TL;DR — Remote onboarding fails in specific, fixable ways: no faces before day one, a first day with no human contact beyond logins, and no deliberate plan for casual conversation that an office provides by accident. Fifteen ideas below, grouped by when they happen.
- Most remote onboarding gaps are about missing informal contact, not missing information.
- Spread effort across before, during and after day one — not all on the first morning.
- Several of these cost nothing beyond a bit of planning.
Before day one
- 1. Send a team welcome video before the start date so the new hire recognises faces on day one. See Welcome Video for New Employees.
- 2. Share a short practical video on what day one will look like, not just a written agenda.
- 3. Send equipment early enough that it arrives with a buffer, not the night before.
- 4. Add the new hire to non-work channels (social, interests) a few days early if your culture has them, so day one isn't the first exposure to how the team talks outside of work.
- 5. Set up their calendar with the first week's meetings already in place, so day one doesn't start with an empty schedule.
During the first week
- 6. Assign a buddy who isn't their manager — someone they can ask small questions without it feeling like a performance signal.
- 7. Keep video on for at least the first few meetings, even if the team usually defaults to audio-only — faces matter more early on.
- 8. Schedule short one-to-ones with each close teammate in the first week rather than leaving introductions to happen organically, which rarely happens on a remote team.
- 9. Give the new hire a small, completable task in week one — something they can finish and show, not just reading and setup.
- 10. Record a short walkthrough of any tool or process that would otherwise require shoulder-surfing someone in an office.
In the first month
- 11. Create space for unstructured conversation deliberately — a recurring informal call, a channel for non-work chat — since a remote setup won't generate this by accident the way an office kitchen does.
- 12. Run a 30-day check-in on video rather than a written form, to catch anything that a survey answer would smooth over. See Onboarding Check-in Questions.
- 13. Invite the new hire to a cross-team meeting even if their role doesn't strictly require it yet, so they get a sense of the wider organisation sooner.
- 14. Ask the buddy specifically whether the new hire has met everyone they need to — remote teams are easy to accidentally under-introduce someone within.
- 15. If the company or team has any in-person gathering in the first few months, prioritise the new hire's attendance over a more tenured colleague's if a choice has to be made.
How to do this in Whoosh
Several of these ideas — the pre-start welcome reel, the practical day-one clip, the 30-day check-in — are single short video asks. Running each as its own small campaign with one shared link keeps them from piling into one overwhelming onboarding project, which is usually why remote teams skip them when time is tight.
Start freeFrequently asked questions
Which of these matters most if we can only do a few?
The pre-start welcome video and an assigned buddy who isn't the manager cover the most ground for the least effort.
Does this apply to hybrid teams too, or only fully remote ones?
Most of it applies to any new hire who won't be in the same room as the full team regularly, which includes most hybrid setups.
How is this different from a general onboarding checklist?
This list focuses specifically on inclusion and informal contact — see Onboarding Video Checklist for the fuller set of onboarding video touchpoints.