How can the new hires be productive and feel that they belong in the workplace when they are working from home? According to scientists, there are good guidelines for dealing with this and therefore no reason to delay action, Christina Benjaminsen from Norwegian University of Science and Technology writes.
Onboarding, or organizational socialization, is a process that helps newcomers become integrated members of their new organization.
This could be new employees entering a business, a person switching jobs internally in an organization, or a consultant who is entering a new project on a client's premises.
All of them will be integrated into a new department or new area of expertise.
The coronavirus outbreak and subsequent infection control measures have resulted in employees working remotely, which has created a challenging situation for the traditional onboarding of new employees.
However, onboarding—receiving new employees—in a virtual team environment is nothing new.
"Many companies have extensive experience in doing this, for example in IT projects that exist virtually and across global networks, where everyone is working from different locations.
"Research-based guidelines on the topic have also been developed.
"However, onboarding to virtual teams often requires a more structured approach than what is usually the case for co-localized teams," says Nils Brede Moe at SINTEF.
And so this applies to people who are new to an organization or someone who is about to take part in a new project or a new part of a business.
Through the onboarding process, new members will learn the skills, knowledge and behavior required to succeed and be productive in their work.
The faster you manage to onboard a new employee, the faster the person is able to contribute productively to the new organization or role.
The new employee will also experience a sense of mastery faster, which in turn increases their motivation and job satisfaction.
Moe has done considerable research into how we work together in technology companies using autonomous teams, and not least how we work with projects that do not require for us to be sitting in close physical proximity to each other.
He says there is no reason to delay the onboarding process.
Many projects and companies drag their feet when it comes to onboarding new employees, which in turn means that key initiatives are delayed, that people are not brought up to speed so that they can start working sooner, or that companies fail to move resources to new key areas effectively.
Instead of hiring, businesses are starting to downsize, and the total value creation is reduced.
"We now keep hearing about projects that are delayed or canceled, projects that could have a great social or business impact for the stakeholders we are working with," says Moe.
His advice to companies is that they need to "just get down to it" and look for innovative ways to recruit new employees and get projects off the ground.
"The main question is how the companies can best onboard and socialize new employees into virtual teams that don't sit together physically," he says.
A new team member must be familiarized with the team's daily routines and common practices.
She must be shown where to find information, who she can ask to get that information, and what the best means would be for acquiring it.
It is also important to get an introduction to the organizational culture and norms at the workplace: How she should work and socially interact with the team, and how she can succeed in her role and grow within the organization. ■