How to learn from new starters

I’m a bit of an evangelist for processes within an organisation. Good processes, and process improvements, are a rare magic bullets that quickly return whatever investment you make. Working on processes can bit a bit of a fly wheel, you need to keep pushing for a while to get things started, but once you have that system spinning it can drive quality, automation, efficiency, assurance and security.

There is a great way to do a quick health check on the state of processes within an organisation, and it’s one you can’t even avoid when you start.

The induction process for new starters is part of all businesses but can be more or less satisfying. It is a great process to use as a sample. It is long lived, often starting a month before the new hire starts and hopefully going for a least a month after to make sure a follow up is done. Long lived processes offer lots of opportunities for things to be missed.  The new starter processes touches lots of departments, HR, IT, Finance and facilities at least – so lots of hand offs and chances for things to fall through the cracks. And finally, it is a process that most people understand, kind-of. Not too complex, but plenty of steps.

Every new starter is entitled to an effective, frictionless induction process – but not everyone has that experience.

Think about when you last started a new position. How many times did you not have the permissions you needed? Or had to ask for the tools your job required? Or just felt awkward because someone hadn’t explained something they should have?

If you are in a position to improve your induction process let me offer a concrete suggestion, from the box of tools I carry with me.
·        Create a short simple checklist for new starters
·        Divide into “By end of first day”, “by end of first week”, etc.
·        All of the items should be phrased in the first person – from the point of view of the new starter: “I have been given my laptop, charger and mouse”, “I have sent an email to my boss and received a reply”, etc
·        Maybe 20 items, 2 pages.
·        Print it out and make sure the new starter gets the hard copy first thing on first day

The checklist shouldn’t change the accountability for any of the actions, but it empowers the new staff member. It lets them know when they are entitled to question things - “Um, shouldn’t I have been given a mouse?”

This tool does a classic inversion trick, finding a way to turn a process inside out to see improvements.

So, take notes when you start a new position - it can be enlightening, and listen to the new starters that follow you - they have something to teach.