Onboarding remote workers is an alien concept for many organisations; however, as businesses continue to adapt to distributed working, onboarding remotely may become fundamental to sustaining your business now and into the future.
66% of workers now work from home, a 17% rise from pre COVID-19, according to a recent study from Small Business Trends.
True Benefit of Strong Remote Onboarding
Organisation shouldn’t underestimate the importance of a positive onboarding experience, with 69% of employees staying with a company for over 3-years as a result of a good onboarding experience.
Remote onboarding doesn’t have to be complicated or something an organisation has to put on hold. It’s now time to embrace this new transition, as virtual waves replace a firm handshake on your first day in a new job.
Blueface has added 13 new remote team members and, to help you roll out remote working, we thought we’d share our recent onboarding experiences and tools that we’ve used for a smooth onboarding experience.
Video Call and Virtual Introductions
Mary Murray, Head Of Operations at Blueface.
Embracing the new normal is accepting that video conferencing and webinar technology are now essential and is one of the most important onboarding tools for breaking down geographical barriers and periods of social isolation.
“Starting a new job in a working from home environment can be a real challenge without the right tools in place. While nothing beats face to face interaction, we have found Blueface Video Conference to be the next best thing!
Within the team, and for our two new hires, we use it for interactive training sessions, team meetings and introductions. In-built Video Conferencing has allowed my team to connect and get to know each other on a practical level while improving overall engagement throughout the entire team.”
Screen Sharing and Collaboration
Guillaume Bonnet, Head of Software Development at Blueface.
Collaboration can be the engine that accelerates innovative software development, enhancing brainstorming and problem-solving.
“My team has grown rapidly over the last few weeks, including an Android Developer, Angular Developer, iOS Developer and a Python Developer, based across many different locations.
We work across multiple projects at any one time, so we have been using the Blueface Screen Sharing Integration daily. No matter where we are based, we can continue to collaborate effortlessly as a team.
As an introductory tool, it was a game-changer for me, I could easily share the on-going projects with all my new starters. By offering a real-time view of my screen, boosting the team’s understanding of deliverables. The team also availed of the Instant Messaging feature, which meant I could answer everyone’s questions.”
As workplace tools evolve to support remote working environments, teams can also evolve to achieve the same high level of collaboration from anywhere.
Getting Set Up to Start Selling
Navid Talebzadeh, Head of Direct at Blueface.
Working from home can be challenging for the manager, as well as the new employee. Without the luxury of working in the same office, it’s vital employees are set up with a solid foundation, clarity of their role, and confidence they have the right technology to succeed.
“With the UC Portal Voice solution, I was able to add James as a user in advance and provide him with an extension, DDI, access, and set appropriate permission levels. I had the ability to add James (Hempenstall) to the Sales Group, so he would be part of the Sales Group Callflow, receiving the correct calls from day one.”
From new Salesteam starter, James Hempenstall’s perspective, the challenge of starting remotely as a Business Sales Executive wasn’t as tricky as he had expected.
“I have never worked remotely before, so I was thrilled with just how easy it all came together. My manager had set me up on the Blueface Portal in advance, and I was online within minutes.
To my delight, there was no set up required; the plug and play functionality of the devices is very straightforward. Likewise, I have found the Blueface Softphone App very useful, as it means I never miss a call, and it’s a fallback if my broadband connection fails. Starting a new role from home seemed very daunting, but overall it was a pretty seamless process.”
Summary
Blueface offers a suite of features – Call and Video Conferencing, Mobile Softphone, Call Recording, Unlimited Calls to Local and National Landlines – that solve modern business challenges. We are here to help in any way we can, contact us on +353 (1) 524 2000 and we’ll create the best solution for your remote strategy.
Interested in joining the team? We’re hiring across all departments! Visit the Blueface Careers page to learn more.
