Innovation in Remote Work Solutions

I’ve onboarded remote hires across time zones, continents, and cultures. And here’s what I’ve learned: Remote onboarding doesn’t ⭐fail⭐ because of location. It fails because of assumptions. Assuming someone will “just speak up.” Assuming they’ll know what success looks like. Assuming they feel like they belong. Without hallway chats or shadowing, remote employees miss all the informal context that makes onboarding feel human—not just functional. Here’s how I’ve made it work: 💬 Over-communicate expectations and priorities 🎥 Use video, even for 15-minute check-ins 📅 Create a rhythm of connection—1:1s, team intros, buddy syncs ☕ Encourage informal conversations (yes, even virtual coffee chats) Remote doesn’t have to mean disconnected. In fact, with the right systems, it can feel even more inclusive. It took me many years of learning the hard way to build this out. And I’d like to share it with you, no strings attached. (see link in comments) That’s why I built these practices right in our Manager Onboarding Kit—to help leaders support their teams with intention, no matter where they are.

I sent laptops to 7 remote hires. 5 quit within 90 days. Costly mistake.  Brutal lesson. I thought I was onboarding them. They felt abandoned. And the data proves I wasn’t alone: 🚫 63% of remote employees say onboarding was inadequate. 🚫 60% feel lost and disoriented after their first week. 🚫 Remote hires take 3-6 months longer to reach full productivity. A laptop in a box isn’t onboarding.  It’s a fast track to disengagement. So I rebuilt our process—and retention jumped 82%. Here’s exactly what worked: 🔥 The Buddy System ✔ Assign a mentor (daily check-ins for the first 2 weeks) ✔ Encourage “silly” questions—zero judgment ✔ Make support feel human, not bureaucratic 🔥 Connection Before Content ✔ Virtual coffee chats before training starts ✔ Executive welcome video on Day 1 ✔ Remote-friendly team social event in Week 1 🔥 Digestible Learning ✔ 90-minute training modules (no info overload!) ✔ Spread onboarding across 3 weeks, not 3 days ✔ Live discussions > passive video watching 🔥 Tech Readiness ✔ IT setup completed before Day 1 ✔ Test systems with the hire the day before ✔ Provide a digital “emergency contact” for tech issues 🔥 Culture Immersion ✔ Virtual office tour with real team stories ✔ Inside-joke dictionary (every company has one!) ✔ Daily connections between work tasks & company mission 🔥 Strategic Check-ins ✔ Week 1: "What surprised you?" ✔ Month 1: "Where do you need more clarity?" ✔ Quarter 1: "How can we better support your growth?” 🔥 Early Wins = Early Buy-In ✔ Assign a small, meaningful project in Week 1 ✔ Recognize their success publicly ✔ Show them how their work makes an impact Remote onboarding isn’t about dumping information. It’s about building confidence, connection, and commitment. Do this right, and your new hires won’t just stay. They’ll thrive. P.S. What’s one thing you wish you had in your first remote onboarding? ♻️ Repost this to help HR teams fix onboarding before it costs them top talent.

My remote hires (probably) ramp faster than yours. Here's why: Most remote onboarding means a calendar packed with Zoom meetings and endless Slacks from strangers. No real connection. No clear priorities. No clue how tall anyone actually is. It can feel isolating, especially when you’re new and eager to prove yourself. That’s why I take a different approach at UserEvidence. I meet every new hire in person during their first week. Wherever they live, on their home turf. Every time, it leads to the same outcome: faster ramp-up, stronger confidence, and immediate momentum. I’ve improved this process three times now, cutting out fluff and getting feedback from every person to make it even better for the next hire. They each get a beast of a Notion page that covers: - Key people to meet (and why those meetings matter) - Important docs and links to review right away - A roadmap for their first 30, 60, and 90 days, clearly outlining expectations and where I need them to take ownership From day one, new hires have full visibility into what's working, what's not, and where our biggest opportunities lie. They don't have to hunt for information, either. It’s all there for them: board decks, old marketing roadmaps, past OKRs, and a clear breakdown of the agencies and freelancers we partner with (plus their “superpowers” and how to best work with them). By the end of week one, we’ve already had honest and vulnerable conversations about: - How we can best work together  - Our working styles and weird work quirks to be aware of (we all have them) - What success looks like in their role - Where they want to grow and how I can help We also make time for fun and get to know each other outside of work. Like our upbringing, favorite life stories, and who we are as humans. Work matters, but who you work with matters even more. Building trust right out of the gate makes everything easier.

