How to fit in and not be a nervous-wreck at a new workplace

Remember your first day at a new workplace?

The sweaty palms. The impostor syndrome. The nervous laughter.

While the first few days are super exciting at a new job, they can also be stressful. Despite a great culture in place, one might still feel like a fish-out-of-water in a new workplace.

This is a problem a lot of people face. I have been there, and I am sure many of you have too!

It is not your fault.

Many companies mistake "culture" for a routine. There may be nobody at your workplace to define how a company culture should be. And more often than not a fun and easy-going vibe is mistaken as great culture. While these are good-to-haves, they don't entirely define culture.

So, what is culture?

Culture defines a company's personality and its environment, expectations and workings. To achieve a good culture, one needs to set team processes and systems. The company also needs to define expected behaviours and outcomes. A good company culture promotes high efficiency, a positive environment, easy communication and collaboration. A good company culture results in happy employees and a progressive profitable business.

Working at corporate companies, startups and remote companies has given me a holistic understanding of culture.

Everybody is nervous in their first weeks or months in a new place irrespective of whether the company has a good culture in place.

To feel like a part of a company requires a mix of three things in place

- a good company culture

- efforts from the existing team to include new members

- initiatives from your end to be a part of the team.

We cannot change a company's culture and practices overnight. But what we can do in the first few weeks is take the right initiatives. These can reduce our stress and make an environment more inclusive.

First, try and answer these questions:

1) When you were being on-boarded, did you understand all the systems and processes of the company?

2) Were you given all the information about the company's vision, mission and brand image?

3) Did you have a code of conduct explained to you? Or was a company policy shared with you?

4) Does the team involve you in meetings, discussions, lunch breaks, chat, etc?

5) Do you have a buddy system/mentor in the organization?

6) Is there an HR person who reaches out to you to see if you are settling well?

The answers to these will give you a balanced perspective of what is the current status. Once you have these insights, you can take initiatives to fix these. Here are some initiatives that have rescued me in new environments – remote or otherwise.

One-on-one meetings

Fix 20-min catch-up sessions with the 3-5 people you work with. Make an effort to understand their journey and their day-to-day work. Ask how you can help them and how they can help you. The fact that you took the time to understand them will make them feel positive towards you. And open conversations build relationships.

When I joined NewCampus last year, I was apprehensive about settling in an all-remote team. I overcame my fears by deciding to organize catch-ups with each team member. I sent the following message to each one of them, adding their name in place of <NAME>:

" Hi <NAME>! ?? Would love to connect with you on a call sometime in the next couple of weeks to get to know you and what you do. Let me know what would be a good day and time ??

The team was extremely kind and obliging! I was so surprised to see each one of them making an effort to chalk out time for me. And what great conversations we had! From work to talking about world peace and Xiaomi's latest phones, it was awesome. This helped me feel like a part of the NewCampus team right from the start!

Reaching out to the hiring manager

When I joined Disney India as a Web Content Producer, I was a bit overwhelmed. The organization was large. I was new and had to coordinate with the US, UK and Budapest teams to launch the Disney India website. The senior talent acquisition executive who hired me, Rakhee Mane, kept regular tabs on me. She would often drop by my table to inquire how I was doing. She would take out time to understand my problems and offer direction. Every talk with her made me feel better. And till date, I seek Rakhee's advice.

Seek the hiring manager/HR person who hired you, even if they don't. Find out how they can help you make your situation better. Can they help you understand policies that you are unclear about? They would be able to point out the right people who can help. Or they could share valuable advice to help you settle down.

Help the team

Reach out to see if you can help your team. Enthusiasm is contagious. Your motivation and pro-activeness will help you stand out.

I was one of the early hires at Bizongo. Other members of the team included the founders, core team and a bunch of interns. They had all been working on the business from Day 1. I was the only one who was new and nervous. But, I banked on my enthusiasm. Reaching out to every team member, I tried understanding their work and offered to help in any capacity. And there was plenty to do in a fast-paced early-stage startup!

Food

As strange as this sounds, people bond over food. If you work at a physical office, it's not a bad idea to take some home-baked goodies or a dish to the office :) If you don't cook, buy. But good food is a great conversational opener!

I moved from Ahmedabad to Mumbai to join Exborders in 2013. Mumbai is not an easy city to settle in. Hunting apartments and finding my niche at work was a daunting task. What helped were the lunch breaks. The fun team at Exborders believed in sharing food. From neer dosas to usal pavs, every dabba went around. And it was super easy to collaborate after that. I even got rental recommendations!

This is why many strongly believe that a team that eats together, stays together.

Give it time

Let's face it, you can't walk into a new group and expect to settle down at once. Any college goer could tell you that!

Good relations build over time. Don't hurry it up. Don't stress about this. Accept that it is okay to be nervous in a new place. Focus on doing good work and being a good human being. At the end of the day, that is all that matters!

Some of my closest friends to date are those I worked with – remotely or from adjacent office desks. Great teams and relationships need team spirit, patience and continued effort. As long as you are willing to invest your share, it works out fine!

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So, how do you help define a company's culture if it does not have one in place? What are your preferred methods to settle down in a new environment? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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This is the ninth article in the series on jobs and life, called ' Jobscapes'. Read the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth articles for the whole picture.