BRX Pro Tip: How to Onboard a Remote Team Member
Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to BRX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you this afternoon. Lee, let’s talk a little bit about strategies and tactics for onboarding a remote team member.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:12] Right. In today’s world, a lot of your team members are going to be remote. And it’s important to have some plan of attack to make sure that they can get on boarded and start being productive as quickly as possible. Here are some things that you can be doing to make sure that that goes smoothly. Number one, make sure that they have what they need before day one. So, on day zero, they should have whatever password software access they need, whatever equipment they need.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] Early on, there has to be a video call to answer any questions and manage expectations. Because if you don’t have clear expectations, there’s no way they can possibly deliver on what you desire. And during that video call, you should be covering what educational resources are available, what help resources are available, what’s the true north of the company, what’s our mission. How do we communicate our mission? Is there mentors available? Who are the people that are going to be their allies that they can go to, to call if they have a problem or a question? That all has to be clear and that should be in their hands before they start.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:29] And then, make sure that all kinds of contact information is available for them, so they can get a hold of whoever they have to get a hold of in whatever form, whether it’s phone number, email, slack channel, however you’re communicating. Make sure they have all of that available to them so that there’s no, “Well, I’d call them but I don’t know their number.” Like, you want to avoid any of those kind of hiccups. There’s no need for it today.
Lee Kantor: [00:01:55] And then, schedule regular follow ups, whether they’re daily, at first, to weekly, to monthly, to quarterly, whatever they are. Have a regular rhythm, I would say, daily at the beginning and have follow up and check ins to make sure they’re progressing and they’re getting stuff done. So, that way, they can have a running start rather than just them waiting on stuff. You don’t want them to be waiting on anything. And you don’t want to have miscommunications. And you want to show that they’re part of a team and they’re a valued team member at the beginning.
