities for meaningful interaction. In Mantra’s intranet solution, communities can be moderated, public, or private, giving organizations the flexibility to shape the space that fits their needs.
Remote onboarding can be a complex challenge, but with the right tools and strategies, it can also be a streamlined and engaging experience. The key is to ensure that new hires feel connected, supported, and empowered from the very start, regardless of where they are working.
That’s where a social intranet like Mantra’s comes into play. By integrating Mantra’s with Confluence, you can transform your remote onboarding process into a seamless, interactive experience.
Ready to see how Mantra’s can enhance your remote onboarding process? Schedule a free demo and discover the difference it can make for your team!
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