Onboarding With Intention: Building Belonging in a Remote-First Environment

When onboarding new employees, first impressions count. Even if your new hire has an excellent recruitment experience and seems genuinely passionate about the role, the onboarding process can make all the difference between an employee’s decision to stay or leave a company.

According to a survey by Glassdoor, proper onboarding processes improve a company’s retention rate by 82%. As the number of employees working remotely continues to increase, how can we get onboarding right? And how can you ensure your new hires feel a sense of belonging when joining your team remotely?

What is onboarding? 

Onboarding is the process of introducing a newly hired employee into your organisation. It includes a series of tasks the employee must complete to feel equipped and ready to do their job. These might include:

• Meeting their team and the wider organisation
• Getting set up on different systems
• Learning new processes
• Familiarising themselves with the job requirements and expectations.

This can be done fairly smoothly in a physical work location, especially when the whole team is in one place. Often, a walk around the office and some introductions can be done as soon as the new hire arrives, and they find themselves quickly putting names to faces.

The challenges of remote-first onboarding

In a post-pandemic world where remote and hybrid working have become the norm, there’s a risk that digital onboarding can lose the human touch. 

At Synergy Learning, we’ve faced these challenges ourselves as we made the positive decision to transition to a remote-first workplace. We knew that onboarding processes that had worked well in person would need to be fully adapted to work remotely. One of the biggest challenges of onboarding remote employees is familiarising them with the company culture, values and expectations.

This was going to have to take more than a ‘lift and shift’ approach to getting things online.

How to create a great remote onboarding experience

So, how do we create a great remote onboarding experience that helps new starters feel part of the culture from day one? We want new starters to feel excited and arrive at work motivated, engaged and supported.

We need to look well beyond the obvious checks that our onboarding colleagues have a good home office set up and all the equipment they need to be productive;  we need to ensure they feel welcome, integrated and have a sense of belonging from the day they receive their offer letter.

Let’s look at how to go beyond traditional onboarding, blending DEIB principles, wellbeing initiatives and technology to create a positive experience that sets your new hires up for long-term success.

1. Implement a DEIB-driven onboarding process

Inclusion isn’t just a word: it’s a practice that should be embedded in both culture and onboarding. Diversity relates to the “similarities and differences among employees in terms of age, cultural background, physical abilities and disabilities, race, religion, sex and sex orientation.” You only get value from diversity if you have inclusion – people need to feel able to participate and achieve their potential, regardless of these differences.

This is why at Synergy Learning we integrate diversity, equity, inclusion and, critically, belonging (DEIB) principles at every stage of the onboarding journey and beyond. To reduce feelings of isolation or anxiety, onboarding should start before an employee’s first day. From the initial welcome email to ongoing communication before their start date, the aim is to make new hires feel seen, informed and included.

It’s key that this doesn’t stop at onboarding. Through regular discussions, surveys and feedback, you can continually improve on your DEI practices and build a truly inclusive culture.

2. Create connections through intentional engagement

Remote work can sometimes mean connections are made by chance rather than intention. This is why, when adapting our onboarding for a remote-first workforce, we put emphasis on intentional connection. It’s important to remember that “remote-first” doesn’t mean “remote only”: we like to start off by inviting a new colleague to co-locate with the key people they will be working with for the first few days.  Through regular check-ins, team meetings and quarterly in-person ‘All Hands’ meetings, we then ensure everyone gets to know each other well and become part of the fabric of our team. 

Our approach to onboarding includes scheduled one-to-ones with team leaders, mentors and cross-departmental ‘buddies’ to give new hires multiple points of connection. Regular check-ins go beyond project updates, creating a space for employees to speak openly with their managers about their wellbeing, workload and any challenges they may be facing.

Connections that go beyond just getting work done will show new team members that they’re supported and valued as individuals from day one.

3. Empower people through asynchronous learning

One of the biggest advantages of remote onboarding is being able to offer learning asynchronously. By using your learning management system to provide employees with the resources they need, they can learn at their own pace without losing days to sit in a training room. Personalised pathways based on roles and objectives can get people clear on the value of learning to their career from day one.

However, we can’t just put everything on an LMS and expect people to learn successfully. We learn through osmosis, so regular points of contact and mentorship can provide ‘scaffolding’ – i.e. providing relevant information and encouraging learners to collaborate. This helps guide learners when necessary while still giving them the freedom to create understanding for themselves, at a pace that works for them.

Discussion boards, networks and groups within your LMS can help promote social learning through interaction. Ideally, these should enable free discussion and a safe environment to share ideas, resources, solutions and feedback. Explore more ways to use your LMS for onboarding.

At Synergy Learning, we have a strong performance enablement programme that is tracked through our LMS. This ensures that all staff know from the very beginning what’s expected of them, what their objectives are, how they’re performing and how to improve. This is vital when we consider the findings of Linkedin’s Workplace Learning Report 2023, which reported that 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development. 

By having meaningful conversations and a clear sense of direction from the start, your people are shown that you are genuinely invested in their development through a personalised learning programme.

4. Make wellbeing a priority, not just a perk

According to the CIPD People Profession survey, 55% of people professionals in the UK found that supporting employee mental health and wellbeing became more difficult with more staff working at home. It’s unsurprising then to learn that remote workers are 30% more likely to experience mental health challenges such as anxiety and burnout compared to their in-office counterparts. 

In a remote setting, it can be hard to gauge how someone is really feeling through a laptop screen. This is why our wellbeing initiatives start from day one, with regular check-ins from our People Circle to make sure our new hires are settling in well.

During onboarding, you can introduce employees to wellness resources that they can access at their own pace. For example, at Synergy Learning, these include on-demand webinars and courses covering topics such as stress management, mindfulness and physical health. Knowing there’s an open conversation about wellbeing and mental health from the start can offer a sense of security for new hires and help to reduce any stigma. There are also ‘Wellbeing Wednesdays’, where employees can join live webinars with experts in wellness including nutritionists and mental health professionals.

By combining flexible health benefits, accessible resources, intentional check-ins and a culture that values self-care, all supported by the right learning technologies, it’s possible to foster a remote workplace where employees can thrive.

Explore more ways to increase staff retention

Carefully considered onboarding processes are just one of the ways you can reduce employee turnover at your organisation. Find more ways of increasing staff retention.

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