To become best buddies with your newbie: remote!

1. The Buddy bible
To become best buddies with your newbie remotely

3. Remote life can be though, scary and maybe even lonely. Make sure to check-in with your
newbie frequently on how they are doing and if they have questions. Maybe they are still too
shy sometimes or feels burdened to bother you or to ask you directly.
Make a conscious effort to show remote employees they are considered an employee and part
of the team even if they are out of the office. We all already know each other, our newbies
don’t.
Reach out to them personally if there is anything going on directly related to them or relevant
to their role, even if it’s just to ask their opinion or give them a heads up that X, Y and Z will be
happening
Make it clear that your virtual door🚪 is always open and you welcome contact from them at
any time.
Out of sight, still top of mind -
Best buddy expected behaviour

4. You provide context
As a buddy, you are the one that welcomes the new employee to our awesome company and
makes sure that you provide our organizational context to the new employee. Explain the
communication lines, culture, where to find everything (also digital) and who to contact for a
cup of coffee.
You boost productivity
The newbie is likely experiencing the tension between wanting to ramp up quickly but also
needing to take time to learn the job. Your role is to guide the newbie in how to ramp up
quickest and don’t get overwhelmed by all the things that he/she needs to learn.
You improve the newbie’s satisfaction
Make sure that the newbie feels welcome, can ask all of his/her questions and is completely
part of the team from day 1. When this is done right, satisfaction will increase rapidly.
Why are you super important as a
buddy?

5. Prep your team and get ready for arrival!
Tell them about their new colleague, and what are they going to do on a daily basis?
Make sure your current team members know to make themselves available to support your
newbie as needed so our new colleague feels empowered to ask questions and get the help
they need.Make sure to give your buddy a video call before they have their first day.
Have the equipment ready ahead of time
Our Office Queen and IT boys fix a lot of this beforehand, however, it’s good for you as a buddy
to keep this in check. And with check I mean: check-check-DOUBLE CHECK!
Schedule meetings upfront and set expectations
Setup a welcome video conferences with your team. Within the first few weeks of joining our
organization, your newbie should have time allocated to have face-to-face meetings with
their new colleagues through Zoom or GoogleMeet.Make sure there are clear expectations
from you to your newbie on what you expect of them in ramping up.
Before arrival top 3 checklist

6. ● Check in the week before: are they mentally prepared to
step on the Sendcloud train? Is there anything where you
can help with? Do they know how to attend on Monday?
● Call Monday morning to check if everything is set-up and
discuss how the week is going to look like
● Do a daily check-in with the newbie
● Communicate what the newbie can do when he/she has
some spare time left. Only reading things is no fun, so the
program needs to exist of different ways of learning. Use
lessonly, video calls, slack and Notion for this.
Embrace the idea that you can’t
possibly over communicate - so
use all of our tools
Look for a ‘quick win’,
an easy assignment
within your newbie’s
skillset. If completed
successfully within
the first few weeks, it
helps them build
confidence in their
new role and
contribute to the
team.

7. Remote can be boring and lonely, we all know this. Be creative in your approach and keep things interactive and fun!
Meetings or 1-1’s with your newbie should not always be about discussing their day or progress.
Here are some creative and interactive meetings you can initiate with and/or for your newbie.
🖥Chatroulette and Randomcoffee
Colleagues from back in the days definitely know this term you cheeky folks! The way to socialize and make strangers into
friends is with a chatroulette. There is a Slack app called Randomcoffee, which randomly pairs up two people from our
organization in our #general channel. We got your back and our hero Bram already integrated this into our #general Slack
channel. Make sure you and your buddy use it and make everyone in your team aware! Check out the instruction on how to
use Randomcoffee with your buddy here during their onboarding.
Be creative

8. 🍲Eat, pray & love.. Uhh Zoom!
Hang out during lunch with your whole team. Easy win and extra winning because: food is
involved. Order something for your team and newbie and get it delivered at your team and
newbies homes. You can declare the costs for your grub via your KALB account.
🏰MTV Cribs
Pets? Show them! New pool installed? Show it! (JAPE!) Your remote buddies will probably not
meet with you in real life for a while. However, colleagues can still open their homes to one
another and participate in some MTV style fun. The activity makes for both an interesting look
into the personal lives of your co-workers and is also a fun way to get to know your virtual team
better. Here is some inspo from Reddit.
Be creative

9. 🧙War of the Wizards
Teams that love murder mysteries, puzzles and escape rooms will love War of the Wizards. This activity is designed from
the ground up for virtual team building, and will bind your people and newbie(s) together through friendly competition and
fierce collaboration. Read more and sign up here.
🏎Racing challenge!
Typing speed races are a free online team building activity that you can start right now and is super easy. To begin, take a
typing test using typingtest.com or similar. Then, post your results on your teams’ slack group or by email. The more
competitive members of your team will reply with results quickly and others will follow. Pro tip: make sure everyone is
taking the same test! You can also give team members tips like “keep your fingers closer to the keys” or “if you miss a word,
fix it quickly and then power through.”
Be creative

10. Probably there is a lot more to think of that we haven’t discussed here yet, or to find on Google that can
be really cool for you and your newbie. If you’re not sure about an activity that you would like to set up:
Let Talent Success know, and we can back you up with feedback. Only thing that we request is:
Be creative, keep it fun, and use your imagination.
Just.. Be creative ok?

11. ❖ Set-up the following meetings for your newbie for the coming 4 weeks
- Daily check-ins’ with you and other team members
- Include him/her in all of your team meetings
- Make sure your buddy knows on their start date how to use Randomcoffee
and let them initiate coffee moments with random colleagues at Sendcloud
- Don’t forget about the creative/fun stuff
❖ Make sure that you have a clear plan with expectations and goals for the newbie
Schedule meetings between newbie and leader to explain this plan. If clear expectations about role
responsibilities and performance goals are not set, new hires will feel like ships lost at sea. They need to
be given direction to enable them to bring their best skills to the table.
❖ Live the culture
You as a buddy are responsible for your newbie and that he or she knows the way of working at
Sendcloud. We are very hands-on and no bullshit, but we also always help each other out.
Live this culture and make them feel welcome, and for you as a buddy: have fun with it!
Action points for you right now

12. ❖ You have the feeling that you need some to help/guidance with the onboarding plan
❖ The newbie doesn’t know what to do anymore
❖ The newbie feels lonely
(it’s up to you to make sure this doesn’t happen, but when it happens, contact us)
❖ You want to involve the newbie more, but aren’t creative at this moment
Let’s hope this won’t happen.. You got this!
Final:
When to check in with TS/your
manager?

13. Goodluck buddy
And remember..