s11s

Ok maybe a people manager takes initiative and starts the chatter in the group ?

I’ve come to realize that onboarding processes are really really important when you grow beyond a certain point. Other than the usual stuff: have onboarding resources for them to go through, have then shadow sales, listen to sales calls, meet cross functional folks, what are some NON-CONVENTIONAL things that you’ve done that have proven to be very effective? My goal is to get people to start contributing ASAP and know that this is a fast paced environment and they can’t take 2 days to write a social post. 

I've tried giving a joint task - new employee + older one from the same level. Works like a charm since they're comfortable + get to know other team members + get to learn while working

I love this idea! Going to implement it right away.

I want to add in by saying the expectations shouldn't be about immediate impact or work but rather on how are we equipping them to do it.

Its a partnership not a solo journey. It will too much of a rush and pressure which will hinder the creativity if you are aiming at immediate results.

I too loved the idea where a new employee + existing one partner in a project.

I definitely want there to be a balance between us supporting them, making sure they're set up for success and also getting them to start contributing in `small ways` ASAP.

I've made the mistake of going too far with the "giving people time to figure it out" thing and have had folks who weren't able to start contributing even after a month of joining.

<@U031JS3RF0V> Expectations should be setup at initial stages itself. For content I think you try by getting them involved into existing projects or working on small drafts first and then assign specific content KPis.

This takes pre-work but a gamified onboarding experience with challenges, quizzes, and rewards makes the learning process more engaging and fun while reinforcing key knowledge and skills.

Moral of the story: Treat everything like product.

Yeah it does take a lot of work but luckily, our sales team has a process in place for onboarding SDRs. We can use that and modify it according to our needs.

Enable the new hire for a quick win and share the win with others. 

This helps get new hire out of the shell and others collaborate better with them as people love to partner with champions.

There is no one size fits all approach to this. First step is to understand each team member and find personalized ways to make them more productive. For eg: There was one member for whom giving the KPIs at first resulted in a productive engagement where that person reverse engineered it and found ways to achieve the KPIs. For the other person I started with giving a lot of micro tasks, which will all add upto the KPI numbers, this approach made that person more confident to achieve it. 

Then there are folks who want to do "out of box experiment and fail" and then there are folks who will only do "data driven experiments and fail". In a way it's win win for the manager and team. 

Like mentioned above, new employee + old employee collaboration has really worked well for me too. It acts as a catalyst for new employee to do well by understanding how the organization has been doing things + old employees gel well with the new ones than existing ones for obvious wrong reasons :grinning:

since we've got quite a few people leaders/hiring mangers on this channel.
`what's your fav interview question?` 

On spot problem solving: I'll give them a growth problem and ask them to solve it on the spot (give them 2-3 mins to think about it). This helps me understand how deep their experience is and how they approach solving the problem.

yeah, it's a good way to understand the approach and layers in thinking 

"Build me a simple growth model for how we get to $X Million ARR in the next 18 months.
Make as many assumptions as you need to."

95-99% of people will fail here.

sounds intriguing, Anuj! could be a fun question 

one interesting observation around good mangers have been people who don’t subscribe to one school of thought in people management/leadership. 

any thoughts/insights? 

Not sure about the school of thought they follow. But from my experience good managers are those who can understand their reportees well and the surroundings. There is no one size fits all approach, They guide each reportee with a personalized approach so that the manager can get the best out of them. 

For eg: When I was hired in a company, I was shocked to see one of my KRA upon joining, because it was not in alignment with the JD I was interviewed for, also I never had a prior experience in that role. When I asked my manager about it, this was the response - "I know you don't have experience in this, but I believe you can do well on this task". 

Guess what, I did well. Also the manager took one key responsibility away from me, which I was so keen on and gave it to another team member, who did it better than me eventhough the person never had a solid experience in that. 

What surprised me was the response by the manager when I asked about all these during a casual conversation - "Its not about skills alone, it's also about the way organization nuances is in place and the stakeholders you work with, it was my intuition that you will work well alongside some stakeholders than others irrespective of the skills, and I gave your fav project to the other person because the stakeholders dynamics is different"

One other interesting observation - The team output after this manager's departure saw a massive decline. :grinning: