Are you thinking of bringing a remote freelancer to your team? One common mistake that companies make is believing that while these freelancers may have industry experience and expertise, that they will find success with no proper training or onboarding when they join the team. This belief can cause teams to overlook the need to properly train and educate them on the overall business, goals, challenges, and company culture. This lack of proper onboarding can take away from the overall success of your freelancer developers.
By properly onboarding new hires to your team, you can improve your freelancers’ enthusiasm, effectiveness, and, ultimately, their loyalty. Here are some of DoneStreet’s recommended best practices for onboarding remote developer freelancers.
Build trust from the beginning
Onboarding is not only about helping your freelancer get up-to-speed on projects, it is also about helping build a bridge between the freelancer and the company’s culture. A solid onboarding experience can help build trust from the get-go and ensure that the freelancer feels valued at the start of your relationship. No matter the length of your engagement with the freelance developer, building trust is vital for producing a great working relationship.
The more your freelance developers feel connected and valued, the more openly they will collaborate and communicate. Building trust can increase feelings of safety and can encourage freelancers to ask questions to find success on whichever projects they take on.
Introduce freelancers and communicate with your internal team
When bringing a freelancer on to your team, taking the time to introduce them to the right people can pay dividends. Telling your team of new hires can help them prepare and keep them in the loop. Keeping the right people apprised helps to build trust, which can help with collaboration.
By clearly communicating why the company is bringing on freelance developers, you can help your internal employees understand what you expect and how they will fit into the company. By introducing freelance developers to the team at large, you set the stage for a good working relationship between your full-time employees and your freelance developers. This can ultimately help prevent wasted time and aid in minimizing any misunderstandings or unnecessary duplicated efforts.
Compile the necessary documents
Gathering all the necessary project documents for your freelancers before joining the team can make a world of difference. Providing project documentation with information on scope, research, and other information can get them up to speed faster.
To provide a better experience for them, make sure you share documentation around the tools and tech that you use, as well as overall company vision and strategies to help them keep alignment with your top priorities. These pieces of information will also give the freelancers a chance to ask any clarifying questions before jumping into the project.
Time is of the essence depending on your engagement with the freelancer, so why spend the time searching for documents and information when you can have it ready for from the get-go.
Stagger out the information
Joining a company as a freelance developer can be overwhelming. At the beginning of a project, freelancers receive a deluge of information. This information ranges from the company to the project and even the industry in a short amount of time.
Be mindful of how much information you throw at them and consider staggering it out to help avoid overwhelm and potential errors on the project, Start small and grow the projects you give them so they can gain their footing as they work with your team.
Getting the Technology Ready
It can be frustrating when you are jumping in on a project, and suddenly you can’t get anything done due to administrative issues. Contractors or freelancers indeed use their own set of tools and tech to get the work done. Still, they may need to tap into internal systems and tools to deliver assignments or receive project-related documents or information.
Before your freelance developer starts, organize your tech and provide documentation to avoid any potential administrative delays. Consider giving your freelancer a list of programs and apps that your team uses at the beginning to allow them the time to familiarize themselves before starting. Ask yourself the following: what systems, programs, files and applications will they need? What programs and apps do the engineering team need for communicating or sharing files?
Do a bit of pre-planning and put together a checklist of all the tools and tech that your team uses to avoid holding your freelancer up from finding success.
Onboarding matters!
Taking a little time to pre-plan and consider your freelancer’s needs can help you provide a stellar onboarding experience. Onboarding helps your freelancer find success, and it also enables your freelancers to provide you with high-quality work.
If you’re looking for excellent freelance developer talent, DoneStreet makes it easy to find the right person, for any project you have. Contact us today to learn more about how to bring a strong candidate to your team!