My Moment of Power became Many Moments of Confusion.

As with anybody who tries to change something in the world at large, I do my best to learn something new from experience. The complexity of what I need to learn varies more than Mark Zuckerberg’s credibility in front of Congress. However, I digress! Recently I initiated a self-improvement exercise. After I wake up, I use 5 minutes to stay in bed and contemplate random thoughts, without checking my phone, skipping down to the coffee maker or doing anything other than think. Hard to imagine I know, but these 5 minutes are free for my thought to wander. This morning I woke at 04.45 AM, which is relatively early for me, the sun had just shown its happy face over the sea, the cherry trees waved in rhythm to the small breeze, that is so very typical for the beautiful Danish landscape. It was like stepping into a Morten Korch movie, which of course tells you nothing. In this wholesome moment of relaxation, I quickly remembered when I got hired in an American company, and especially the day I signed the contract and the feeling of deliverance that went through my body at that very moment. A sense of joy and excitement swept my mind, and the belief that all my hopes, dreams and ambitions were coming true was awakened, in this, my Moment of Power. I felt I could run a marathon wearing flippers, that I could climb Everest in flipflops and then casually ski down the mountain when I had been at the top, in short, I COULD DO ANYTHING! When I went out of the door or slightly danced out of the gate, I was happy, excited and saw the world as my playground, the high from My Moment of Power was still in me. However, the moment was not to last and disappeared the moment I stepped through my own door; REALITY HAD HIT! I had to end in my current job, and the dream job was two long months away. It was very anticlimactic; I wanted to start NOW!

The hours became days, the days became weeks, and I slowly felt the joy of my new employment started to feel like a cocktail mixed with nervousness, anxiety and many unanswered questions. Questions like: Will I succeed, who are my new colleges, what will my boss be like and lastly how will my new life be? A tsunami of questions flooded me, and the anxiety increased exponentially, and I tried to remedy this, by using much time hunting the information, I felt I needed. The challenge was, I tried hunting ants with a shotgun. In other words, I did not know where to look. The day came: I started, and I was like a mixed bag of sour and sweet candy, a man filled with confusing and conflicting emotion.

I had before this, not heard a word from my new employer and I did not know what to expect at all. I felt terrified, like a prisoner who had to step into the prison courtyard for the first time. It would be best for me, since I work with onboarding, to make this into a cautionary tale of the lack of onboarding and to tell you I quit after 45 days, as the studies show usually happens. The truth ended up being, that I worked there for three years. However, the beginning of my employment stuck with me after all these years, and my conclusion is, that the start of my work could have gone better, and I could also have left after the first day, as 4 % do, since I was extremely nervous. If you take anything from my story, then it should be, that when we today hire new employees, then we have to nurse their Moment of Power. Please help the employee to get the safety, Knowledge & to be better integrated better through the SKI model. It demands little talent and only cost you minimum time, and you don’t even have to have a platform to do so!

As an extra help to you, I have made a list of 10 things you as the manager, the boss or whatever you call yourself, can do to make secure that your new employee doesn't meet up the first day as a bundle of nerves. Ten things you can do:

1. Contact the new employee a minimum every two weeks this can give them the information you can hear how they are doing, ask them if they have any doubts. You can also get one of their future colleges to call and tell them how it is to work at the company.
2. Make sure that the employee receives a feeling or more concrete an idea of the company culture. What is the dress code, do they meet at a set time or is it more loosely defined Etc.
3. The employees want to know about their new workplace, give them the opportunity to read, watch or listen to the company's history.
4. Share the company’s values and tell the employees how to integrate them into their new job function.
5. Make sure that all the practical issues are solved! The employees need to know the parking facilities, if there is room for their bike or if there is anything else, they need to know.
6. Make a welcoming video with the CEO of the company. If your CEO doesn’t have the time for this, then get HR to find or take a picture of him/her, and get a message from said CEO, saying hello. It′s SUPER useful to make all the employees, no matter where in the hierarchy they are, have a positive feeling about the new job.
7. Tell them what will happens the first day. The new employees need to know what is going to happen, whom they will meet and when lunchtime is Etc. Make sure the new employees know all this before the first day.
8. Get the members of the team the new employees join, to link up to them via LinkedIn and get them to spend 3-4 minutes to write a little message for the new hire. Ask yourself what feeling it would give you to know, that 7-8 people can't wait to meet and work with you. What a POWER BOOST!
9. Send out easy and fun training programs to the new employees, that show their future work processes. It should not be significant examples, but enough to give them an insight into products, technology, code of conduct everything else.
10. Do your best and take nothing for granted, your approach has to be like, if you had to explain a painting to a blind man, everything needs to Crystal clear. Useful fact: We at introDus see that 98,5% of everything we send, is opened on the day it is received, this tells us that the new employee wants to prepare for the new job. Furthermore, we can see, that just over 90% opens the material more than once. So, I feel like, I change the world one Onboarding at a time.