Should I onboard a new employee during confinement or wait until recovery?

Welcoming your future employee has become a strategic asset. It is absolutely essential to make this step a highlight for the employee, because this welcome will mark their entire experience within the company.

The benefits are immediate and concrete; a quickly operational employee develops a feeling of belonging, understands the company culture and adheres to its values. The team then recognizes him more quickly as one of its members.

But should I integrate a new employee during confinement or wait until the recovery?

If cash flow and workload permit, do not postpone onboarding unless requested by the employee who may have special logistical needs.

Because although the situation is not optimal, your new employee will not hold it against you if everything is not perfect, because he is already happy to come and contribute!

Upstream, you must respect the best practices: communicate on reception, prepare the logistics of arrival, plan your partner, organize the activities of the first week, plan daily follow-ups in the diary, etc. .

So, even when you onboard your employee remotely, the formula doesn’t change. You need to use your imagination and double down on your communication mechanisms.

How can we adapt the approach then?

1. Arrange for home delivery of work tools and offer technical support necessary for the operation of tools and software. Don’t forget your promotional items in the package, this helps create a feeling of belonging, even from a distance!
2. Consider providing a short guide to best practices in ergonomics for a safe workspace, even at home.
3. Don’t overload the schedule. Why not set obligatory 15-minute breaks on the agenda to allow an ecological stop and stretch your joints?
4. Organize an “Icebreaker” activity online, the first day, to introduce the new employee to all his colleagues. Several platforms support video conferencing and have chat.
5. Encourage teams to present themselves individually, in the form of “speed dating” virtual. This is a good way to fill the agenda in a human way the first week, (replacing the dining area) while allowing space for intensive learning.

In conclusion, it is not a question of always doing more, but rather of doing better, of contextualizing, of being imaginative, of taking key actions that virtually reduce the distance. As Maya Angelou said: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”.