How to welcome a new employee virtually and boost retention
Summary
A new employee whos onboarding virtually can easily fail to connect with new team members, miss important cultural signals and face other difficulties that lead to future retention problems. Sending new hires these items is one way to help them feel like they belong, said Andrew Gobran, people operations generalist at Doist Inc., a fully remote productivity and collaboration software developer located in Palo Alto, Calif. Swag can be especially powerful in a virtual work environment because the individual can hold these objects or even wear them. Some examples of helping new employees receive tools are the following: • provisioning and delivering equipment, such as computers, on time; • providing information about company communication best practices, like which Slack channels the new hire should join. "[Doing so] creates a sense of pride for that individual," said Lilith Christiansen, chief experience officer at SilkRoad Technology, an HR platform developer located in Chicago. Part of feeling welcome at a new organization is knowing other employees have had similar experiences, said Sonja Gittens Ottley, head of diversity and inclusion at Asana Inc., a work management platform developer located in San Francisco.