How to help a new employee adapt faster
Miscellaneous / / November 07, 2023
Simple tips that will help greatly simplify this process.
When does adaptation actually begin?
Important, but not obvious information for everyone: adaptation of a newcomer begins not on the first working day, but on the day he accepts the offer. It is from this moment that his interaction with the company begins: the HR department, the security service, and so on.
And at this stage, the beginner is already beginning to form an idea of the clarity of internal processes, the real tone of voice. This means that all employees with whom he has to communicate must be as open as possible and ready to answer any questions.
The appearance and informativeness of the job offer, by the way, also matters. The more comprehensive the information it contains, the easier it will be for a person to prepare for his first working days.
For example, we have a full-fledged branded document that reflects our values, advantages, and positioning. All employment conditions and additional individual “buns” are also described in detail: salary, schedule, voluntary health insurance, training opportunities at the expense of the company, corporate events, and so on.
How to prepare for a newcomer in advance
Think through the employee's first days to the smallest detail. Write down a timeline for introductory meetings and immediately schedule them calendar. For example:
- welcome presentation from HR;
- registration process in the HR department;
- getting to know the team;
- setting KPIs for a probationary period;
- intermediate meetings with HR and one-on-one with the manager;
- summing up the results of the probationary period.
In addition to these basic activities, of course, others can and should be added. For example, we monthly hold top-level – in the literal sense of the word – meetings of newcomers with business founders, where they get to know each other at a round table and exchange questions.
Usually everyone there shares their previous experiences, talks about their hobbies and interests, education and generally anything else. We also talk about the formation of the agency from the very moment of its founding and discuss plans for development and much more.
In addition, during these meetings we explain that the doors of each employee, including top managers, newcomers are open and they can contact us directly at any time with questions, suggestions, comments, requests.
Why is close communication between the newcomer and HR important?
Our employee is assigned his personal HR manager for the entire probationary period, who answers all questions related to rules, work and event schedules, and paperwork. You can also come to him with any non-standard request.
Don't know who to contact? Come to the HR department.
They will definitely either answer you or refer you to the right specialist. In addition, the employee will be able to share feedback with the HR manager about how he is doing in the new place.
As a result, in this way we close two tasks at once. Firstly, we remove basic and administrative issues from the immediate manager. And secondly, we provide the newcomer with two relatively independent curators - his boss and HR.
What else should you pay attention to when preparing for a newbie’s release?
Whatever one may say, they are greeted by their clothes, so a newcomer immediately notes the comfort and functionality of the office and specifically his workplace, the power and modernity of the equipment provided, the availability of places for lunch and coffee breaks.
So be sure to take care of preparing everything you need in advance - from a computer to a stationery set. For example, we are always interested in what equipment an employee is used to working with. We are also preparing a branded welcome pack (diary and stationery), and thinking about the location of the workplace.
In addition, we provide detailed tours of office and talk about useful locations around already at the stage of final interviews.
How to smoothly immerse a newbie in processes and tasks
It is very important not to throw a newcomer “into open water” and accompany him throughout the entire adaptation process.
In the first weeks, it is important for the manager or mentor to talk about all the systems and processes that exist in the company. In our case, for each position or block of positions there is a separate manual, which reflects all this information.
It also contains a description of how and where tasks are recorded, standard timings for project delivery, and input data on the document flow process.
Separately, each newcomer is given training on working with our CRM system, in which projects are carried out.
All these activities are carried out so that by the end of the probationary period he has no administrative issues left, and his actions are as organized as possible and not duplicated.
When a newcomer perfectly understands the entire internal kitchen, in the future he will no longer be distracted by procedural and bureaucratic issues when implementing his main tasks. This means it works faster and more efficiently.
What goals should you set?
Even at the hiring stage, it is important to determine the area of responsibility and tasks of a particular employee. A big mistake is to start doing this only after its release. Pre-prepared and transparent KPIs for the trial period will speed up the adaptation process as much as possible.
Take time to do this and write down what results and within what time frame you expect from the new employee. For example, our managers think through the role and level of responsibility for each position in advance at the hiring stage, and all this is recorded in Miro. In this way, we avoid chaotic immersion in tasks, which means we greatly simplify the work of a beginner.
