Team Onboarding in Today’s Remote Working Era
Since the start of COVID-19, hiring new employees has become more complicated as most employers have adopted a remote or hybrid-working policy. It used to be common practice for new starters to get up to speed by reading a tonne of documentation and then follow the standard project onboarding process. This worked as it was easy to see where new joiners were struggling and needed support. You could sit next to them and explain things in person and draw on notebooks or whiteboards. There was also the opportunity for new joiners to meet the entire team and go out for drinks after work.
This is all rather more difficult. It has become normal to never meet people you are working closely with. You avoid going into the office because of COVID-19 concerns or teams being more distributed and travel making the office day less productive. This means when a person struggles now, they have no clue whom to ask questions or where they can go for help.
Here are a few tips that helped me a lot in the past year whilst getting new people up to speed remotely in a project – nothing ground-breaking, just small things that help.
1. Pairing
It will take time for a new joiner to know everyone’s name in the project and understand their roles and responsibilities. Pairing is the best way for new joiners to meet the team. For the first couple of weeks, set up meetings with the new employee and wider team. It could be an introduction to the project, shadowing or even documentation walkthroughs. Understanding the different aspects of the team will give a person a good gauge on whom to call if they are having trouble or unable to complete their task.
2. Video calls
Try to get to know the person better. It is convenient not to turn on the camera because you are eating a sandwich or do not feel (or look!) your best. But seeing somone’s face, body language and all those small cues that we took for granted when meeting in person allows both parties to understand and help each other better. Video calls tend to be very transactional and it can be very easy to forget to ask a new joiner about their day and how they are progressing. New starters are even less likely to speak up, which makes proactive support here even more important.
3. Personal
And this brings me to my next point – be personal. In my domain, project pressures mean it is easy just to see people as automation engineers or manual testers whose sole purpose is to simply script and run tests. It almost goes without saying that they are in fact people – people with personal lives and personal pressures. Recognising this – and recognising that they need to balance these two lives – is essential. And equally essential in the remote era is the need to motivate someone who you might only occasionally or possibly never meet – something that was unimaginable only a couple of years ago. One simple (and fundamental) management technique is praising and pointing out good behaviour – which only tends to lead to even better behaviour and outcomes.
4. Knowledge hub
Documentation (unfortunately!) is still a very good learning tool. Keep your documentation and wiki up to date. Include pages for your current team structure (so that a new person can easily understand who is responsible for what), platform design, automation framework, testing and engineering methods, tools you are using and meeting recordings from product demos. Share links for these resources with a new starter on their first day and reference to it during calls so they know how to work with the documentation – and more importantly the team.
In short
It takes a little more effort to get a new joiner up to speed nowadays but these few simple steps make a big difference and ease what is sometimes a challenging experience. Don’t just expect a new starer to pick everything up by themselves because they are not there along side you. Help them until they are up to speed on the project and consistently meeting your expectations – and those of your stakeholders. And of course, this is just the start – coaching and mentoring needs to continue long after onboarding to get the best from your team.
Gita Malinovska
