Latest / New Manager Conversations with Fexingo: First 90 Days, Managing Former Peers, and Leadership Basics / How New Managers Can Onboard Remotely in the Hybrid Era
Transcript
- Lucas: So you've been a manager for a few months, you're finally feeling like you've got a handle on your own role, and now you have to hire someone. And not just any someone — this person is fully remote, three time zones away, and you've never met them in person. Luna: That's a pretty common scenario now, especially in tech. But I think a lot of new managers treat remote onboarding like it's just the in-person checklist delivered via Zoom. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the problem. I came across a really concrete example recently. A friend of mine — let's call her Priya — she's a first-time engineering manager at a B2B SaaS company, about 200 people. She had to onboard a senior backend engineer who lives in Denver while she's in New York. So three hours' difference, not extreme, but enough that the standard 'grab coffee, wander the hallways' approach doesn't work. Luna: Right. And the company didn't have a formal onboarding program for remote hires. So she had to build it herself. Lucas: She actually borrowed a framework from a manager at GitLab — which makes sense, GitLab's been fully remote since 2014. The framework has three phases: pre-start, week one, and the first 30 days. What I liked is that it's not just a schedule of meetings — it's about building context and trust before the person even starts. Luna: What did pre-start look like for her? Lucas: She sent what she called an 'infrastructure memo' — basically a one-page document that covered everything from what tools the team uses daily to how decisions get made, who the key stakeholders are, even the unwritten rules like 'we post async standup updates by 9 AM mountain time.' And she sent it a week before the start date. No expectations to read it all immediately, just a heads-up. Luna: That's smart. It gives the new hire a mental map before they're bombarded with logins and invites. Lucas: Exactly. Then week one — she scheduled a full week of synchronous sessions. And I know some managers push back on that, thinking it's too much screen time. But Priya's argument was that for a senior hire, the cost of a bad first week — confusion, isolation, low confidence — far outweighs the cost of five days of structured onboarding. Luna: I think that's the right call for a senior role. But what did those sessions actually look like? I've seen week-one schedules that are just back to back meet and greets. Lucas: She broke it into three types: technical context, social integration, and process understanding. Technical context was pairing with a senior dev on the codebase, walking through the CI/CD pipeline. Social integration was a virtual lunch with the team — no agenda, just hanging out. And process understanding was a session with the product manager on how the team handles sprint planning. Luna: Did she include any async components? Lucas: Yeah, every afternoon was blocked off for async work. The new hire had a checklist of small tasks — setting up their dev environment, reading internal docs, writing a short bio for the team wiki. So they weren't just passive in meetings all day. Luna: That balance seems key. Too much sync and you burn them out, too much async and they feel abandoned. Lucas: Right. Now, the first 30 days — this is where Priya did something that I think a lot of new managers overlook. She set up a 'reverse onboarding' session at the three-week mark. The new hire presented to the team about what they'd learned, what confused them, and what they thought the team could improve. Luna: That's bold. Asking a new person to critique the team after three weeks? Lucas: It is bold, but it serves two purposes. One, it forces the new hire to synthesize their observations quickly. Two, it gives the team fresh perspective — and it signals that their input is valued from day one. Priya said the feedback was surprisingly useful: the new hire noticed that their code review process had no clear turnaround time expectations, which was causing delays. Luna: That's a great catch. And it probably made the new hire feel like they were contributing immediately. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the whole point — building trust and belonging. There's research from Microsoft's New Future of Work report earlier this year that showed new hires in fully remote roles take 50% longer to feel like they belong compared to in-office hires. So anything you can do to accelerate that curve matters. Luna: Fifty percent longer — that's huge. So what about the manager's own role in that first month? Priya was also new as a manager. How did she balance her own learning curve with onboarding someone else? Lucas: She was very intentional about her availability. She blocked off 30 minutes every morning for the first two weeks just for the new hire — no other meetings. That way, the new hire knew they had a guaranteed slot to ask anything. And she kept a running doc of questions that came up outside that time. Luna: I like that. It's a simple structure, but it prevents the manager from being reactive — which is a trap when you're new. Lucas: Totally. And it also forces the manager to model good async behavior. If the new hire sees their manager responding to Slack messages at 10 PM, they'll feel pressure to do the same. So Priya was explicit: 'I answer messages during my working hours, which are 9 to 6 Eastern. If you send something outside that, I'll get it the next day.' Luna: That kind of clarity is gold for a remote worker. Speaking of clarity, did she have any formal check-ins beyond the daily standup? Lucas: Yeah, she scheduled a 1:1 at the end of every week for the first month. And the agenda was always the same: what's going well, what's confusing, what do you need from me. No status updates — that's what the async standup was for. The 1:1 was purely about the person's experience. Luna: That's a good distinction. A lot of managers use 1:1s as mini status meetings, which defeats the purpose. Lucas: Yeah. And I think the biggest takeaway from Priya's experience is that onboarding a remote hire isn't just about logistics — it's about intentionality. Every interaction signals what the team values. If you want a new hire to feel connected, you have to design for connection. Luna: If we've helped you think through your own onboarding strategy or any career move, consider supporting the show. It keeps us ad-free and focused on practical advice. You can do that at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, we really appreciate that. And listener support is what lets us keep digging into these real-world scenarios. So thank you to anyone who chips in. Luna: Alright, back to the framework. One thing I've heard from other managers is that the first week is critical for setting expectations around communication norms. How did Priya handle that? Lucas: She actually created a team communication guide as part of the infrastructure memo. It covered things like: use Slack for quick questions, use GitHub issues for task updates, and if something is urgent, send a direct message with a clear subject line. She also set the expectation that response time for non-urgent messages is within four hours during working hours. Luna: Four hours — that's reasonable. It gives people breathing room without creating anxiety about delayed replies. Lucas: Right. And she made sure to revisit those norms in the week-one sessions. The new hire told me later that the guide was the most useful document he received — it told him how to behave without having to guess. Luna: Guessing is exhausting. Especially when you're remote and you can't read the room. Lucas: Exactly. So let's talk about what happens after the first month. Because onboarding doesn't end at day 30 — but a lot of managers treat it like it does. Luna: Right. The first 90 days is really the probation period. What did Priya do for months two and three? Lucas: She set up a 60-day check-in where they reviewed the original onboarding plan together and adjusted. At that point, the new hire was already contributing independently, so they shifted focus to long-term goals — like which project they'd lead next quarter. And she started delegating more, which is something new managers often struggle with. Luna: That makes sense. By 60 days, you should have enough trust to start handing over real ownership. Lucas: Yeah. And Priya also introduced the new hire to a mentor in another department — someone who wasn't on their team. That helped build cross-functional relationships, which is harder to do remotely. Luna: So the takeaway really is that remote onboarding requires a structured, phased approach with clear communication norms and intentional connection points. It's not just about the first week — it's about the first quarter. Lucas: Exactly. And the best part is, this framework scales. Whether you're onboarding a junior analyst or a senior VP, the principles are the same: build context first, then trust, then autonomy. Luna: I think that's a great note to end on. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks, Luna. And thanks to Priya for sharing her playbook.