If you’re a small business owner, adding a new employee can seem like a massive undertaking. Taking a new hire for lunch, giving them a tour of the office, and introducing them to coworkers is often an integral part of the experience, but it may not be possible if you and your team are working from home.
However, the hassle of managing a small business doesn’t start and stop with hiring. Tap or click for 8 tips for managing employees remotely.
Running a business during a pandemic is complicated, so we went to the experts on all things, our sponsor: LinkedIn. Read on to get all the facts about virtually hiring and making a first impression on your new team member.
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1. Before starting
LinkedIn pros break down a successful onboarding into six steps. The first is not that your new hire has already come on board, but about two weeks before they start. Here’s what you should do before your new employee’s first day:
2. Day 1
Two weeks later, the paperwork has been signed and your new employee is ready to go. Here’s what you should do on the first day of their actual work:
Don’t overload your new employee! Treat the first day as an observation of what is to come.
Your employee’s first day is not a workday. It is a learning experience.
By the end of the first day, your employee should be ready to go to work for the rest of the week.
3. Day 2
Here’s what you should do on your new employee’s second day at work:
Let your employee know you, or their direct superior, as a manager and boss. Set aside time each other to get to know each other and outline key expectations.
This is also a good time to check in and see if the new hire has questions about onboarding or training procedures.
Ben, the director of Komando News, has a considerable home office. Here’s his guide to a perfectly crafted office space at home.
As of December 2019, more than half of Americans were employed by small businesses. Today, with the pandemic looming, there are more technical concerns for small business owners than ever before. Tap or click here to see how you can get the expert technical support you need.
4. First week
two days down. now what? Here’s how the rest of the first week should play out:
Don’t start a new hire with an easy or simple assignment.
Give your new employee a challenging first assignment that is a good representation of the average workload. This will help make the first week feel like real work and not introduce long hours.
5. First Month
After a week, your new hire will have a good job experience. Here’s what you should keep an eye on in the first month:
Once the new hire understands what is expected and how to achieve it, it is important to provide regular feedback on their performance.
Be sure to establish concrete performance goals that will be covered during subsequent employee reviews.
Consider assigning your new employee a formal mentor, who is usually a more senior member of the team who can help guide and instruct them.
6. Month Two and onwards
And what happens after that first month? Onboarding has no concrete end-point and different people will take different times to adapt to the new environment. Here are some things to keep in mind:
Experts generally agree that it can take anywhere from 6 months to a full year to gain momentum in a new company.
Talk to your new employee and get feedback on the onboarding process that you can use to make it even better.
Getting onboard can feel stressful, even at the office, but we hope this quick guide helps you get started. Bringing in a new employee can be time-consuming and costly, starting with the hiring.
It doesn’t have to be though! We are not talking about free job boards. You’ll have an inbox full of resumes that aren’t appropriate for the role you’re hiring for. That’s why at Komando HQ we use LinkedIn.