Everyone knows that KPIs should be measurable and achievable. That is, if you set an impossible or overly ambitious target a new employee at the very start, there is a high probability that in pursuit of her he will ignore all the basic knowledge, rules and processes that exist in the company.
And because of this, in the future he will face a lot of difficulties and criticism, which means he will quickly become demotivated and burn out.
We believe that the main goal of a newbie during the probationary period is to immerse himself in business processes, ideally understand the company’s positioning, competitive advantages, key cases and so on. And this is precisely what we rely on when setting goals for this period.
What role does a mentor play?
The mentor plays one of the key roles in the adaptation process. This is a senior experienced employee who will accompany the newcomer throughout the first months. Or maybe later. Explain all the nuances of tasks, help with advice, highlight the right ways to solve problems and simply be an example of how to act and react in various situations.
In our internship program, the mentor is the main character. Since for the guys without experience we are the first employer in life, mentor = mentor = role model.
In addition, it is very important that the mentor is “charged” and takes patronage over the newcomer voluntarily, so do not impose such a function on existing employees. This should be an incentive for hyper-loyalty and success.
We initially select employees who share the agency’s values as mentors.
Most of them themselves once came to us as interns, so there is no need to explain to them the importance and value of this role.
In addition, the company has grades, and one of the conditions for moving to a new level is a well-mannered trainee or newcomer. Well, of course, we also have a small material bonus for the most successful mentor. But this is far from the key motivation.
How to introduce an employee to the team
This is a very important stage. And there is no single recipe for successful integration, because everything very much depends on the team. So an individual approach will be required.
If your team is made up of active, extroverted sales people, organize a small getting-to-know-you game and ask them to creatively introduce themselves to the newcomer. If the team consists of introvertsIT specialists, sometimes you can simply organize one general official meeting, where the guys will discuss areas of responsibility and discuss their hard skills. And this will be quite enough for them to have a comfortable working interaction.
In addition, we, for example, ask the newcomer in advance to tell a few interesting facts about himself. And we use this information to prepare a separate post for the internal Telegram channel, where we always announce the release of new guys.
The most creative managers will also be happy to use this information in the future.
For example, if a person said that he loves to sing, then why not everyone go to karaoke together on the first Friday?!
In any case, it is very important to warn the entire team about the arrival of a newcomer in advance and tell them what you plan to delegate to him. Take it to all internal events - from going out for coffee in the morning to going out together. This way, he will immediately feel the vibe of your company, and this will speed up the establishment of connections with colleagues.
Why is it important to give feedback?
Everyone knows this, but not everyone still does it. The adaptation period for a newbie is stressful. Therefore, it is very important that the mentor supervisor and HR regularly “measured the temperature”, took an interest in the state of affairs and shared their observations and comments in a timely manner.
Perhaps in a previous place the employee was simply accustomed to performing certain tasks in a certain way and there he was praised for this approach, but in yours this is a gross violation. You shouldn’t accumulate negativity and write down “jambs” before the next scheduled meeting. Build an open and constructive dialogue from day one.
What to do if you still can’t establish a connection
This also happens. Even if all of the above points were implemented efficiently, there is a risk that the newcomer will still leave you after the trial period.
There can be a lot of reasons: both objective (cannot cope with the pace, is not involved to the required extent, is not loyal to the company and colleagues), and subjective (still doesn’t fit the vibe, still wants full remote work, still doesn’t want to be secretary).
Perhaps you did not suit each other at this particular stage of your development and will meet again. Or perhaps you should just draw conclusions and move on.
At this stage, the most important thing is not to ruin an already built relationship and, as with any parting, discuss all possible points of growth for mutual work on mistakes. Both on the part of the company and on the part of the person leaving the agency on probation.
We have a so-called exit bot, which we send to everyone upon dismissal. It contains fairly clear, simple questions, for example: “What difficulties have you encountered?”, “What could we improve?”, “How was your relationship with your manager?” and others. We analyze and process each questionnaire. However, this does not replace personal communication.
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