“We’ve put the role on hold”, “we’re in a recruitment freeze”, “I’m really sorry, however during these unclear times, we are unable to bring them on board”.  

These past two weeks have undoubtedly been the most uncertain time for a huge proportion of us out there. However, for me, and a handful of others, we have had a positive week! Recruiting remotely and on boarding a new employee to a business is 100% possible – and we have the proof. 

This week, I had the opportunity to interview a candidate that recently started a new job and interview their new manager.  

In this blog, the client, who is a Head of Marketing,  talks openly about working from home, recruiting remotely, on boarding digitally, and their advice to those who are looking to bring on new employees. 

As we are almost two weeks into working from home, what have been the challenges you and the company have faced? 

We were already quite comfortable with working from home, as the business is pretty flexible and as a marketing department with a wide range of digital skills working from home and not to a strict 9-5 is a culture already well embedded. All members of the team have laptops and VPN, so we were the first department in the business to adopt a WFH policy. It’s all been pretty smooth, with a daily stand up call on Zoom each morning outlining work needed for the day/week, and utilising shared docs to monitor progress. Also introduced Slack as a chat communication tool, and a WhatsApp group so we can react to anything that might happen outside of normal working hours. So far, touch wood, it’s been fairly seamless and hopefully it will continue to be quite a positive experience. There have absolutely been different challenges for other departments, volume of laptops needed for call centre workers etc, but we seem to be dealing with them well. 

As you were bringing on a new employee to the business, what were your/the company’s first initial thoughts when the announcement had been made for everyone to work from home? 

Initially we had to acquire a laptop (in a period of high demand) and get that kit to our new starters home address. Our MD took responsibility for this and delivered the laptop to his home address a couple of days before his starting date. From there it was about assimilating J into the team, which we’re doing through the team meeting process and through 1to1 inductions via Zoom. Training is underway which we’re managing well through document sharing, screen share and again using Zoon to facilitate. 

What is your “usual” on boarding process and how have you done this remotely? 

As above really, and we’ve been able to deliver the same process just using technology to replace the typical face to face elements.  

What have been the benefits of working from home and remotely bringing on a new employee? 

I’m not sure there are benefits as such, but we are yet to find any negatives that we can’t work around – it’s just been a case of replicating what we would normally do as closely as we can using different technologies 

As you can imagine in the current climate, many businesses are in a recruitment freeze. What would your advice be to those who were recruiting, interviewing and on boarding new employees to the company? 

If a role is critical to the business, then there is no need for working remotely to be a barrier. If anything it has made everyone more aware of their responsibilities to try and welcome a new member to the team, and could well end up being the most thorough induction anyone has had – you and your team quickly learn not to take anything for granted in terms of knowledge, training and understanding. Everyone has been more than happy to give their time to J, perhaps to break up some of the general lockdown tedium! 

In my previous blog, the candidate talks honestly about starting a new job remotely, working from home and gives advice for those who are looking for a new job. You can read the interview HERE 

If you would like any more advice regarding remote recruitment and a chat about the current digital market, please contact Faye Dixon at Forward Role.