Onboarding New Employees: How to Make Everyone Feel Like a Team
When new people join a company, it can be pretty overwhelming not only for them but for others within the team they are joining. People can respond to change in very different ways and some people can be resistant to this therefore if the new person (or people) are coming in to do a new role or task, people could find this intimidating and even take this out on them.
It is important that right from the offset the new employees are made to feel welcome and also the others in the team embrace them. It is hard to strike that balance sometimes and making sure that thought is put into the team dynamic to ensure a happy workforce is important. A happy workforce will normally output a better performing team.
Working From Home
When Covid-19 struck, a lot of companies were forced to ask their employees to work from home. For some employees, this was better for them, but a lot of others struggled. When working from home it is hard to maintain a good team dynamic and have face to face interactions that people enjoy.
As a result of this, there have been many companies that have taken advantage of this and got involved in virtual team building activities. These help the employees (especially the new ones) get some interaction with the team and even maybe the managers of that area. Team Tactics is one of those companies that have created amazing virtual team building activities where people can participate from remote locations. Some people may feel slightly apprehensive about this as it is very different from meeting up face to face, but these are great to get the moral up and something that could break the ice very quickly with newcomers.
Induction
The first day in a new job can be nervous for someone and if they are not inducted into the company in a professional and engaging way, this can be very off-putting, and you may even find that they don’t come back. This would be a great shame not just for the company but also for the employee. The induction should cover all the normal formal stuff like place of work, times, pensions, holidays etc but should also cover a lot of the softer things.
This could include health and wellbeing initiatives, Cycle to Work schemes, employee discounts and any “clubs” that may be associated with the company (football, gyms etc). Meeting new people should also be part of this process where the new employee can have an opportunity to introduce themselves and meet other members of their team who they might be working with.
Organisation Chart
It is really important that any new employee understands where they fit in an organisation chart. This then allows them to know their immediate supervision but also where they fit in terms of the bigger picture. Not only should people’s name and role be added to the organisation chart, but it should have a picture of them. This is far more engaging and allows new starters to put a face to a name.
For those that work on the road or at home, this is sometimes the only way they get to see what someone looks like, and this helps build a stronger relationship. Some companies can use software with their emails or chat facilities on the computer where people are able to hover over a name and see where they fit into the organisation and what they look like.
The bigger the organisation, the more important it is that everyone is able to pull together to feel like a team. Make changes to your company to better facilitate this now.
Photo credits: eOffice