3 mistakes I did when onboarding a 100% remote team. Building a 100% remote team is a huge challenge and onboarding new hires plays a crucial part on it. In the beginning, we didn’t pay much attention to it and that costs us in the long run. Here are the 3 mistakes I did in the beginning: Mistake #1: No checklist owner We had too many people involved in onboarding a new employee (people person, hiring manager, CTO, etc.). This created confusion in the responsibilities and also in who is the final owner of onboarding. One hire had no access to Notion, there was no clear timeline and no one was following up. Totally our fault. Now: Every new hire’s checklist has a clear owner - someone who maintains it, monitors it, and follows up until it’s 100% complete. Mistake #2: Too much information We tried to give people everything - product docs, process docs, ISO info, team charts… They got overwhelmed and missed the most important stuff. Now: We priortize the information by role. Each checklist is tailored to what that person actually needs to succeed. Not more. Mistake #3: Forgotten accesses One hire spent half of their first day trying to log into their tools. Now: We have a pre-start access protocol. Logins, permissions, tools - all tested before Day 1. Now, we learned from these mistakes and changed our onboarding process. What’s working really well? Learning 1: We always personalize onboarding. No generic doc. Each hire gets a checklist with specific expectations and tasks broken down from Week 1-4 and also a document stating what we expect their role to develop in month 3 and month 6. Learning 2: We assign an onboarding buddy. Onboarding buddies are team members that can answer questions, unblock the new hires, and check in with them at the end of the day. It makes a huge difference — especially since the new hires feel supported during the day and have someone to rely on that is not their manager. Learning 3: We record quick videos any time we can. A doc won’t stick. But a 2-minute Loom explaining a process or a welcome message? That feels like someone’s there with you. Onboarding is your first impression. If you mess it up, people lose trust fast. But get it right? You create confidence and clarity from day one.

Remote hires rarely fail because they’re “bad.” They fail because you never tested how they’d actually work remotely. Here are 5 overlooked tactics to build stronger remote teams from day one: 1. Test for async clarity. If they can’t explain complex ideas in writing, they’ll struggle remotely. 2. Screen for tool fluency. If your team runs on Notion or Slack, test them there. A week-one struggle costs months of momentum. 3. Don’t confuse overlap with collaboration. Timezone overlap helps, but real momentum comes from clear processes and intentional handoffs. 4. Audit the setup. Don’t just ask “Do you have Wi-Fi?” Check speed tests, backups, and workspace. Infrastructure issues kill faster than skill gaps. 5. Onboard in sprints. Week 1 → tools + systems Week 2 → scoped project Week 3 → team rituals Remote work isn’t just office work done from home. It’s a different way of working,  which means you need to measure different things.

Just published: "Modernizing Onboarding at Accenture with Immersive Learning" in MIS Quarterly Executive: https://lnkd.in/gGWYmwkj If your company is still onboarding employees with asynchronous training modules, you'll want to read this article. Jeff Mullins and I share how Accenture delivered a globally consistent onboarding program, the New Joiner Experience (NJX), featuring extended reality (XR). Launched in 2021, NJX centers around One Accenture Park, a virtual campus where new employees collaborate, explore company innovations and career paths, and build their Technology Quotient. This immersive onboarding experience has been very successful, with over 400,000 employees participating as of December 2024. Employees consistently rate it over 4.6/5, and Accenture has achieved a positive return on investment, initially driven by reduced travel costs. Beyond financial benefits, XR-based learning has improved knowledge retention and strengthened employee engagement. Accenture’s journey offers five key lessons: 1.       Scale Will Not Happen Without Senior Management Support 2.       Make XR a Part of a Larger Immersive Learning Experience 3.       Web-Based Access Is Effective, for Now 4.       Unsolicited Social Media Posts Provide Insight into Employee Sentiment 5.       Deliver an Immersive Learning Product, Not a Project Thank you to all the Accenture leaders for sharing your journey and lessons with us: Aaron Saint, Jason Warnke, Katy Geraghty, and Olly Jeffers. Shout out to to Yorke Rhodes III of Microsoft for being a fellow XR traveler in and outside of the classroom. Thank you also to the MISQE team: Iris Junglas, David Kimble, and Joaquin Rodriguez. Brian Fugate--this collaboration happened because of you! Thank you for serving as our Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and Research at the University of Arkansas ­- Sam M. Walton College of Business! Feeling grateful.

If you want to meet an internal comms team doing it right, let me tell you about Signature Performance, Inc. I've personally met a few members of the team and they're SO intentional. This crew is *never* just sending emails — they have designed a whole associate experience where people felt seen, supported, and celebrated. And that matters because Signature Performance is a fully remote healthcare admin organization, spread across 47 states, & doing really precise, high-stakes work. On top of all of that, last year, they had an aggressive plan to hire 500 new associates. They hired 657 (whoa now!). And suddenly, their very reliable, very cohesive internal comms strategy actually wasn’t quite enough. It needed to scale without losing all of the intentional and human parts of it that made it great. So, here’s the key thing: They didn’t rip and replace their tools. They didn't take 18 months to fix it. They evolved how they used the one they already trusted (email!!) in just weeks. Instead of asking “did this email go out?” -- they started asking: → did this land? → did this feel personal? → and did this support someone at the right moment? They didn't panic and start sending a billion emails. They made a few intentional shifts (very on brand for them) within their tool of choice (Workshop!): • moved from one-off emails to purpose-built, automated comms • connected ADP to Workshop so lists updated automatically (no spreadsheets and noooo stress!) • shifted from batched messages to real-time moments • used HRIS data to personalize names, timing, and milestones at scale They expertly used automation to meet the business needs of their org when they needed it most. And the best part? The actual, proven results: ✔️ clicks doubled from 15% to 30% ✔️ onboarding messages landed at the right time for each associate, not in bulk ✔️ nearly 90% open rates on onboarding comms ✔️ 96% of new associates say they feel welcome ✔️ 68% retention vs. a 46% industry benchmark They're so, so good at this. Onboarding at Signature Performance isn’t a one-week info dump. It unfolds over 180 days — culture, surveys, strengths, and support delivered when it actually matters. So! If your internal comms are working hard but starting to strain as your organization scales, this is what “more strategic” can actually look like. ✨ Explore it for yourself + check out Workshop!