A 5-Phase Comprehensive Checklist for Onboarding Developers
Bringing a new remote developer onto your team can be a challenging experience for everyone involved. Getting accustomed to a change in team dynamics, a new work environment and company culture, and establishing clear communication and expectations take time, organization and a great onboarding process.
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Yet, companies often don’t have formal remote onboarding procedures defined, which results in many developers being poorly inducted into projects. Besides affecting their productivity, this also negatively impacts the perception of the remote workforce as a whole. With the remote sector estimated to grow to 70% of the overall workforce by 2025, this is not a niche issue anymore.
The good news is that you can achieve many benefits of an onboarding program if you spend just one or two hours on it. Over the years, we’ve worked with thousands of remote developers and found that there are four pillars to a great onboarding program: 1. Orientation, 2. Communication, 3. Process, and 4. Access. In this article, we’ll explain more about our simple yet effective approach to onboarding remote software developers and how you can easily integrate it into your own organization.
Step 1. Orient the Developer
Orientation is a critical step in getting your new remote developer quickly comfortable within your team and company. This doesn’t have to be a long process, but it should cover the basics of who they will work with, what work they will be doing, and how they can get started. In essence, this step will ensure they don’t feel like they’ve been thrown into the deep end.
Send a Welcome Email
Your new team member will have a lot to learn in the first few weeks of starting and may feel overwhelmed. A welcome email is a good way to ease them in, introduce them to the team and get them familiar with the role and general information about the company. Include all of the key team members the new hire will be working with in this email.
