Jarred Consulting

As the requirement to work from home and practice social distancing remains key to the governments’ strategy for dealing with the Covid 19 pandemic, early talent teams are grappling with how to enable the 2020 intakes to feel truly part of the business they have chosen to join. Many of these recruits may never have set foot in your offices or met an employee face to face, so how do you make sure they feel a valued employee who is part of your organisations’ people network? The adjustment from the world of education to full-time work is a significant one and this will be a new and different challenge for the class of 2020 who may well have had a virtual assessment centre, virtual graduation, and social life in the months before joining. The need to help apprentices or graduates assimilate into the world of work remains the same but it is with new tools and approaches that you will ensure their success. As we continue to adapt to our new normal and understand the resilient and flexible generation it is building, we know that emotional well-being has never been more important. A supportive and inclusive virtual onboarding is a good start to build a strong bond between the new joiners and the company they are joining. So here are our top tips for running a virtual onboarding programme for the 2020 intake.

1. Get started before they join.

We are already using a variety of tools in our day-to-day work which provide us with the functionality to work both remotely and collaboratively, these tools can be used to run a successful induction programme, whether completely remote or from one socially distanced office space.  As the tech resources are already in place there is no reason why you shouldn’t be reaching out now and starting to make them feel welcome, something many of you may already be doing. Make sure you are liaising with other relevant departments such as IT to get everything in place in plenty of time.  Check out our top tips for managing others remotely. Putting together personal messages from managers and supervisors, as well as virtual tours of offices can be a good way of making people feel welcome and included as well as reassured that their intake is going to happen. As the start date comes closer, think about sending things in the post for their first day or week alongside any equipment, perhaps the lunch for a networking session or a couple of drinks and snacks for a team-building post-work get together. Schedule time with them either individually or as a group, the week before they start via Skype, Zoom, Teams, or whichever system you prefer. Talk them through how the first week will go. If you can, ask your team to record a short introduction about themselves, both inside and outside work. This helps new employees put a face to a name and makes the first week’s chat go a little smoother. A culture will develop whether you want it to or not, so you might as well shape it to resemble the values, mindsets, and behaviours that you want to see. Step one is clarifying and then communicating what those cultural assumptions and behaviours are, even if it’s as simple as “we bring our full selves to work”.  Carving out time for team members, and in fact, more time than you would for an in-person team to build a community reflective of this culture. Since culture often manifests in the “in-between” spaces of in-person working environments (e.g, in the break room, during lunch), you’ll need to ensure that these in-between spaces also exist for those working remotely.

2. Create a consistent experience

You will already have a successful onboarding programme in place and ideally, you want these new employees to receive the same experience as far as possible. It is important to have a variety of mediums to help participants remain interested and engaged. You will need more breaks than in an office environment and you may need to provide clearer and more detailed guidance than normal. There is an opportunity here for you to enhance what you currently do, providing a blended approach to increase engagement, and perhaps stage content delivery to maximise individual’s ability to digest and reflect. 3. Create a bank of online resources available for the graduates whenever they need them. Some webinars and online tutorials that can be used as a bank of go-to resources will be helpful. Perhaps current trainees can create them, thus saving the early talent team’s time – use a variety of mediums for delivery to keep it fresh. These can include information on the culture of the organisation, housekeeping type information along with hints and tips on working from home and tools for self-care/emotional wellbeing (see our article on emotional wellbeing for more information), enabling the new joiners to have activities to do when they have free time in the working day. Encourage new recruits and team members to share best practices amongst themselves about “what works” in their remote working environments; doing so isn’t only a lever for building community, but it’s also a method of spreading best practices in successful work-from-home situations.

4. Communication is key.

Keeping in constant touch with the new joiners will help them assimilate into the business much faster. Mentors and supervisors will need more preparation and understanding of what will be required of them during the first few weeks. You will need to consider some training for the mentors and ensure they have acceptable boundaries for time and access.  Supervisors will also need support and guidance so make sure the mentors and supervisors can sign up to this and commit to the time needed. As the graduates are not in the office it is easy for them to feel they are merely a name on an email. Contact from the managers, other team members, and other graduates will be key to making them feel they belong. Create your own “pulse check” survey with 10 or fewer questions that you ask employees to answer anonymously on a regular basis.

5. Provide a to-do list with a purpose.

The early talent team will need to focus on communicating with line managers far more regularly than perhaps usual to ensure that the apprentices/graduates are given meaningful work that balances challenge with time to adjust to working in a self-managed way. Providing meaningful work will be essential in making the apprentices and graduates feel that they are contributing to the business and are integrated into the team.  Regular and timely feedback is also critical to ensure learning is harnessed and connectivity is achieved.

6. Consider team activities to do off-line and away from the screen.

These can be used to build their understanding of the firm and enabling them to reach out to more people within the organisation. This is also an opportunity for the graduates to create relationships amongst themselves in order to start building the important peer network that adds such an important dynamic to graduate intakes. You should consider some of these activities being informal ‘out of work’ experiences where the participants can relax in the knowledge there are no senior managers or early careers team members participating. They could use the time for some creative activities – games and quizzes for example all of which will help build a team feeling and provide a fun environment for the participants.

7. The role of mentors and buddies takes on a new importance.

With a lack of face to face interaction the need for some personal connections become even more important. The informal role of the graduate buddy has a key part to play in helping the new joiners relax into the organisation and understand ‘how things work around here’ in ways they would usually pick up by being in the office. The buddy can also act as a listening ear for anxieties and concerns the new starters may have around the new world of work that they don’t feel comfortable sharing with more senior members of the organisation.  Having informal online coffee breaks can be a good opportunity for new employees to ask questions in a more relaxed environment.  Someone new to a business will likely be incredibly busy and struggling to get their heads around a new approach so giving them some away time and ask them to sit and have a coffee with a buddy. Mentors will be needed to not only share their expertise and experience of the work and workplace but also to pass on help and give advice around working remotely, for example creating their work-space at home and setting boundaries between personal and professional time.

8. Put together a ‘How to’ specifically for this experience.

Setting out your expectations, the support provided and where to go for help will all enable everyone to have a successful virtual experience. To find out more about our virtual bite sized learning modules on conducting effective performance conversations, giving feedback, manager as coach, and much more, contact us at: [email protected] Other Useful Links: https://www.igniumconsult.com/the-spark-tank/ .Please keep an eye on our website: www.jarredconsulting.com for further updates.