What is your essentials when onbarding a new team member?
Lara Tankal
11 replies
We've recently welcomed a new team member. Every company's culture and therefore onboarding processes are different and I'd like to hear your experiences!
Replies
Barış Bingöl@baris_bingol
That they don't feel alienated! Not acting any differently around them and making sure they are included in the conversation is a big step.
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@baris_bingol I would agree! Most of the time extra care is needed to make sure new hires feel included in the conversion.
⚡️Ten traits of a great remote culture in startups
1/ Pair new hires up with onboarding buddies
2/ Encourage new team members to make quick video intros
3/ Introduce new hires at the all-hands meetings
4/ Arrange team offsites and bring the team together in-person
5/ Hold quarterly hackathons + inspire amazing work
6/ Invest in team-building like lunches and virtual team events
7/ Facilitate cross-functional connections
8/ Non-work-related Slack channels
9/ Make it okay to skip non-crucial meetings
10/ Share the wins
@oleg_guryanov I would agree on everything in the list. Especially, bringing people face-to-face is a crucial step. I went through my onboarding process online, and it wasn't before I had a chance to meet other team members face-to-face that I felt part of the company.
Even if you're company is relatively young, I think it's important to start from a detailed story of who started it, why, when, where etc.
You never know how exactly your new employee could be connected to the story of the company and what will make him feel engaged.
For example, when I started my job at Yandex - at it's newly formed branch in Kazakhstan - I learned the story of the founders of the company. Turns out that one of them - Arkadiy Volozh - was born in my home country - Kazakhstan - which is a widely known fact.
But what not many people knew and what my boss told me during the onboarding, is the name of the city he was born. Guriyev, nowadays Atyrau.
This city has no importance to anyone here on PH, and didn't have any importance to anyone at Yandex (which had about 10k employees ) - but it meant a lot to me.
This is the city where my mom, dad, and all of my ancestors were born. There were just a few of schools, and Yandex's founder went to the same school my father did.
To sum up, just tell the whole story, so that your team members can find more things that will make them feel attached, and you can't predict what exactly will be important to them.
P.S. I left Yandex in Jan 2020, started in 2018.
When I had the opportunity to design the onboarding process for the marketing team, I made sure it's as enticing, educational, productive, and inspiring as possible.
Above all, I enjoy sending a DM to future team members before they join, and help them start shipping from Day 1.
FWIW here's the welcome kit I use to onboard new team members ✌️