Orienting a New Employee
by Neil I. Clark
Hiring a new employee involves a lot of time and effort.
The faster they can get up to speed, the quicker you get a return
on your investment. Here are some tips that will help you in this
area.
Assign a “Buddy”
Every new employee needs a “buddy”. This is someone they
can turn to who can answer the question: “How are things done
around here?”.
The buddy could be their new manager, but not necessarily. What
is important is that they do have someone to turn to.
If you are hiring a new Service Tech, for instance, assign one
of your other techs to look after the new person. Choose someone
who
has been around a while, of course. Use it as an opportunity to
acknowledge one of your better techs for the good work they do.
The buddy should be someone who is very familiar with the organisation.
If they also have a good understanding of the area into which the
new employee is being dropped, all the better, but this is not
essential if it cannot be organised that way.
The buddy system is designed to give the new employee someone to
turn to for the simple, everyday things.
Establish the End Result
Once the employee is oriented to the new environment, the manager
should ensure that he or she understands what the overall objective
of the job is.
The end results should be made clear.
The Top Performer will already be asking you this, if they have
not already figured it out for themselves.
But the not-so-top performer will benefit greatly by having this
clearly stated for them.
The essence is:
“What is the outcome of performing this job well? And what is the measure
by which this outcome will be judged?”
The Replacement Position
Taking over a job that someone else has been performing is quite
different from stepping into a newly created position. Where
the new employee is
replacing a
previous incumbent, you should ask yourself one very important question:
“Did the previous holder of this job produce good results?”
If the answer is “Yes”, then the new person should have some way
to find out how and why that previous person was so successful.
On the other hand, if the previous employee made a mess of the
job, their methods of operating should be avoided at all costs.
But it
would help
if the new person
knew (by the example of the unsuccessful employee) what not to
do.
The New Position
Moving into a newly created job, with no previous incumbent, is
a totally different story, of course.
In this instance, the new employee must learn about the position
from the manager who has created the job in the first place.
Here is where
your
Top Performer
will shine. If you, as the manager, can define the end results
that are required in the new position, a new and results-oriented
employee
will
quickly work
out what the job is, and begin to get on with it.
If the new employee is not a totally competent high flyer, the
manager will need to spend some time making sure they understand
what the
position is
about. The
manager will need to do a thorough job of creating a clear and
concise Job Description.
Job Descriptions
Job descriptions are a big thing these days. Having valid descriptions
for every position in a company is one of the quality certification
requirements. Even
small companies are putting more focus on writing job descriptions
today.
See the related article — “How
to Write Job Descriptions” — for
a full explanation on how to write Job Descriptions.
A job, or “position”, description is certainly a valuable document.
It will help a new employee get a good grasp of what is required. But if that
is all the new person has to go on, they are missing some vital information.
Let’s look at an example of what we mean here.
Suppose you are promoting a Sales Person in Victoria to Sales
Manager in Queensland. This person is being promoted because
they have
achieved outstanding
results
as a Sales Rep. So now you have to hire a new Sales Person
in Victoria to fill the gap in the team.
Obviously, it will be of tremendous help to the new person
if they know how and why the promoted Sales Rep was able
to be so
successful.
But a “Job Description” does not tell them that. It tells them what
the job consists of and what they are supposed to achieve. But it does not tell
them precisely how the previous successful person was able to be so effective.
Of course, a part of the success could be attributed to that
previous person’s
abilities, knowledge, approach and style. But there will also be many tips, tricks
and techniques that the new person could learn from the departing Rep. These
are the things that can greatly aid their achieving a decent productivity level
as rapidly as possible.
How do you get this valuable information into the hands of
the new Rep? The answer is a “Job Write-Up”.
Job Write-Up
This only applies to positions that were previously held
by another; not to newly created positions. And this is
not something
written
by the manager
of
the group – listing
the goals, procedures, areas of responsibility and accountability.
No. A Job Write-Up is done by the departing employee.
It goes into detail on the peculiarities of the job. It
covers those things that can only be learned by doing
the job.
This is highly practical stuff. For example, the successful
Sales Rep may have found:-
- An effective way to arrange his sales kit, so as to
get the sales message across more easily.
- That the best time to catch the Managing Director
of a certain large client is to call him before 8:00AM.
- A workable strategy for organising the daily calls,
so as to maximise the time.
You can see that these are all things that are peculiar
to that particular job, but are not things that are normally
included in a regular Job
Description. These
are also things that only the departing employee can
document, which brings us to the next point.
Always Get A Job Write-Up
When someone is moved from one position in your company
to another, always get them to do a Job Write-Up.
This applies regardless of whether they were successful
or not.
If the incoming person is not given the opportunity
to understand all the finer points and specific bits
of
data that are peculiar
to that
job, they
will take
much longer to get up to speed.
And if the outgoing person has made a mess of the job,
the newcomer has a list of what didn’t work.
How to do a Job Write-Up
A Job Write-Up can be as complex as a detailed report
on the exact, up-to-date status of all the major
projects that are
currently running.
Or, it could simply be a brief list of some of the
more important things that the new person should
know about.
Even if the outgoing employee is being dismissed,
they should be encouraged to write up some sort of
summary
of the important
things
that are happening
in their
job and the way they performed the various activities.
They will actually feel better about leaving when
they do this.
The crux of the Job Write-Up is that it should make
it easier for the new person to step into the shoes
of the
employee
who is leaving.
The
test
is:-
Does the Job Write-Up enable a new person to step
in and begin operating with some degree of effectiveness?
Summary
In summary, if you want your new employees to have
a flying start, ensure that they have:-
- A buddy.
- A clear idea of the end results required of the
job.
- A Job Description.
- A Job Write-Up done by the outgoing employee.
With each of the above things in place, the new
employee will have a much better chance of
rapidly becoming
productive.
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