By Leah Alissa Bayer, AIA
It’s challenging finding great employees to grow with your company for the long term. An increasing labor shortage only complicates the process. So, it’s important to make the right first impression.
As more architecture firms embrace flexible and remote work models, virtual onboarding has become a critical factor in setting up new hires for success. A structured, long-term, and intentional approach ensures new team members gain the technical tools to perform their jobs, form meaningful connections with colleagues, and embrace the firm’s mission, vision, and values. As a hiring expert for a fully remote firm for nearly a decade, Leah Alissa Bayer, President of Architects FORA, shares tips on creating a successful virtual onboarding process for all experience levels, from intern to seasoned professional.
Onboarding begins before day one
A great onboarding experience doesn’t start on “day one”—it starts well before. Regular check-ins leading up to the first day can help set expectations, reduce anxiety, and let new hires know their arrival is a priority. At FORA, we setup new hire’s accounts in advance and pre-populate their calendar with onboarding events, team meetings, and project introductions. As a fully remote office, we work with our IT team to ship a full technology package—laptop, monitor, cables, wireless keyboard, mouse, webcam, backpack, and company swag—so everything they need is in place. Before their first day, we confirm everything has arrived and is working correctly, so they can hit the ground running.
A thoughtfully structured process
New job introductions have left many of us feeling lost or untethered. A little extra thought, planning, and one-on-one time makes all the difference when orienting new hires to your firm’s culture and structure. This connection is especially important in a virtual office setting, where the “where” isn’t physically tangible.
A well-paced onboarding process should unfold over weeks, balancing information delivery with relationship-building. Use your firm’s project management platform (monday.com, for example), to guide new team members through a checklist of tasks, training sessions, and meetings. As an example, below is FORA’s structure for onboarding (specific tools appear in parentheses):
Day 1: Virtual Setup and Orientation
- Morning Kickoff: A welcome session with leadership to complete paperwork, provide an onboarding overview, and set the tone for the week.
- Operational Setup: A working meeting ensuring all new hire operational accounts function, and they understand policies and benefits for each, including logging into the payroll platform (Gusto), health insurance portal (Take Command), 401(k) plan (Guideline), project management (monday.com), staffing (Deltek), communications (Slack), file storage, and email (Google Workspace), etc.
- Team Introduction: A firm-wide welcome (via Slack) where team members express excitement and support with emojis and gifs to show our inclusive culture and virtual communication systems while the new hire works on the onboarding checklist independently
Afternoon Design Tool Overview: An associate provides a one-on-one introduction to our firm-wide design tools, such as our collaborative whiteboard (Miro), modeling programs (SketchUp and Revit), presentation tools (Adobe), and markup platform(Bluebeam).
- Final Check-in: HR, or the recruiting and onboarding lead in small firms such as FORA, wraps up the day with training on time tracking, PTO requests, calendar setup, and to preview the week ahead.
Day 2: Virtual Team Integration
Team meeting to welcome new hire. Images created by Leah Bayer with ChatGPT
- Morning Team Meeting: Formal introduction to the entire team during the firm’s weekly all-hands meeting (Google Meet). Everyone shares a bit about themselves and our meeting formats, content, and culture.
- Project Introduction: We staff a new hire on at least one long-term project and schedule meetings to cover project history, goals, design boards, models, and expected contributions.
- Self-Guided Exploration: The new hire explores and familiarizes themselves with projects through our website and projects database, while continuing the onboarding checklist and getting to know team members.
Day 3: Deep-Dive into Design Tools
- A full-day virtual session to evaluate technical and software competency, followed by in-depth familiarization with firm-specific standards and development of a customized training plan.
- We segment tutorials throughout the day, with breaks to prevent overload.
Day 4: First Project Tasks & Team Design Collaboration
- First Project Contributions: New hires begin applying their training by working on their project(s), following tasks assigned in our project management platform (monday.com), and are encouraged to reach out with questions regularly, establishing a culture of trust, vulnerability, and learning.
- Design Collaboration Meeting: FORA’s weekly team-wide design collaboration encourages participation in idea generation and fosters a communicative, transparent, and supportive culture where diverse perspectives are valued from all.
Day 5: Independent Work & First Week Check-in
Virtual onboarding portal to navigate accounts setup and trainings. Images created by Leah Bayer with ChatGPT
- Week 1 wraps up with the employee continuing work on project assignments.
- In a review of the first week experience, we ask for and provide the new hire feedback, address their questions, finalize the onboarding checklist, and look ahead to week two and beyond.
Week two: Career development & continued integration
With operational, technical, and design orientation complete, week two is for onboarding new hires to the firm’s commitment to personal and career development (15Five):
- Weekly Education Sessions: Dedicated team meetings on educational content, lunch and learns, tutorials and lessons learned from team members, and more formal training based on a new hire’s experience and skill level.
- Biweekly One-on-Ones: Regular check-ins with leadership to provide ongoing support and mentorship, including licensure (ARE and AXP).
- Quarterly Feedback Sessions: Self-evaluations occur alongside firm leadership evaluations to foster a culture of transparent feedback and progressive performance evaluation.
- Leadership Recognition Program: A universal, consistent, and equitable framework provides flexible, clear pathways for leadership advancement.
- Dedicated Research Time: One day/week for individual research projects allows team members to develop expertise in a chosen subject area.
- Continued Social Integration: Regular coffee chats with different team members strengthen personal relationships.
- Quarterly Team Bonding: One event per quarter dedicated to having fun together, such as a happy hour, sketching hour, a jam musical session, a virtual escape room—the possibilities are endless!
- Annual Company Retreat: The full team comes together in-person to see and learn from our projects and meet with our clients and consultants to develop professional relationship skills and build closer bonds.
The human side of onboarding
Beyond logistics and workflows, fostering belonging, especially in a hybrid or remote environment, is crucial. Consider implementing weekly one-on-one or small group virtual chats between new hires and existing team members to build personal connections. These informal, yet structured social interactions help break down barriers, create trust, and make remote employees feel like part of the team.
Virtual coffee chat between colleagues. Images created by Leah Bayer with ChatGPT
Emphasize the firm’s mission and values early on by ensuring new hires understand the “why” behind our work—a commitment to equitable and human-centered design—so they develop a sense of purpose that aligns with their day-to-day tasks. Bringing mission alignment into onboarding helps new employees see how their role contributes to the bigger picture, which results in better career fulfillment and staff retention.
Results and takeaways
New team members regularly provide feedback that their onboarding felt seamless and provided immediate integration with the team. They also describe our structured onboarding process as a lot of information, but presented in a manageable, digestible way. By designing onboarding to be both practical and social, firms can ensure employees gain the tools they need while forming meaningful relationships. This dual approach helps sustain long-term engagement and a strong sense of team cohesion in hybrid and remote practice.
For firms looking to refine their virtual onboarding, the key takeaway is intentionality. Structure the process to balance technical training with human connection, pace the information delivery to avoid overload, and prioritize a welcoming culture that makes remote employees feel fully supported and included from (or before) day one. Implementing these strategies can help any firm, regardless of size, successfully integrate new team members into a remote or hybrid environment.
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Leah Alissa Bayer, AIA, NOMA, NCARB, is President of Architects FORA, a 100% women-owned, 100% virtual, mid-sized architecture firm that specializes in affordable housing, community engagement, and research. Labeled a vanguard for her progressive business practices by peers, Leah designs systems and teams that are radically transparent, equitable, and healthy, which then carries into the work that FORA creates. Keynote speaker, published writer, and AIA CA Young Architect Award recipient, Leah has been a leader in EDI and Practice for over a decade. Her recent service includes the Practice Study Group Chair for the AIA Strategic Council, AIA California Board member, AIA Silicon Valley Past President, NCARB’s Futures Collaborative, and the Whatcom Housing Alliance. Leah earned a B.Arch and minor in fine arts from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.
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