Surviving Day One

It happens when you are a starting off your career at the bottom of the food chain. It again happens each time you change jobs. Heck, it happens when you get transferred to a new office/ branch of even the current employer. The newbies all have horror stories to share about how on day one they have been made to feel lost, angry and even humiliated in the office. If that happens to be the first day in a new organization, it leaves the employee wondering if it was indeed a smart decision to have left the previous employer in favor of the current monster. Having spent oodles of money wooing the hotshot talent from the competitor, we now leave them to stumble and fall till they find the roads in our neighborhood and learn how to find their way around. Sounds really convoluted you would say, but it happens everyday in most offices. Chances are that you have experienced it yourself.We have all heard stories where a new sales person who was hired from the competitor and was marched off to a customer, went on to close sale. Only when he was back in his office, the newbie's boss realized that he had sold the competitor's product by mistake because he had not gotten used to saying that he represented the new employer! Strange but true. Many organizations make a virtue out of their poor onboarding processes by proudly announcing, “Ours is a tough culture for anyone to break in to. We eat our young. If you survive the first couple of months here, you can survive anywhere.” To the astute it would be proof that this company does not work hard at making the new hires productive. The Human Resources team and the hiring manager need to partner and take time to make the new hire jump on to what clearly is a moving train.The more experienced the hire, the longer is the process of integrating the person into the new organization. Experienced hires bring their own baggage of beliefs, opinions and plans. That could lead to filtering out what exists in the organization that they can leverage or build upon. They have a greater tendency to refer to their past lives and compare the current setup and feel dismayed. These are high cost strategic assets and greater care should be taken to ensure that their stepping in to the pool causes minimum ripples. Notice how the organizations always assume that the more expensive the hire, the more capable they are at automatically getting off the runway.

A Form in Time Saves Nine

All organizations have gazillion different forms to fill. Some involve payroll, some are statutory declarations, some are authorizations needed to issue a laptop, office stationery (yes, some organizations call them office assets!! The same guys never use the term to describe their employees) etc. Don’t let forms take away from substance. Collect all the information that may be needed to pre-populate all the forms as best as you can so as to minimize the time taken by the employee in this rather drab but necessary exercise. Try and have the forms filled prior to the joining. The employee could simply sign them on day one and move on.

“We Don’t Need No Ejukayshun”

Many organizations hand over all five volumes of the Rule Book to the new hire as soon as he/ she walks into the door. That ensures the employee spends the rest of the day locked up with loads of legalese, worrying about which rule he/she may violate unknowingly. Day one is about building connections. I would even say that the first few days is all about meeting colleagues, key customers and other stakeholders. It helps to have an on boarding buddy – someone who can guide the new employee through the maze. The trick is to choose someone who enjoys doing this for fun rather than a grumbling colleague with a machete because it is now his turn to play guide. Give the employee some fun facts about the organization that they can quote back to their friends and family. This can have a tremendous feel-good effect on the employee.

The Perfect Day One Agenda

1.    Design the day one agenda from the point of view of the new hire and not the organization. Most people need a friendly face to talk to and find out basic information about the organization, the department and the top five who will matter in the employee’s life immediately. Let the newbie steer the conversation to identify what they want to know. They may NEED to… but do they WANT to??

2.    The new hire’s manager must spend the first half of the day getting to know the person behind the resume. To explain the purpose of the role and the possibilities of making a difference. The manager’s must make the role seem exciting.

3.    The second half of the day must be spent with an onboarding buddy who will help organize what is needed in the first ten days. For instance the new employee does not need to watch the ten volumes of videos where the big cheese addressed the employee on the last sports day. That can wait.

Get the last ten employees you hired into a room. Ask them what information nuggets they found useful on day one and what the organization should have given that they would have valued. Then design your first day experience around that. Day one is about bonding, not about overwhelming the employee. To move the employee from orientation, assimilation to finally being effective is a long journey. But it is well worth the investment on day one.