So let’s assume all is arranged and your new team member will start within the next few days or weeks. Time to think ahead about onboarding.
Why is well organized onboarding so important?
Let’s just wait and see what needs to be done whenever that person shows up. It’s amazing how many new employees need to wait for days and weeks for equipment and access rights until they can finally really start. What a waste of time, what a frustrating experience – something that just does not happen in a well managed team. So you’ll think in advance about your new team members equipment. You have a notebook already in the shelf or it’s agreed that he/she brings his own along? Good. Otherwise: get one ahead of time, you want to have it ready on day 1 and delivery may take some time. The team is informed and ready to welcome the additional help ? Of course you have thought about a desk and other basic stuff that may be relevant – like entries in your company directory, access rights to your systems, ID cards, and so on? You need to organize all that anyway, do it up front and provide a smooth and positive start.
Planning for knowledge ramp-up
In addition to these practical things you need to organize the knowledge ramp-up. Sit with your team and create a list of topics that the new team member will need to know or learn. Prioritize it. For each topic note the source of information. It may be yourself, one of the team members, or a link to a team Wiki page – or set up an ‘onboarding’ Wiki page for later re-use. Make sure that the team has thought about some first entry-level task that can be tackled along or after the initial topics to start team integration and interaction. Think back about your first day in a new office, a new team – it feels good if you feel welcomed, people have been waiting for you and you most likely made the right choice when choosing this position.
You may want to use this Onboarding checklist to plan for this.
Check out these related articles:
- How to set up a high-performance team (part1 – think about this first)
- How to set up a high-performance team (part2 – the job interview)