New Hire

The first 90 days are crucial when it comes to a new hire. If the fit is right, it can be the beginning of a successful long-term work relationship that benefits both employee and employer. If the fit is wrong, it can cost a company a great deal – both in time and money.

“Turnover is upwards of 30 per cent in the first three months,” says Christian Codrington, senior manager of operations at the British Columbia Human Resources Management Association. He explains that the cost of replacing a new employee is one-and-one-half times the cost of any new hire, because “you have to recruit and hire a replacement while the work’s not getting done.”

For small businesses, these kinds of excess costs can be particularly damaging. But with some careful planning and attentive management during those first 90 days, companies can avoid the three-month turnover trap and help new employees integrate successfully into their new environment.

List all applicable forms, training and form links that the new hire will require with deadlines when each must be completed and/or submitted to who.

The Employer's orientation checklist: A must-have

Well before their new hire’s start date, employers should put together a detailed orientation checklist, according to Toronto-based human resources consultant Sari Friedman.

A comprehensive checklist will ensure that an employer won’t miss important (but often overlooked) details, such as informing the rest of the office a new employee is starting, or making sure the new hire gets the proper payroll information.

On their first day, employers should refer to the checklist to make sure the employee gets all the essential facts.

“Make sure [new employees] have an understanding of the things that are close to people's hearts, like benefits and when they are going to be paid,” says Ms. Friedman. “You need to take care of those basic things first.”

Ms. Friedman recommends reviewing the new employee's job description in detail that first day. Explain what it is they will do, what the people around them do, and the overall scope of the organization. “And walk them through it; don't just to plunk it down on the person's desk,” she says.

A workable workstation

Employers need to ensure that a new employee's workstation is ready to go as soon as they walk through the door, says Mr. Codrington – not the next afternoon or a week later.

“I was a co-op student for a financial consulting firm years ago and for the first two weeks, I had a chair ... from the lunch room,” he recalls. “I sat in the hallway and my desk was a bunch of financial management books and a phone they had wired up ... people are kind of chuckling at you as they walk by.”

Even the smallest things matter, “like making sure someone’s desk and drawers are clean,” says Ms. Friedman.

Structure the first two weeks

Mr. Codrington suggests giving new employees a schedule for their first two weeks, outlining who they should meet with and to whom they should talk. Meetings with key colleagues can be scheduled in advance, and managers should take the time in the first day or so to personally introduce the new employee around the office.

Just as critical are one-on-one sessions with the employee's manager, scheduled frequently throughout those first two weeks.

“You can say, ‘Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the afternoon we're going to spend some time decompressing from your day and just finding out how you're doing,’” recommends Mr. Codrington.

Employees are most engaged when senior management shows care and interest in their situation, says HR consultant Janet Salopek, president of Calgary's Salopek Consulting. In smaller organizations, it's important for the company's CEO or owner to schedule lunch meetings with a new employee, particularly if he or she is in a senior role.

“The owners can touch base with the new employee and give them some really good history of the organization and a feel for the culture, and we know that really excites people,” she says. “It's a good thing [to do]that doesn't take a lot of time.”

The buddy system

Good workplace integration isn't just about new duties and responsibilities, it's also about helping a new hire feel comfortable with the office culture. Ms. Salopek says a good way to ensure this is to assign your new employee a “buddy,” a fellow employee who can fill them in on everything – from where the bathroom is and how to use the telephone to where the nearest gym and good local eating spots are.

“Particularly with the young people, [this]is critical. They need to know where people go to connect,” she says. “But you have to coach the buddy and let them know what their role is and what the expectations are, because it’s an important role.”

Ms. Friedman says employers should select their buddies thoughtfully. “Be really careful about who you select to orient the new employee so they don't learn bad habits.”

Don't lead with the negative

Although you may want to involve your new employee in all the team meetings, Mr. Codrington says employers need to be mindful of what's being said, particularly during the new hire’s early days. Meetings about money-saving measures, restructuring or belt-tightening might be confusing for someone new to the organization.

“What you shouldn’t do is overwhelm them with the negative,” he says. “Help people interpret the information they are getting. Make sure the manager follows up one-on-one to say, ‘You just were in this meeting where you heard some talk about restructuring, you must have some fears or concerns, can we talk about anything?’ Just don’t forget your new person.”

After the first two weeks

Scheduled check-ins should continue throughout the first three months, says Ms. Salopek.

