Perfecting the onboarding process in an international education landscape

You’ve found the perfect candidate, completed all references and background checks, offered the job, and finally, your ideal teaching candidate has accepted the position at your international school. Now, it’s time for the onboarding process.

While often viewed as a purely administrative, tedious task, the onboarding process is actually the perfect opportunity to set expectations, identify shared principles between the candidate and your school, establish a common language, keep the positive momentum going, and reduce stress on veteran teachers. In this blog, we’ll cover everything you need to know in order to perfect the onboarding process in an international education landscape.

A standard onboarding checklist should include the following:

• Signing of contracts and letters of offer.
• Obtaining a visa for the candidate and any dependents, including the candidate’s spouse, de facto partner, and children.
• Obtaining a work permit for the candidate.
• Checking the candidate’s credentials against all the local regulations.
• Organising living arrangements for the candidate.
• If applicable, enrolling the candidate’s children at an appropriate school.
• Ensuring the candidate has all the relevant background checks.
• Ensuring the candidate has read, reviewed and agreed to all of the relevant policies and procedures, including completing any pre-start training.
• Arranging relevant health checks.
• Arranging travel for the candidate, and if applicable, the candidate’s family.

During the onboarding process, it’s important you save and store all documents on a secure server that complies with all applicable privacy laws, in addition to keeping the candidate constantly updated and involved so they feel connected to their new school.

How to implement your own onboarding process

At Schrole, we recommend schools design and create their very own onboarding pathway. This will:

• Provide a structure and timeline for the new hire to follow.
• Give the new hire the ability to see what tasks lie ahead.
• Provide your team with continuous feedback on the hire’s progress.
• Provide your HR team with everything they need in one place.

There are a number of easy and low-cost ways to set up your school’s onboarding process, including email folders, Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and Google Drive. However, these methods can get messy and become overwhelming when dealing with onboarding multiple hires. That’s where Schrole comes in.

Onboarding with Schrole Engage

HR software built specifically for International Schools, every Schrole product is designed to protect your school and its community. Schrole Engage has been created to provide a consistent and professional experience for all newly hired international teachers, replacing onboarding spreadsheets, document folders and checklists.

Completely customisable, you have the ability to set up a series of pathways that reflect the requirements for each teaching group (expat staff/leadership roles/local hires) that identifies, step by step, what needs to be done and when.

As part of this pathway, new hires can securely sign contracts and other documents through DocuSign; upload personal details and confidential information, including visas; and read and agree to policy and procedure documents in advance.

You even have the power to reject documents which haven’t been uploaded correctly, as well as view auditable time and date stamps of every step and interaction.

With Engage, you can sit back and relax, safe in the knowledge that every new hire will experience a seamless onboarding experience.

Additional benefits of Schrole Engage

As the saying goes, a stronger start leads to a longer stay. Additional benefits of Schrole engage include:

• Creating a positive first impression through a smooth, streamlined processes.
• Giving HR and Principals the opportunity to identify areas of need.
• Providing individualised support and training before arrival.
• Not having to worry that any information hasn’t been conveyed prior to the new hire arriving in-country.

Having a standardised onboarding process has shown to increase employee retention by 82% (Glassdoor, 2022) and increases new hire productivity by 62% (Harvard Business Review, 2018).

Learn more about the benefits of Schrole Engage for your international school and get in touch today.