What is hybrid onboarding?

Hybrid onboarding is the process of transitioning new hires in hybrid roles into your company. Since hybrid employees work remotely and onsite, the hybrid onboarding process addresses new challenges that your company’s traditional onboarding process may not.

When done correctly, a hybrid onboarding process ensures that new hires working remotely and onsite can seamlessly:

  • Integrate and feel welcomed into the company culture
  • Form relationships with colleagues and key team members
  • Know who and how to ask for help during the transition into their new role
  • Schedule virtual meetings to check in and set goals with their manager (at least for the first 90 days)
  • Understand their day-to-day responsibilities, upcoming deadlines, and relevant projects
  • Receive access to necessary office equipment, technology, files, and software
  • Know their way around the office whenever they’re expected to work onsite

The in-person elements of hybrid onboarding

While you can use virtual tools to achieve most of those goals listed above, there are also some important in-person elements. You can take the following actions to set hybrid hires up for success when working in the office:

  • Emphasize the importance of developing interpersonal relationships with colleagues by providing ample opportunities for new hires to connect with their new team in person.
  • Explain the layout of your office, including when and how employees usually interact with the different spaces (e.g. “people usually gather here for a coffee break around 12:15 pm”).
  • Make direct introductions with the colleagues they can turn to if they need help getting used to their new role and environment.
  • Get creative to make the onboarding feel festive, engaging, and reflective of strong company culture (e.g. show a company video, share a list of fun facts, give a small welcome gift).

The online elements of hybrid onboarding

Of course, the online elements of your hybrid onboarding process are just as essential to get right as the offline elements. Here are some key actions to successfully onboard employees working remotely:

  • Social connection
    • Create opportunities outside of work-related tasks for new hires to virtually connect with their colleagues. For example, you can schedule regular virtual coffee breaks or post-work happy hours.
    • Pair new hires with multiple existing employees as virtual buddies. Prompt them to schedule time to get to know one another and about their role in the company.
    • Create Slack channels specifically for new hires to connect and ask questions.
    • Ask new hires to create and share a short presentation about themselves that includes several fun facts about their life outside of work.
  • Managers who know how to manage remotely
    • Provide your managers with leadership training and educate them on best practices for leading remote teams.
    • Ensure managers have the tools, guidelines, and overall knowledge to support hybrid employees.
    • Arrange meetings for managers to discuss challenges and new ideas for supporting hybrid hires.
    • Encourage managers to publicly share and celebrate the early wins made by new hires.
  • Trust and confidence
    • Catch up with new hires regularly to discuss questions, impressions of their role, and ways to support their transition further.
    • Support new hires with empathy and reminders that getting acclimated to a new company while working remotely can take time.
    • Communicate transparently to keep new hires in the loop about updates from the senior leadership team.
    • Provide new hires with a virtual mentor to help build confidence and provide guidance while navigating a new job.

Hybrid onboarding best practices

What's the main objective of any onboarding process? Welcome new hires and ensure they can adjust quickly to their new work environment.

With that objective in mind, here are some key takeaways and best practices to follow:

  • Before formal orientation, send a welcome note or email to new hybrid hires.
  • Tell new employees a good, inspirational story about the company and its aspirations.
  • Remind new hybrid hires of the company's purpose (i.e. what problem it aims to solve, and who the company helps).
  • Cultivate an appreciation for shared company values by embedding related activities into its onboarding.
  • Make sure new hires are familiar with the layout of the office.
  • Tell new hires where and how they can get help if they need it.
  • Create a memorable onboarding experience by welcoming new hires with a company video, office map, fun facts, and any other content that tells your company story.
  • Arrange social gatherings (e.g. virtual coffee break) to allow new hires to form social connections outside of formal work projects.
  • Pair new hires with multiple virtual “buddies” to help them form bonds across the company.
  • Create Slack channels specifically for new hires to connect and ask questions.
  • Ask new hires to break the ice by sharing a short presentation about themselves.
  • Upskill and train your managers on best practices for managing remotely.
  • Equip managers with the tools, guidelines, and overall knowledge to support hybrid employees.
  • Arrange meetings for managers to discuss challenges and new ideas for supporting hybrid hires.
  • Encourage managers to publicly share and celebrate the early wins made by new hires.
  • Catch up with new hires regularly to discuss questions, impressions of their role, and ways to further support their transition.
  • Support hybrid hires with empathy and reminders that you acknowledge getting acclimated to a new company while working in a hybrid role can take time.
  • Communicate transparently to keep hybrid hires in the loop about updates from the senior leadership team.
  • Provide new hires with a virtual mentor to help build confidence and provide guidance while navigating a new job.