After the first month, she says both the buddy and the manager should check in with the new hire. During the second month, sit down with the new employee and set their goals. Finally, during the third month, review these objectives and look at further training and development.

Providing feedback is also critical, says Ms. Friedman. “Don’t wait. Part of orienting someone is giving them feedback, letting them know if they're meeting expectations.”

Although the first month or so tends to get the most attention, Ms. Friedman says employers should be mindful of their employee's all-important three-month mark.

“It is much easier and more cost-effective, if you need to sever the relationship, to do it in the first 90 days in terms of avoiding extra costs and extra legal liabilities,” she says.

“Every good manager should have the employee’s three-month date in their calendar.”

How to Make Your New Employee's First Day a Huge Success

By Avery Augustine Think about the worst first day you’ve ever had.

For me—besides an emotionally scarring introductory day of middle school—it was the day I first stepped foot into a corporate office. I didn’t know anyone (and no one went out of their way to reach out to me), I had absolutely no sense of what I was supposed to do all day, and I only saw my boss for a total of about 10 minutes (and that’s a generous estimate).

Now, I’m in a management position myself—and I try to make sure my new hires don’t have the same kind of first day experience that I had. You see, I left the office that day wondering how soon I could quit; I want my employees to leave excited about the job, thinking that their first day went even better than they expected. Because that can set the tone for their entire career at the company.

Sure, first days can be a bit disorganized for everyone involved (you can’t always anticipate when an angry client will demand to talk to you or the new employee’s computer will suddenly stop working), but there are a few key things you can do to ensure your new hire’s success. Start with these three.

1. Make Introductions

You know the drill during your first few minutes on the job—your new boss will probably parade you around the floor so quickly you’ll barely be able to manage a few handshakes as he or she announces, “Everyone, this is Allie; Allie, this is the team.” Before you know it, your teammates will be turned back to their computer monitors, and you’ll be headed back to your lonely cubicle.

As a manager, you can speed up the acclimation process for your new employees by spending a little more time on the introductions and—here’s the important part—making some connections from the start.

Instead of simply introducing your new hire by name, give a little background: “This is Allie, our new business analyst. She’s amazing with Salesforce reports, so she’ll be a huge help with analyzing our current marketing strategy. In the meantime, she’ll be available to help put together reports for any of your current projects—so touch base with her to let her know what you need.”

With this, you’ve acknowledged your new employee’s strengths (and made him or her feel valuable from day one) and given current employees an opening to make first contact and get the new hire immediately involved.

2. Prepare Your Team

Involving your team in the onboarding process is always a great idea, since, after all, your new employee will be working closely with them. Plus, spreading out the training duties will allow everyone enough time to stay on top of their daily responsibilities, instead of pulling one resource for the entire day.

Just, you know, make sure you do it the right way.

Here’s an example: Every so often, new hires from another department in my company will ask to shadow my team, so they can get a better picture of the business as a whole. The first time this happened, I completely forgot that the onboarding employees were coming, so when they showed up in front of my desk, I haphazardly paired them up with one of my staffers and returned to my work.

Later, I realized—because my team bluntly told me—that they would have been much more effective if they’d known ahead of time that someone was going to shadow them. They would have been able to come up with a few talking points or made sure they had easily explainable examples of their work to show the new employee. Instead, they were caught in the middle of complex problems or involved phone calls, which wasn’t the best introduction to their daily work and, for the most part, just confused the new hire.

I quickly learned that if shadowing is going to be part of my employee’s first day, the people he or she is shadowing need to be fully prepared, knowing the exact concepts they need to explain and processes they need to demo. The process will go much smoother, and your new employee won’t feel like he or she is disrupting someone else’s normal routine.

3. Have a Plan

The minute I arrived on my worst first day, I felt like an afterthought. My boss ushered me into my cubicle, handed me a list of training videos to watch, and, after logging me into the company’s CRM software, told me to “play around and get comfortable” with the system. He had his own work to get done—so I was on my own.

At the end of the almost unbearable day, I left the office doubting my decision to accept the offer. This isn’t what I expected at all; is it too late to ditch this? I thought.

Now, as a manager, I realize that’s the last thing I want to be running through my new employees’ minds at the end of the day. I want them to be excited about their new positions, eager to tackle their own projects, and striving to make an impact in the company. And that doesn’t usually come from a thrown-together training plan that makes your new employee feel like you couldn’t care less that he or she actually showed up.

