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Jump Onboard!

We’ve all experienced it…the dreaded first day at a new job.  You are given the requisite tour of the office, training materials to read through, perhaps some videos to watch.   And then what?  Most likely, you dread coming back the next day for more of the same, or only to sit at someone’s elbow as they try to do their own work while explaining processes and procedures as you feverishly take notes.  It’s anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month before you really feel like you’re up and running in your position.  Or, in a much more stressful scenario, you are thrown in with little to no instruction or support, and are expected to “sink or swim.”  There’s gotta be another way, right? 

 According to Michael Watkins, author of The First 90 Days, there is: start your new hire working immediately—but with lots of support.  While Watkins wrote his book for managers, many of his main ideas can be applied from the top down.  In her Harvard Business Review blog post Get Immediate Value from Your New Hire, Amy Gallo provides some helpful highlights extracted from Watkins’ work:

 “Hire for cultural fit as much as capabilities and skill.”

The Michael C. Fina corporate office is located in a very industrial part of Long Island City in Queens, NY.  We are surrounded by factories, a few gas stations, and a couple of no-frills delis and diners.  The manager who hired me was sure to ask in my final interview, “Does it bother you that there is no Starbucks around here?”  While that might have seemed like a trivial question, it was his way of gauging whether or not I’d be happy with my environment apart from my actual job responsibilities.  (I told him I was more of a Dunkin’ Donuts girl anyway.)

 “Introduce your new hire to ‘culture carriers’ and nodes.”

While the new hire may be on the sales team or in the call center, the people that might help the most in actually accomplishing the major goals of his or her new position might be the executive assistant, the fulfillment specialist, or the inventory analyst.  Every company runs differently, and the org chart is not necessarily the best way to decide who your new hire should meet and be trained by first. 

 “Get them working.”

Giving the new hire actual work to do, with lots of training and support, is the best way to teach him or her how things actually get done at the company.  It also engages the employee immediately by eliminating that “I’m the new guy/girl mentality” as quickly as possible and replacing it with, “I’m on the team.” 

 Recruiting, hiring, and training new employees is a costly and lengthy process, and it can cost anywhere from 50-200% of an employee’s yearly salary to replace him—yet a new hire is most vulnerable to leaving a company within the first 18 months.  By making sure your Onboarding process is effective at building a relationship with the new employee early, you can better protect yourself against your new recruits jumping overboard.