How to Roll Out the Red Carpet for New Employees

Imagine, getting people’s full attention, being welcomed with open arms, maybe even posing for a photo op. Surely, we all could use some red-carpet treatment at the office. Traditionally, however, this reception is reserved for heads of state, CEO's, VIPs or celebrities. But, that doesn’t mean employers shouldn’t pull out the stops for newcomers. After all, today’s millennial's (and Gen Z) are tomorrow’s superstar managers, leaders, and business partners.

As an executive recruiter and HR partner, you don’t have to look hard to see employer engagement wane after a new employee has been successfully courted. That's a problem because attracting someone to your organization is just the first part of the sales funnel — the tip of the iceberg.

And us recruiters need to be careful. We do not better the situation by being overly sensational about the role, company, perks and work culture. That's playing a short-term game. It just ends up setting even higher expectations that we (i.e., the company) will be less likely to meet down the road.

It seems to me that somewhere between the hiring pitch and orientation, something goes awry. I hear about it all the time. The employers’ level of overt involvement, commitment, and connection takes a nosedive — and that promise of tomorrow begins to fracture.

I believe, however, that between the pre-hire and 90-day period, in particular, the hiring gear be in full-throttle.

As they do in Hollywood, employers and the hiring team must be ready to roll out the red carpet for new hires.

Act 1: Prepare For Their Arrival

Imagine, you enter a 5-star restaurant that you’d made a reservation at a month ago. You've worn your nicest threads, arrived on time, and, upon entering, assuredly state your name. The maitre d’ responds, “Sorry, but we don’t have anyone down by that name, and there are no tables available.”

In a similar example, there’s a scene from Seinfeld that takes place at a car rental dealership. Jerry says to the receptionist — who just told him they don’t have his sedan reserved — “see, you know how to take the reservation, but you don’t know how to hold the reservation. Anyone can just take it!”

These are good examples of bad customer service, poor planning, and negligence that would drive anyone up a wall.

Now, what if the careless restaurant or car rental dealership is your business? You plaster “people-first” values on the web page, social, on branding materials — but can you back it up? To ensure your message rings true, here’s what should be in place on a new employee’s first day:

?? ??? The computer (CPU and screen), laptop, phone system (with the proper name displayed), and any other tech/equipment must be working, connected, undamaged, and ready for operation.

?? ??? The desk must be cleaned out from former occupants, wiped down, and stocked with the necessary supplies: notebooks, stationery, pens/pencils, stapler, post-its, binders, paperclips, etc.

?? ?? The workstation should have an ergonomic chair, badge/business cards, employee handbook, office guidebook, a company-branded item (i.e., swag), and a printed calendar of meetings/orientation.

Tip: Place a hand sanitizer dispenser at their desk so they A) don’t spread germs, viruses, and bacteria and B) associate the office as having a clean atmosphere.

These are part of a non-negotiable pre-hire checklist for employers to follow almost to a T. Also included are all the administrative functions: employment paperwork, signatures, forms, tax information and benefits enrollment.

Act 2: Give Them The Grand Tour

The next thing you’ll want to do is assign them a “buddy” (i.e., an office tour guide). This person should be selected based on their ability to be warm, patient, open, and generally knowledgeable about the office setting. Ideally, it should be someone on their direct team or department.

Here’s what you’re going to show them:

?? The bathroom(s), break room, conference rooms and provide them with a key or access code if that’s needed for entry.

?? ?? The supplies closet, so if they run out of any items from the materials you’ve originally given them, they can — independently — get more. “Teach a man (or woman) to fish …”

??????? The key members, and where their offices are/where they sit; these include folks in management, finance, HR, IT, benefits and payroll, etc.

Tip: Include a basic floor map in your day-one materials to accelerate their ability to recall the main areas, facilities, departments, and landmarks of the workplace ??.

Taking a new employee on this little guided tour will help them get comfortable with their surroundings. Plus, they’ll get an opportunity to meet some of the principal members that, hopefully, want to mentor up-and-coming talent as much as you do.

Act 3: Start Training, Projects and Assignments

At this point, the new employee has met a number of business contacts, gotten comfortable with the logistics, recognized (and adapted to) some cultural norms, and more. Now it’s time to “capture their hearts,” as Dr. Ranjit Nair states in his book Potluck Culture. In other words, you’ll want to get them started on a combination of trainings, as well as small and larger projects.

This is a nice little window of opportunity to get some basic training or retraining done on software use (i.e., Salesforce, Dropbox, Slack, Microsoft Office, etc.), or to take a psychometric or psychological assessment (i.e., DiSC, TTI, MBTI or StrengthsFinder).

Tip: Using a personality or behavioral style test within the first 30 days can be highly informative; it can help to learn how the employee might respond to certain social contexts, know which assignments they might enjoy or gravitate towards, etc.

Research shows that putting new employees immediately on one large, long-term project from the start can be too intense. On the flip side, you can’t capture their engagement on only menial assignments. Instead, you can have them get started on a shorter, relevant project all while picking their brain on bigger picture assignments they were hired for.

Use these projects to further assess their job fit.

From there, start to include them in meetings or briefs, social outings, and other office rituals (non-sacrificial ??) that the team subscribes to. This promotes deeper collaborating on business and non-business interests and keeps them motivated to stick around.

Final Act: Mine Their Feedback

My graduate school professor told me that one of the most useful tools for business success is giving and receiving feedback. When dealing with a new employee, some managers like to check-in at the end of the day to see how things are going. Others, like to wait till the end of their first week or month or save “the talk” for their 6-month or annual performance review.

I’m a big ‘around-the-clock’, informal feedback type — partly because the performance research supports it, and partly because I’m not a fan of surprises. Saving a major performance critique for the 12-month appraisal adds an unnecessary layer of shock-value that people, generally, don’t like.

At my current company, Worldwide Business Research, I meet one-on-one with new employees at the 90-day mark. We step into a local coffee shop — I buy them their preferred coffee concoction — and have a safe, open dialogue about how things have been.

After that, I ask them to take a 5-minute confidential employee satisfaction survey that helps us learn about how they're assimilating to the business. We use Likert-scaled and open-ended questions to mine a combination of feedback results:

? On a scale from 1–10, how would you rate your training and support thus far?

? On a scale from 1–10, how would you rate your overall employee experience thus far?

? Do your day-to-day duties align with what you understood to be the position? If not, please explain.

As organizations become more data-reliant, employers will be expected to use ongoing feedback systems and surveys to see if there really is a person-job fit (P-J fit). This doesn’t discount the garden-variety check-ins, though. Use a combination of tools to mine feedback from new employees, especially through their first 90-days of employment.

Thanks for reading! If you found this piece enjoyable and informative, feel free to like it, share it or comment about it. Also, if you or someone you know would like coaching on resume writing, cover letters, LinkedIn profile enhancement, or general interview practice, I’d be happy to help on those fronts.

My passion is helping people at work and in life — thanks for stopping by!