Top Tips for Managers - Onboarding a Newbie!

Remember back in the good old days? You got promoted to manager and it was ‘sink or swim’. You’d fake it till you made it and have a bunch of war stories to laugh about in years to come. I think it’s fair to say that we’ve come a long way in expectations for new managers and times have changed with helping people get up to speed on the different skills needed to make it as a manager.

Still, to this day, I see many top performers promoted into management roles without much formal support to make sure they can succeed at the areas that are critical to management – leading others and setting them up for team success. Essentially, moving the focus from individual performance to group performance.

So, over the next few blog posts, I want to share some tips that I’ve learnt over the years about getting the people stuff right as a manager. They’re pretty practical when I think about it. They’re also the things nobody really tells you. They’re the things that I learnt the hard way – through getting it wrong a few times and then refining with mentors and peers until I got them ‘more right’ from iteration to iteration.

Top Tip for Managers No. 1 – Onboarding a Newbie

Given that it’s the start of the year, and people tend to move around in the job marketplace, I want to share a model that I keep in mind when bringing on new team members. It’s a critical period for making sure you made the right recruitment decision and the team member made the right career decision. No doubt, there’s a lot of ‘sussing out’ still going on.

The model I developed is pretty simple to apply and ensures that as the Manager you have set a path towards successful onboarding. It has 3 steps – Logistics, Learning, Linking. See below for the detail of each step:

1. Logistics

If you put yourself in the shoes of your team member, think about the experience when you show up to the new job that you are excited to be starting only to find that you were supposed to be doing induction training at a different location to where you’ll work (so you show up to the wrong place on your first day), or you show up to the right place but nobody was expecting you, or you show up only to find that there is no computer, no workspace for you, no security clearance… you get my drift. The worst of all ‘logistics’ sins is not being set up on payroll and missing the first (and sometimes 2^nd, 3^rd. 4^th) pay periods.

Logistics is a no-brainer, but in the rush of multiple deadlines and being under resourced it’s easy to skip. So, make sure that you have the following:

• A checklist of all the things a new starter needs to do their job. You can get input from the team and build a checklist that you use over and over. This is certainly something you can delegate. You just can’t skip it!

• A plan to complete all the tasks in your logistics checklist. Again, this one is easy to delegate, so ensure all technology, payroll, security clearances, etc. are sorted. The purpose of the plan is to cover for timeframe requirements. Sometimes Tech Support will need a minimum number of days to connect, etc.

• Communicate regularly with the new starter before they arrive. It can be simple things like links to latest news about the company, confirmation of starting times and venues, etc. The key is to keep your new starter warm between job acceptance and start date. Remember, if they don’t hear from you and there is radio silence, they’ll make up their own reality about you as a manager and the organisation they’re joining. They’re sizing you up as much as you are them.

2. Learning

Lots of people will accept a job purely on the development opportunities. Just a couple of tips about giving your new starter the right learning at the right time, in the right dosage will set them up for success:

• Timing’s a peach. When someone walks in for the first day, they’re usually just wondering if they made the right to choice to accept the role. The things that will help involve learning about:

o   Corporate culture – ‘how we do things here’

o   Leadership and organisational design – ‘who’s who in the zoo’

o   High level strategy – ‘what’s the purpose here’

o   Role of the team – ‘how do we impact the purpose in our team’

o   Key activities of the team – ‘get me started on the practical stuff’

Over whatever probation type period you use for new starters, you can build in job role specific learning to ensure they build mastery in the tasks that link to the role of the team and the organisational strategy. If you dump a whole lot of job task content on the first day, they’ll have no context to attach it to.

• How you go about helping your new team member learn will vary. The key is to remember that adults learn differently. Check out VAK learning (visual, audio, kinaesthetic) for a quick run-down on adult learning methods. Note – the point here is that you can’t just throw someone a procedure manual and think you’ve set them up for success!

Image credit – onlinelearning.net

• There is more to learning than just completing compliance e-learning or having policies and procedures spewed at you in a classroom. Check out 70:20:10 learning methodology. The general gist is that 10% of learning is formal – say in a classroom, e-learning, theory, etc. 20% of learning occurs through coaching or mentoring with others and 70% occurs on the job – the insights we get as we complete the tasks of our role.

3. Linking

Lastly, it’s important that new team members can build links into the existing team members. There are a number of things that you can do to assist here that don’t need to be over the top, but will add significant value to a new starter’s experience:

• Set up a buddy for the first couple of weeks in the team. Link up with somebody that is already established and is a high performer. Also, it’s critical that the buddy wants to play this role for the new starter. Have a chat with them beforehand to make sure it’s something they want to be involved in. Do they have time to help in their schedule, etc?

Sidenote - I remember being buddied up with a guy once when I was new to an organisation. On my first day, he showed me where the internal recruitment page was on the intra-net so that I could find a better job! Do you want your new starter getting that experience?

• Seek out opportunities for peer learning. If your new starter was recruited for specific skills, look for ways that they can share them with the team, and look for ways that experts within the team at other skills can develop your new starter.
• Conduct a team building day or strategy day closely after the arrival of your new starter. They will have fresh eyes. It’s a great opportunity for them to link into the culture of the team and build relationships with other team members.

Remember - we’re human. We can’t help but want to be part of a pack. Help your new team member become part of your work pack!

Summary

So, there it is. No rocket science in there, but I can bet that if you just check in on those 3 areas next time you’re onboarding a new starter, they will fit into the team and start contributing real outcomes quicker than I can say…

“Connect with me at www.remarkablelearningsolutions.com to talk about more ways to help managers get the people stuff right!”