Your first day in a new job; the way it always goes? Badly ...

I'm not talking about what happens, I'm talking about how people feel on their first day in a new job, oh, and the team too! Have you considered the possibility that you really don’t know how the whole team is feeling, during a recruitment phase?

This story will, unfortunately, feel familiar to many of you. Why? Because its a company not person based focus that dominates day one, week one, month one and beyond for new starters, and it's all a bit 'sink or swim'.

This scenario is all too familiar ...;

I Remember … My first day; It went in a flash, and all felt a little bit overwhelming. I also remember thinking that everyone looked under pressure.

By day three of my first week, I had a heavy workload, some of which was brand new to me. The team all seemed nice, heads down, working. To be honest, looking too busy to help me. I didn’t know whether to ask or not. I took a few wrong turns in those first few weeks but stayed late to catch up.

They all sat together at lunch, I could hear laughing and telling stories. But I’d go out or stay at my desk and eat my lunch, well for the first few weeks, then someone noticed and asked me to join them.

One month in … I still felt a little overwhelmed with the work, but couldn’t seem to get any real time with my manager to discuss it, and maybe we were just expected to get on with it. When I’d get home after a particularly busy day, I’d be talking with my family about possibly having made a mistake taking the role, and not being sure it was for me.

It was a tough time as I remember, and I couldn’t leave as I needed the money.

Eighteen months on ... I’m stable, a vital member of the team, integrated, trusted, accepted. But the journey could and really should have been more comfortable, if only they knew how close I had come to leaving, especially in those first few months.

It will probably be the same for any new person, and I haven’t seen any change at all in the way a person's 3-month trial is managed. I bet it will be sink or swim for them too.

I’ll think I’ll make an effort and say hello, I don’t want them to feel like I did. I hope they are nice!

But wait! What about the team already in place? How do they cope with a new team member?

A new person eh? Well, it will be great having an extra pair of hands … Right? I'm just not sure why they've been hired.

I’m a little anxious, what if we, and really I mean ‘me,’ can't get on with them? Maybe they’ll be too loud? Or too quiet? Who knows!?

What should I say to them on Day 1? Just hello? Should I leave them alone just in case they are super busy getting to grips with everything? That said, do I try to help them if they are struggling? I wish we had some kind of plan for when new people come in. They just seem to get recruited and arrive, and we aren’t involved at all …

We surely have an idea of what’s needed, the skills, the challenges, and we work through it all every day. Although, we are swamped and may not have time to get involved in recruitment.

It would be nice though …

Sometimes it feels like … Recruitment in this place is rushed. Something goes wrong with the project, and that’s it!

“We need to recruit someone right now for that work.”

I’m pretty sure that’s not always the right answer. Seems like a lot of time and expense, when it might be some additional training or better systems that would fix the problem.

It takes weeks to get someone in and up to speed too, finding them, notice periods, trial periods and training. The decision and process are very fast because we need someone quickly, but seeing an actual team benefit takes an age.

Are they the right person for us? Will they fit within the team? Will they want to join us at lunchtime when we all get together? Maybe they’ll go home; they might have a family. It’s so frustrating, and we never know anything about new starters until suddenly, they are sat at a desk.

They are usually looking a little overwhelmed and lost on their first day.

This kind of disconnect will alienate both new and veteran team members and provide the worst start at a relationship that will need to be built on co-operation, confidence, and trust.

So many companies do not focus on the importance of embedding new people properly in the first weeks and months of a position. Looking and acting from a starters viewpoint of the company's world.

You want them, need them, to be amazing? Well, assist them in becoming just that by making your onboarding 'people-centric,' not targets and work only focused.

How many of your new starters nearly left in their trial period and you didn't even know?

You need;

• A better understanding of a role, job, and person specification.
• Better selection and recruitment processes.
• Better induction and team integration.
• Better trial period activity and goals.

The successful outcomes? Stronger teams, people are integrated quickly, and the team is involved in selecting the right members to join the journey.

The 3-Stage System.

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