Remote Onboarding: The Evolution of Onboarding in Hospitality

By Harri Insider Team | July 27, 2023

Employee onboarding in the hospitality industry and employment as a whole is dynamic, meaning the only constant is change. Rewind to the 1980s before the internet hit the mainstream and the entirety of onboarding was done in-person and on-site. Times have clearly changed.

Onboarding has evolved to the point that much or all of it is now done remotely. The transformation of employee onboarding at hotels, restaurants, and other hospitality businesses symbolizes the overarching tech revolution. We’ve pivoted away from traditional onboarding at places of employment to remote acclimation. However, no two remote onboarding programs are the same. The strategy your business employs when onboarding employees through the virtual work landscape ultimately shapes the results. Choose wisely and your remote onboarding program will prove highly accessible, flexible, and affordable.

Be mindful of the distinctive challenges of remote onboarding as detailed below, and make an effort to establish and maintain a consistent company culture. Harri is here to facilitate smooth and effective onboarding with simplified, fully compliant remote onboarding that benefits new hires and you, the employer.

The Evolution of Employee Onboarding in Hospitality

Traditional onboarding is characterized by face-to-face interactions that take place at hotels, restaurants, and other hospitality businesses. Employee onboarding has rapidly evolved in unison with technology.

The pandemic also played a significant role in changing how onboarding occurs. The previous three years shifted onboarding, training, and even some work to the web. Now that the pandemic is over, onboarding is still largely remote simply because it can be easier and much more efficient. Moreover, remote onboarding is convenient and efficient.

What is Remote Onboarding?

In the hospitality industry, remote onboarding is a streamlined process that enables new hires to complete necessary documentation and participate in initial meetings online, preparing them to dive into their roles from day one.

Harri provides simplified onboarding for hospitality businesses. Whether you own or manage a restaurant, hotel, and retail store, our pre-hire onboarding technology will make it easy to add new hires with ease. Remote onboarding decreases administrative overhead costs, providing new additions with an enjoyable and seamless integration into your enterprise.

Take full advantage of our digitized onboarding system and you’ll enjoy a consolidated hub for all onboarding-related information that proves conveniently accessible. Check out our technology for employee onboarding and you’ll find it is easy to upload and customize for your needs. Our platform also facilitates the organization of required new starter documents for new hires to review, sign and submit.

New additions can quickly and easily fill out documents digitally with electronic signature functionality. Our system also facilitates the rapid transmission and reception of onboarding documents, whether it’s I-9s or W4s in the US, or Right to Work and New Starter Forms in the UK.

Benefits of Remote Onboarding in Hospitality

Compare the merits of remote onboarding to the traditional approach and you’ll find the remote option is vastly superior. Above all, the remote approach is optimal for its flexibility, accessibility, and economic efficiency. This is the perfect opportunity to add new hardworking contributors from anywhere at any time.

If you are still on the fence as to whether the remote approach or traditional approach is optimal, lean toward the most cost-effective option. Remote employee onboarding can be digitized and automated through recorded training sessions including instructional videos. The alternative is to pay a salary or hourly wage to an on-site employee whose time is better spent focusing on actual work and improving productivity. The remote approach to onboarding conserves resources while guaranteeing quality for perfect harmony.

Challenges in Remote Onboarding and How to Overcome Them

Remote onboarding has a wide array of benefits yet it also poses some challenges. What matters most is that your business overcomes those challenges with grace and efficiency.

For one, remotely onboarding new additions has the potential to make the company culture seem insignificant. However, regular communication with new hires, alterations to the remote onboarding process and an emphasis on your workplace’s unique culture following remote onboarding helps new hires understand the work environment.

There is also the potential for remote onboarding to make collaboration and communication difficult. Such hurdles can be overcome with a proactive approach to the remote onboarding process that fosters dialogue as opposed to monologue. Make it clear that new hires can reach out to your team at any point for clarification. Address questions and concerns in a timely manner and you’ll succeed in engaging your new hires through tech-enabled interactions.

Be mindful of the potential for a crash course in the company’s ways to overload your new hires. Strategically schedule remote onboarding sessions at a measured pace to keep your new additions engaged. Do your due diligence when researching the optimal approaches to remote onboarding and you’ll quickly learn the most successful companies that embrace the remote approach use 30-minute onboarding sessions. This is not to say you have to cram the entirety of your remote onboarding process into merely half an hour. Rather, it is in your interest as well as that of your new hires to space out the onboarding process into 30-minute segments with breaks in between.

If necessary, break apart the remote onboarding sessions into several half-hour segments that span multiple days. Spreading out the employee onboarding process makes it much easier to keep your new additions engaged. Engagement is essential for maintaining attention and memorizing information about the company and the roles employees are hired for. Perhaps most importantly, breaking up remote onboarding sessions into 30-minute segments helps boost your company’s new hire retention rate.

Take a moment to put yourself in the position of a new hire. You receive and accept an offer to work at a restaurant, hotel, or retail store then accept and schedule an initial remote onboarding session with the employer. You likely have at least a couple of questions and concerns. Moreover, your questions will continue to mount throughout the remote onboarding sessions. The challenge lies in encouraging new additions to communicate concerns, ask questions, and emphasize clarity in understanding over passivity.

Recognize that your organization benefits from well-informed new hires, invite those new additions to utilize the proper communication channels for clarity, and make it crystal clear how you would like such communication to occur. The bottom line is your new hires don’t know how to properly broach topics they do not understand unless you explain exactly how those questions and concerns should be raised through remote communication.

Whether you prefer communication to occur on the remote employee onboarding platform, through a video call, instant messaging/text messaging, or email, let it be known from the start.

Exploring the Role of Employee Onboarding Software in Hospitality

Employee onboarding software has the potential to make or break new hires’ initial experience with your business. Choose the right tech and you’ll facilitate remote onboarding, convincing new hires to transition to the next phase that consists of on-site training and labor. Harri’s pre-hire onboarding software is a digitized onboarding system with a litany of features that keep your new additions engaged and eager to make a contribution.

Our simplified employee onboarding software for hospitality businesses is simple, intuitive, and economically efficient. This digital approach allows for a fully digitized onboarding process while keeping all relevant information in an easily accessible consolidated space. The end result is a streamlining of the remote employee onboarding process including related human resources processes that make new additions enthusiastic about working for your organization.

There is no sense in bothering with cumbersome paperwork, tangible files, and other outdated methods when our all-digital system is here for mutual benefit. Recognize the fact that the subtleties of the onboarding process matter to new hires, shift to the digital realm for the entirety of this process and your attrition rate will quickly decrease.

The Harri platform liberates your human resources specialist(s), manager, and business owner to sharpen their focus on challenges that require interpersonal interactions while the software handles everything else.

Remote, Simplified, and Compliant Onboarding Solution with Harri

Remote employee onboarding is simple, facilitates compliance, and entices prospects to accept your offer while convincing new hires to remain in the fold for the long haul. Recognize the remote onboarding approach is cost-efficient, saves time, and liberates your team, implement this high-tech approach with Harri’s help and you’ll soon reap the rewards.

The Harri employee experience platform is tailored to those on the front lines of restaurants, hotels, retail stores, and all hospitality businesses. We help businesses in the hospitality industry acquire new talent, track applicants, onboard those new additions, and engage employees for greater retention. Give our next-generation experience platform for frontline employees and new hires a try and you’ll quickly agree it makes a meaningful difference in onboarding, employee morale, retention, and the bottom line.

Request a demo today and it won’t be long until your business is remotely onboarding new hires.