Taking Control of Onboarding In a New Job
How to Succeed When You Start a New Job
When I started at Salesforce four years ago, I was making a career change from management consulting to product marketing. While I knew I wanted to be a product marketer, I was smart enough to know that, there was a lot that I didn’t know! I knew I probably have more questions than answers, and that in addition to the learning curve that comes with starting a new job at a new company, I was also going to have to figure out how to evolve into a new function and a new industry.
At the time, I remember scouring the web for resources on how to onboard effectively and transition into a new role in a new company, industry, and function. And while there were lots of articles (thanks SEO) practical advice was coming up short.
Fortunately, as I’ve written about before, Salesforce does a good job when it comes to structured onboarding for their employees. And with a combination of what they provided, a good manager, and my own proactiveness and relentlessness, I was able to figure out something that worked, however it still was very challenging. When I find something challenging, one of the things I do is to ask others around me if this seems to be a problem for them. If it’s big enough, I try to research and write my practical lessons for dealing with this problem, and even wrote an article about my experience onboarding at the time.
One of the reasons I chose to move on from consulting was to get control of more of my time. Now, I had more flexibility to work on projects outside of work that were important to me, such as MBASchooled. As I began investing more of my time in MBASchooled, I started to do more 1:1 coaching and group workshops with MBA students across numerous MBA programs, and I began to see another side of the challenges with onboarding in a different light.
Anyone who has been to business school knows that the first semester is very challenging, the common phrase is “drinking from a firehose.” As I began to talk to more and more students about the challenges with the adjustment from employee to MBA student and navigating in a new environment and culture, I began to see the parallels with onboarding into a new company. This is ultimately what led me to writing my first book, MBA Insider, which was meant to serve as a guide to navigating business school faster. As I wrote the book and did more and more speaking and working with students, I began to learn that onboarding to business school was only one of the onboarding challenges that they faced, they also had challenges with onboarding into summer internships, and then onboarding (reboarding?) back into the workplace after they graduated.
The book launched in January of 2020, which was challenging for a variety of reasons, but as the months would unfold, in many ways the topics I was researching and discovering started to become more vocal and prescient. Now with a world under lockdown, how would people onboard into jobs where they couldn’t directly see their co-workers?
With the Great Resignation and Great Reshuffle in full swing, now is the third time I’ve investigated and researched employee onboarding. I began researching this topic again, after noticing several of my clients and coming to me for help either because they underestimated how much onboarding they were going to need to do, or because hiring managers were seeing people struggling and in some cases leaving newly hired roles. Over the past 3 months, I’ve had over 50+ of conversations with employees and managers about how employees can onboard effectively. This is not a new topic, and while I’m still working through the data and insights, I wanted to share some initial takeaways of the common aspects of onboarding that employees overlook when they onboard into a new role.
Source: Betterwork Labs Onboarding Survey, October 2021-November 2021
What Most New Employees Miss with Onboarding
The Importance of Asking For What You Need - Most companies have formal onboarding programs with employees. The challenge is, that while it takes anywhere from 6-9 months to onboard and contribute in a new role most onboarding programs at best stop after a week or two. The more advanced people who onboarded looked for ways to continue their onboarding after the formal program was over. They identified what they thought they needed to be successful, and then advocated for it.
Forgetting to Evaluate the “Say-Do” Gap - Every company has a “say-do” gap between who they say they are and what they do each day. Most new employees forget to acknowledge this. Chances are, you chose your new job because of what they told you about the company culture. But company culture is more than just what people say, it’s more about what people do, and what behaviors and actions get rewarded. People who assimilate faster into a company focus on understanding and modeling the behaviors of the culture that are rewarded, versus what’s said or written on the companies website.
Expanding Building Relationships Beyond Who You Know - Most smart employees when they onboard ask for a list of people that they should meet with and build relationships with. While this is important, many of the relationships that you need often comes from outside of your direct line of sight. These are the people across the organization who you’ll rely on to work with and get things done, or collaborate with. Instead of just focusing on the “known” individuals you need to meet, really successful new employees focus on finding those “unknown” people. These most likely will be “weak ties” but can lead to stronger outcomes when it comes time to work on projects.
Listen More, and First - In Hamilton The Musical, Aaron Burr said to Hamilton, “talk less, smile more.” Many well-intentioned employees get off fast by looking for and trying to will “quick wins” to life. While getting wins on the board helps with your own confidence as well as fitting into the organization, many mistakes are often made in the spirit of doing before thinking. This is especially true in a cross functional organization, where so much of your work relies on gaining the trust of other people.
Note: If you are a hiring manager or employer who wants to improve how you onboard employees either on your team or at your company, please let me know, I’d love to talk to you.
Succeeding in a new Job: How to Accelerate Your Onboarding Resources
In my initial research gathering phase, I came across resources that I thought would be helpful to share. Please feel free to share this with anyone who is starting a new job!
How to Start a New Job The Right Way (MBASchooled) - Here is my guide to starting a new job and onboarding effectively
How to Get Ready For a New Job (Early Career Moves Podcast) - Here is a podcast interview I did on starting a new job
How to Succeed in a New Role (HBR)
“Our research points to one overlooked prerequisite for transition success: the effective use of internal networks. The people who are the most productive, innovative, and engaged in new roles—the “fast movers”—are those who establish extremely broad, mutually beneficial, uplifting connections from the start”
New Job? Ask Your Boss These Questions
“I'd recently seen a survey that found 74% of employers said they'd made a bad hire at some point, and I was determined to not fall victim to that statistic. To get off to a great start, I focused on asking my manager key questions to help me understand what I needed to do to be successful.”
How to Onboard a new hire remotely (Know Your Team)
“When you tell someone why you hired them, you’re essentially saying to them: “I believe in you.” Few forms of encouragement are better. You show your support for them on Day 1, and simultaneously set your expectations for the things you want them to continue doing. Not to mention, I’ve always found it strange when you join a new company, and you’re not exactly sure why they picked you.”
The development of a distinct organizational culture is essential for boosted employee loyalty, engagement, and belonging. How your employees ‘learn’ about the nuances and ins and outs of your company culture can happen through a variety of ways which you can certainly bring to life in the way you create learning experiences.
“In a study from Bamboo HR, a HR software platform, 31% of workers reported having quit a job within the first six months. We also know turnover costs quite a bit of money, not to mention time. This is perplexing because recruiting and hiring costs time and resources, why do you want to leave that on the table?”
The 13 Best Questions to Ask During the Remote Onboarding Process (Know Your Team)
“The one thing you’re likely missing from your remote onboarding process is what I call a “ work preferences survey.”The concept is by no means novel. You want to better understand the working style of a new employee. What do they tend to get annoyed by in a work environment? What communication style do they default to? How might they prefer to receive feedback.”
“Many businesses think they are doing a good job of bringing newly hired executives like Jacobsen into the fold when they actually aren’t. Nearly all large companies are competent at the administrative basics of signing leaders up, but that level of onboarding does little to prevent the problems that can arise when these people start working with new colleagues and grappling with unfamiliar cultural norms and expectations.”
When You Start a New Job, Pay Attention to These 5 Aspects of Company Culture (HBR)
“When you arrive in your new organization, ask insiders how you should approach relationships. For example, do you need to spend time building a relationship with someone before asking them for help or input on a project? Or is it acceptable to gather a list of “go-to” individuals whom you can simply email for assistance when you need them?”
Podcasts
Community Wisdom
For my last newsletter edition of the year, I would love to know from you a podcast, article, or book that you’d recommend. If you have anything you want to share, please email me and I’ll include it in the final edition
Have a great week,
Al