New-Hire Onboarding in the Social Distancing Age: Challenges
Published: March 27, 2020
Author: Oliver Eldredge
The COVID-19 era of social distancing is presenting unique challenges for almost every company, including how to work remotely with new hires to make them feel integrated, comfortable, and prepared to contribute in their roles. The 3Q Training team is providing a blog series to help organizations tackle the challenge.
The onboarding experience at a new job can (and should) be a challenge for new hires, but the social distancing necessitated by the COVID-19 outbreak has introduced a range of unique challenges for new teammates and their employers.
In normal times, new employees would be working hard to develop new skills and accomplish goals created for them. They’d be learning the culture, processes, platforms, policies, and methodologies of their new company and starting to foster relationships with their new peers. The first few weeks at any new job can be overwhelming as it is, and that’s without trying to remember all your passwords.
While many companies were increasing remote hires before the pandemic hit and were relatively well positioned to onboard new folks without changing procedures, lots of organizations (and their new employees) are working on the fly to figure out how to get new folks up to speed from home offices and without in-person interaction.
In this upcoming series, we’ll lay out tips, tricks, and strategies for helping orient new colleagues to get them integrated, comfortable, connected, and productive in this most unsettling of times. Stay tuned.
