The remote employee experience begins with the candidate experience, which continues through onboarding, on-the-job feedback, and offboarding! The experience doesn’t need to end with their exit. Offboarding is the new onboarding. More on that soon!
Build a stellar candidate experience
Let’s talk about how you’re going to build the ultimate candidate experience! First, you need to tell your story - communicate your company culture and vision.
Your story has to be captivating, including an honest and authentic picture of what it is like to work in your company. Your story needs to reflect your true company experience. It will set the tone, expectations, and the level of commitment and motivation you expect from candidates. What kind of team are they joining? How will they know they’re your ideal candidate? You’ve got to clearly articulate who you are and what you care about before they start on Day 1!
Make the first 100 days count
Onboarding is a process that takes at least 100 days. It can include a kick-off week with a rock-solid agenda:
1) meeting with the CEO
2) setting up their local tech and infrastructure and productivity tools
3) getting to know the team
Communicating your values does not stop on Day 1. Orientation programs must be designed to convey the values, standards, and expected behaviors of the company. At every possible moment during those first 100 days, reinforce your core values and culture.
Throughout the first 100 days, remote employees will need ongoing assessments of their performance. This is critical for the candidate and their supervisor to align. They have to be on the same page. The supervisor needs to be sharing constructive feedback, setting audacious goals, and providing all the needed resources to set the candidate up for success.
Reward and recognition should always be tailored toward the individual. How? Think about what makes that individual unique. Would they appreciate a budget for a cooking class, new hardware, a trip, personal development classes? Learn more about what motivates and excites them. Focus on creating rewarding and meaningful personal experiences. Openly discuss their compensation and benefits regularly. Review and revise these at predictable intervals according to their achievements.
In today’s competitive search for top remote talent, authenticity earns you a long-lasting reputation as a desirable company - one that is open, trustworthy, and committed to improving.
Yanislava Hristova
Founder and Community Manager at Remote It World
Let's start at the end
Before you can think about offering a new remote job position, you need to consider your brand image from a unique point of view: your remote offboarding experience. You see, when we share the story of our company with potential candidates, it must be authentic. That story begins with your former employees. You must learn to embrace their experiences and accept their viewpoints as part of your story of growth and success.
Why are former employees so important to your success?
Employers who market themselves with authenticity have an advantage. In today’s competitive search for top remote talent, authenticity earns you a long-lasting reputation as a desirable company - one that is open, trustworthy and committed to improving. Nothing is more honest than honoring the experiences and contributions of your departed talent.
There’s more to it than that, of course. You must understand that burning bridges are a weak option; build bridges and form partnerships with former employees instead. In today’s connected world, mutually beneficial alliances are key.
The end is your friend!
When an employee leaves, we want you to see them as a precious resource. They are the voice of authenticity, having experienced your company values and culture firsthand. Receive them gratefully and compassionately when they tell you they are moving on. After all, everyone at some point needs a change.
Learn from their experience and feedback. Listen with an open mind, and imagine you are listening to a paid business consultant and new hiring partner. Nurture that relationship, even after they have left, and everyone wins.
Practical solution:Create an Alumni Club referral program and give former employees the chance to be your allies in the search for new talent. During the remote offboarding experience, explain that you would like to partner with them and reward them for any new hires they refer to you.
If they agree, continue to nurture that professional relationship by recognizing them as an official member of an Alumni Club. Thank them on LinkedIn for their talent and support, saying, “We are proud to have Marcus as an honored alumnus of our company. He was an incredibly talented member of our team and continues to be a valued alumnus!”
Remember your North Star
Sometimes, when a person is leaving we can forget one simple fact: we are value-driven people first, not our job titles. We are family members, friends, and peers. When we look beyond the narrow “loyalty to our team is all that matters” mentality, we start to see that "actually our values are what matter.” At every stage of the employee experience, be guided by values. Let authenticity, compassion, and connection be your North Star - your guiding light to success.
Let’s recap!
- Communicate your culture and values at every step
- Set them up for true success in the first 100 days
- Remember that former employees can be new partners
From my consulting practices, we’ve created the pathways from pre-hiring and beyond that guarantee stellar remote talent experiences. We take the guesswork out of it because we’ve perfected it. Now it’s you on stage to build and master a long-lasting human to hum
You can find out more about Yanislava Hristova on Remote IT World.
