As technology usage rises and organizations increasingly adopt remote work, remote onboarding has emerged as a critical area requiring deeper exploration. This study aims to explore the affective commitment and engagement of employees who underwent remote onboarding in various industries across Germany. By addressing this gap, the research proposes an enhanced onboarding framework tailored to remote settings.
This study was designed as exploratory qualitative research from interviews with five participants employed across Germany. The research framework is the onboarding model by Cesário and Chambel (2019), and the model was applied to remote onboarding.
This study reveals a critical gap in existing onboarding frameworks: the absence of a dedicated IT welcome as a core component of remote onboarding. Participant narratives highlighted challenges with IT-based issues, stemming from IT department contact and access, as impacting commitment and engagement.
This study contributes to the field of remote onboarding by introducing a novel perspective that extends Cesário and Chambel’s (2019) three-component onboarding model. Unlike traditional onboarding studies that emphasize social and organizational integration, this study highlights IT department value to new hire engagement and commitment in digital work environments.
