Onboarding remote it specialists? Don't underestimate the details 

Have you found the right IT expert for your team who is also comfortable with your remote work mode? Congratulations! We know it’s not easy to find the right person. That is also why companies hire recruitment agencies that can provide IT experts through outsourcing. But it doesn’t end with the interview. Another important phase is about to start now – onboarding. How can you make sure your new remote colleague will handle his tasks well while also feeling like part of the team and the company? How can you convince him that he made the right choice and that he doesn’t need to look any further at your competition?

Business News Daily states that roughly 30% of newly hired employees start looking for a new job within a few months of starting due to a bad start to the collaboration. This can cost between 100 and 300 percent of the employee’s wage, depending on the nature of his role. This should make us consider whether we are doing everything as best we can, and where we may be lacking in our onboarding process. There are a few rules that have helped our clients.

Clear timing

‘First I waited three days for my direct supervisor to find time for me, and then another week for another meeting with colleagues to learn about my work and first assignments. That’s when I realized that I’m not in the right place and that the company is probably not quite as innovative as it claimed. I simply left,’ one of our contractors recalls why he left a project before it started and turned to TITANS to help him choose a reliable team. 

Especially in remote onboarding, when your new colleague doesn’t share an office with you, you can’t arrange specific steps ad hoc and fill the empty time with storytelling or getting to know each other, it is very important to let him know what the schedule is ahead of time: 

• Is everything settled contractually, or is there something else he needs to sign? 
• What training will he have to undergo and when? 
• When will he meet with the key people online? 
• When will he meet the new team online? 

Technical and administrative support 

These aren’t just formalities. It’s surprisingly common for new employees to not have their own hardware, access to email and all the systems, or authentication tokens for a few days… they’re just hanging around, waiting. A new remote IT specialist needs sufficient support to integrate quickly and efficiently into the work environment, also because he can’t handle it remotely himself. It is also crucial that he knows who to turn to if he has questions or lacks the necessary information about organizational processes. It is only when the basic technical matters are working that he can gradually start to devote his attention to the work and his added value for the team. 

Clear communication 

Functional communication regarding work assignments, delivery and deadlines is key to the success of a new remote IT specialist. What is clear to us may not be clear to others. When agreements are only made online, it is best to clarify the facts more from the beginning and make sure the other person understands us, knows exactly what we need from him and how deadlines work. IT freelancers are used to thinking independently and working with their own responsibility for entrusted projects. This is where miscommunication can happen – does he really know what is a given and where he can make his own decisions? Does he understand the continuity between his work and the work of other team members? 

Effective communication is usually reflected in performance: when your remote IT expert receives specific instructions about the project and does not have to repeatedly ask questions, he can focus better and spend his time working. Poor communication can lead to misunderstandings and missed deadlines. This is why it’s important to clearly define communication channels and regular online meetings and follow the rules you agree on.  

Current onboarding materials 

Putting together all the necessary onboarding materials in one place is a job for several weeks or months at most companies. It truly takes the work of several people on multiple levels for them to be uniform and communicate everything that every newbie needs to know. And keeping these materials up-to-date is even harder. Technical, staffing and project matters change quickly, and the information in the company cloud can become outdated in just a few months. The only solution is to set up a process in which specific stakeholders regularly update the materials to make sure outdated data are not the first thing your new IT specialist encounters.

Well-managed onboarding relies on processes 

The number of companies hiring IT experts for remote or hybrid collaboration is growing rapidly. This saves costs for office space and expands the possibilities of collaboration independent of the location. A remote work mode particularly makes sense for IT freelancers outsourced for a project. But this makes it necessary for companies to rely on functioning processes and rules. The onboarding process shows your new colleague that things work at your company and that he will have room to grow and do his job. 

And how do you know that your remote onboarding was successful? ‘According to simple practical criteria,’ says a TITANS contractor listing examples: ‘If I can start working immediately, I know the cyber security rules of my new company, I don’t need to write ten emails a day to technical support and I know when the next meeting with my team is.’

TITANS has rich experience with its own internal recruitment and client support in the onboarding of outsourced IT specialists. We’re happy to walk you through the process and help you plan it to make new people on your IT team want to stay.