The COVID-19 pandemic has given additional momentum to an employment trend emerging in recent years – hiring employees who work from home. Whether you’ve just started hiring for remote positions or looking for best practices for remote recruiting, read on for three best practices for bringing quality candidates on board.
Tailor Your Screening Methods to a Virtual Environment
When hiring a remote employee, your interview process will most often also be virtual. Interviews are conducted via phone and video instead of in person at your office. Transparency and clarity during the application, assessment, and screening phases is essential because it lets candidates know what to expect and how to prepare.
Be creative with the screening methods you use to uncover a candidate’s ability to show they can rise to the remote challenge. A potential first step could be asking applicants to record a video introducing themselves. This could be especially effective in evaluating candidates for customer-facing roles that represent the brand and company. It could also help you determine if the candidate is the right culture fit for your business and can thrive in a remote working environment.
Promote Connection and Confidence
It’s critical to make new employees feel welcome and encourage them to build a supportive network within the company. Successful onboarding for remote hires requires not only helping them install the necessary digital equipment and software, but also a well-defined process that sets clear expectations while reinforcing that new hires have picked the right job.
Onboarding sessions can be organized by time (for example, 20 hours of training sessions or a 90-day ramp-up plan) or progressive competency. One media company, SmartBug, spends the first 60 days training employees on one specific job responsibility, and when they excel at it, they move to a new task. This gives new hires a growing sense of accomplishment.
Nurture Communication and Employee Relationships
Building personal connections among teammates are crucial to helping remote employees gain a sense of belonging within their new team. Hope Weatherford of Talent Attraction at InVision schedules weekly virtual meetings with a loose agenda, allowing employees to jump and socialize. “We call it ‘Friday fun day’ and we just come in and we just chat about anything and everything,” says Weatherford. “Sometimes (it’s) related to work, sometimes not.”
Need Help Hiring Remote Talent for Your Company?
Mega Force, a leader in clerical and accounting recruitment, can meet your contingent workforce needs. Contact Mega Force to request an employee today.
