Some time ago, we wrote about the onboarding process (and, a while ago, about some tools to facilitate it). We also talked about the in&outs of remote working as part of the company culture. Both topics have a clear point of contact: the so-called digital onboarding.
Onboarding can be considered in two ways: as the employee experience that goes from hiring to the full performance of the individual, but also as the set of processes that must be implemented in the human resources department to carry out a successful and fluent integration of these new employees.
Human Resources is a key and busy department in any organization. Especially considering how crucial its main function is: bringing new talent into the house (and keeping it!). On top of that, remote working adds a new challenge apart from the most common ones in the HR area.
Don’t panic! There are solutions to ease this burden.
Let’s see some of them!
1. Communication is everything
Not long ago, personal interviews were the way to go. Nowadays, uploading the CV to an application, sending documentation electronically or doing the interview online, becomes the new normal. And after hiring a new employee, the list goes on and on when it comes to remote working. That’s why we need agile and versatile communication tools.
What tools support holding conversations by videoconference, sending and receiving documents safely, sharing your screen…. to facilitate the first steps of a seamless onboarding? Many. We like Slack, for example, but there are many more, choose the one that best suits your needs.
2. The intricacy of personnel selection
Time and effort invested in selection processes could be dedicated to other tasks, inside and outside the department. But it is not easy to manage many tasks such as designing the job offer, analyzing applications, organizing information, contacting candidates, answering questions, filtering the ideal candidate, etc.
Again, there are many tools (called applicant tracking systems or ATS), some very comprehensive and others more simple, some for free and others paying a fee; the ideal system depends on the size of the company and its needs. Teamtailor is one of the most popular, for example.

3. Automate human resources management, hooray!
If there is something ‘cumbersome’ in an onboarding process from the HR perspective (and also for the employee) it is all the paperwork that a hiring usually requires: contracts, payroll, quotes, time records, that is, [ irony mode ON] so much fun and without any possibility of error [irony mode OFF].
Is there any software that can do or facilitate all of this ? Sure! An example would be Personio, a software that facilitates administrative tasks in HR management. When it comes to remote working, a digitized management of workflows, time records and other tasks is more than helpful.
4. e-Learning, remote training
One of the essential (and sometimes problematic) points to optimize both the performance and the employee experience in an onboarding, is the initial education and training. For the uninitiated, explaining to the newcomer “ this is how we usually do this here”.
As you can imagine, regarding remote working, we cannot teach in the same way as in face-to-face dynamics. There are very specific training tools for the workplace: learning management systems as well developed as TalentLMs, a cloud-based digital environment with many possibilities.
5. Remote working? Welcome to auto-onboarding
We have left the most interesting part to the end because only those who have been able to get here, like you 😉, deserve to know it. What would you think of a broad HRMS that puts most of the process in the hands of the employee and automates and facilitates part of those processes?
Here we go! If you want to know how your employees are experiencing onboarding in your organization, and also their level of satisfaction, you can measure it with Happyforce with a set of KPIs.