Three Ways to Onboard a New Hire When You Don't Know How To Onboard 🆕

I'm going through it now

Hey Everyone,

I don’t know about all of you, but I am back in it. Work, family, and social obligations have reached all-time highs. It’s a lot.

So I wanted to thank you all for reading despite the demands on your time. I’m mighty grateful.

Ben

---

Three Ways to Onboard a New Hire When You Don't Know How To Onboard 🆕

I’m onboarding two people right now, and it seems to be going well.¹

I’m not the ideal person to onboard anyone; I am not detailed oriented, I am not exceptionally patient, and I take what I know for granted. That said, I’ve developed a few tips that make the onboarding process positive for the candidate and the organization. Here they are:

1. Focus on the basic needs early

Before the new people start, block off an hour in the middle of their first day to make sure they have what they need. This could be access to software, hardware, knowing how to set up payroll, or keycard access to something. It could be anything. The reality is that something will be missed in their onboarding checklist, and you’ll have to run down a solution because you’re their boss and the most visible person who can solve the problem.

Not having a basic need met is a Maslow’s hierarchy problem. If someone isn’t sure they’ll be paid or can log in to some critical piece of software, then they probably won’t be engaged in whatever you’re telling them. So, at the very least, ensure their basic needs are addressed regardless of whether you are the responsible party or not.

2. Set and communicate clear, measurable expectations

Ideally, you covered this in the hiring process, but be very clear with the new hire on what they own. It’s even better if what they own is something clear and measurable, with a noticeable impact on the business. (FT Fun fact: if you can’t determine something they can own that meets these requirements, you may be hiring for a “bullshit job”) 

My hires' are focused on Net Revenue Retention (NRR). So it warmed my heart today when one of them posted “[NRR is] the keyword of the day, week, year, and future” in our company slack this morning. 

3. Create Living Glossary and Questions documents for daily review

Creating a Living Glossary and Daily Questions document has been the most impactful thing I’ve done in onboarding.

Every time a new person starts, we create a shared doc where they can dump questions or the definitions of terms they hear during the day. Then we meet for 30 minutes at the end of every day to review those docs and make updates. When we hire another person, we share those docs with them and essentially follow the same process, except this new person has the benefit of seeing all the previous questions.

I started doing this years ago, and it has been an enormous help not only for the new hires but in helping me understand what parts of our business are unclear and what processes we take for granted. 

So there y; Igo, I learned three tips for onboarding the hard way, so you don’t have to. 

1. I think? I don’t know. You may want to ask them.