Each company is different when it comes to onboarding new employees. For new software developers, the onboarding process can be a learning curve depending on prior work experience. If a new hire is a recent graduate student, then the learning curve will be higher than a new hire who has five years of work experience.
A company will need to assess its own onboarding processes when welcoming new employees to the company, project managers, and team members. Like all beginnings, it starts with introductions.
Introductions
Introductions can go a long way in a new workplace, even remotely. Introductions break the ice with new colleagues and communicates the tools and software needed for the job position, company culture, and more. These things can be overwhelming to a new hire, especially with limited work experience in the field like a recent graduate student. Of course, a new hire can cause other stresses with current employees by not having the right software to perform the job correctly or in a timely manner.
Introductions are essential before the new hire begins working on assignments for clarification on tools, software, company expectations, and project outlines.
Tools and Software
When a new hire is hired by the company, it is important to ensure the new employee has the tools they need to work on company projects. Without the essential tools for work performance, the project may become delayed jeopardizing contracts and reliability with the client. For example, the new hire can be given a list of software to download and learn for the final interview. This ensures to the employer the new hire is ready to begin the position with a miniscule learning curve.
Company Culture and Project
When hiring a dedicated team, inform the team members immediately what the project is and any milestones for the project. The team should be able to answer these following questions:
- What is the project?
- What is the company’s vision for this project?
- What is the project’s short- and long-term goals?
- Does the project present any obstacles? How will those obstacles be solved?
- Are there any current obstacles?
- What are the most important tasks the project demands?
These questions ensure confidence to the team members that the company and client have a vision and has a plan for any possible delays with the project.
Company Culture
Each company has a standard that the company requires from each of its employees. However, there is another set of company standards from colleague to colleague, department to department, and even from project manager to team members. These different relationships inside of a company is the “culture” employer and employees have organically developed from years of work. These standards can be from relaxation of work attire on specific days to meetings at a local bar for work socializing. Some companies have places of rest or coffee breaks employees can utilize to relax and rejuvenate with other colleagues during working hours.
These types of standards are learned from a new hire’s perspective. An older colleague or project manager may inform the new employee upon arrival how strict or relax they are on certain things like work attire to taking longer lunchbreaks, if needed. Company standards are in an Employee Handbook and holds a plethora of information from accountability, work ethic, and company expectations.
Future Colleagues
When it comes to personal introductions, keep it simple. During the final interviews, the potential new employee can benefit from a tour of the teams. This lets the potential new hire to ask certain questions on project workflow to colleague communication. This also breaks the ice for the potential new hire and for the project manager and other team members the new employee may be working with upon hiring.
Workplace Setup
When a potential new hire is hired, it is important to make sure the new employee has everything to begin working immediately with limited to no delays. This will help ease the new hire into the position and build confidence with the other team members and project manager the project will not have any foreseeable delays or obstacles.
The new employee will need to have the following to ensure a smooth transition:
- Access to the company chat. If the company has department or team-based chatrooms that are private or with limited access, ensure the new employee has access or is given access to those chatrooms and their functions.
- Access to the project management system with editing privileges.
- Access to the test environment and API keys.
- Access to the internal company documentation, guidelines, and manuals.
- Introduction to the meetings agenda and expectations.
- Access to the internal services like DeskHelp, IT support, and other company tools.
The company may decide to give access to a certain number of these functions as the need arises or when the new employee has completed their first week. This latter approach may not be beneficial to the new hire, the team members, and to the company as the new employee may have a plethora of questions during working hours that will slow down the other team members jobs and burden the project manager. By enabling the new employee to have immediate access to these internal company functions can ensure the new hire will be ready to complete and deliver project milestones in a timely manner with some room for error.
Technical Documentation
Technical documentation for a software developer helps frame a reference to appraise the project and determine the best practices. Without this technical documentation on a project, the new employee will not know where to begin or how to assess the workload required by company expectations.
Here a short checklist for remote software developers onboarding process to begin working on a project upon hiring:
- Source code in the form of access to the company’s GIT-repository
- Database and setup manual
- Dependencies for the project including the version number
- API keys and credentials for the tools to be used in the project
- Sample data and the manual for its inputs
- Test suites
- Deployment credentials for staging and production servers
- Optional: development notes, if available
The development notes is not required but can help ease the learning curve with the new employee. The development notes notate the software’s quirks and avoids mistakes already experienced by the current team members.
If the team or company use unusual tools like a custom complier for the production server, equip the new hire with the instructions and the credentials to access to ensure there are no delays for the project.
The onboarding process is not a requirement that a company needs to invest in; however, it can save a company time, money, and resources when hiring new employees. Companies that invest in the onboarding process retain new hires than companies who do not. By investing in an onboarding process, companies have reduced turnover rates and be able to see the full potential new hires can bring to the team, to the company, and to the client.
At VUSE, we know how important it is to hire new remote software developers and retain the talent, adding to company value and reliability. At VUSE, we handle the office space, hardware and software requirements, payroll, taxes, and other routine factors normally handled by a Human Resources team. The dedicated team members at VUSE are ready to meet your company’s team members and to receive access to your project to deliver a releasable application on time.