I know (from experience) that everyday responsibilities are always waiting to get in the way. But taking the time to plan out a variety of assignments or training tasks for the new hire—ideally, for at least the first week on the job—will not only help him get up to speed quicker, but assure him that you’re truly invested in his success. Meaning: He’ll be much likelier to show up on day two confident that he’s in the right place.

While it’ll still take plenty of time, training, and coaching to get your new employee up to speed, this will lay the groundwork to get him or her familiar with the team and make sure he or she feels like an important, valued member of your department. And that will make day two (and onward!) a whole lot more successful.

6 Things New Hires Should Do in the First 30 Days Tweet

by Jennifer King HR Analyst, Software Advice July 14, 2012 The first weeks on the job for any new hire are overwhelming. There is often an avalanche of introductions, orientation meetings, training sessions, and new hire paperwork and administrative tasks. While these are all important, here are six things new hires should do on their own within their first 30 days to set themselves up for success.

1. Craft your elevator pitch. You only get one chance to make a first impression. So, before you start introducing yourself to everyone, figure out what you’re going to say when you meet them.

Prepare succinct responses for anticipated questions about what you were hired to do, what company or school you’re coming from, and what your professional qualifications are. Give the people you meet a reason to continue building a relationship with you.

“This allows you to focus on the relationships you’re trying build as opposed to the tasks right away. It’s about getting to know people and letting them get to know you,” says Evelyn Walter, VP of Human Resources at Inspirato.

2. Understand your role and how you will be evaluated. The responsibilities of the job you were hired for could change by the time you start work. Reach out to your manager about what may have changed, and make sure you have a clear understanding of your current role, responsibilities, and authority before you take on any projects.

In addition, understand how your performance will be evaluated. Lisa Quast, career development consultant and CEO of Career Woman Inc., advises, “Find out what criteria you will be judged against to determine if you are successful in your job. When it comes time for your performance appraisal, you don’t want any surprises, so don’t be afraid to ask your manager to define the requirements for success in the job.”

3. Learn the business. Before you can begin to contribute to an organization, you need to figure out how the company works. What are the business objectives? What’s the organizational makeup of the company? How does your company do business?

Taking the time to explore the business will help you understand how your work supports departmental and corporate objectives. According to Tracy McCarthy, Senior VP of Human Resources for SilkRoad Technology, that’s the biggest difference between average and exceptional employees.

The exceptional ones are trying to understand before they make decisions or assumptions about what’s going on in the business,” she says.

The people who ask questions and really seek to understand the business and where they fit in end up being the best employees. The employees who wait for all the information to come to them are going to be average at best.”

4. Interview your boss. According to Quast, the key to being a successful new employee is helping your boss be successful. Find out what keeps your boss up at night and come up with creative ways to alleviate those worries.

Moreover, you need to establish a positive working relationship with your manager. Find out how he or she wants to communicate with you. For example, does your manager want to meet in person every week for project updates, or would he or she prefer to receive updates less frequently by email?

Also, ask your boss about goals and objectives for the team. Determine how you can use your skills to help the team accomplish those goals.

5. Be ambitious, but have restraint. You might be eager to start contributing right away and fixing everything wrong you see with the organization. That intention is good, but tread lightly. As a new hire, you won’t have the historical context about why a policy or process may or may not need fixing.

As McCarthy notes, “If you come in and try to make a change and don’t understand why, you might be trying to change the wrong thing. Or you might be giving ‘new’ ideas that have already been done. Ask the questions to seek to understand and then you can be more effective.”

Walter adds, “Be willing to make suggestions, but be careful not to come in guns blazing, calling out all the different things that are broken within your department. You want your team to come to the conclusion of ‘what would we have done without you’ without you sending that message.”

6. Be proactive about your onboarding. One day of orientation and a meet and greet with your team may be the extent of your company’s onboarding program. If so, be proactive with your managers about their training plan and what you need to accomplish in your first three months on the job.

“Be appropriately aggressive about meeting with your manager, discussing your projects, training, and responsibilities, and creating a meaningful 90-day plan,” says Walter. “Then, be proactive about following up at the end of your 30, 60 and 90 days to review and gauge your success.”

All of these things will require extra time and energy on your part, maybe extend beyond the first 30 days on the job. But asking the right questions, building the right relationships, and learning the ins and outs of the business will help you earn credibility and give you the opportunity to add value to your organization faster.