The first few days at a new workplace are not very easy for many people. Apart from the fact that they would have no firsthand idea of the company culture, they could also be nervous about stepping into a new organization where they know no one. This is liable to be worse in the case of someone employed for the first time.
Of course we don’t want our new hires to be scared, nervous, or apprehensive. While no organization can completely quell these emotions, there are several things that managers can do to make an employee’s entry into the organization easier and smoother.
In this post, we’ll look at several of these.
Pre-induction communication: In many large enterprises, the HR hires the employee with the actual process head or functional head learning about the employee much later. In fact I was once part of an organization where I did not know which business unit I’d be joining in till I was done with the induction. As one can imagine I was more than a little confused during that initial period.
Instead of waiting for the employee to come forward and ask, it would be nice if a manager could proactively take the initiative and communicate with the employee before induction or even onboarding. They could give the new employee a glimpse of what to expect once he/she joins.
Introduction: This has to be the most obvious this that is unfortunately sometimes overlooked for lack of time. As mentioned earlier, the new employee most probably knows no one in the organization apart from the few functional or human resource managers he/she interacted with during the hiring process.
Ensure that every member of your team is introduced to the new employee and that he/she is introduced to everyone. Make time for this.
We‘ll see more in the next post.
