What’s your onboarding approach in regards to team culture? How do you get new software engineering hires acclimated quickly?
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The best onboarding experience I have had was on the orientation day, the CEO came in and gave his view of the company culture which was summarized in 3 sentences. He specifically said that his company culture is NOT posted on every wall and asked us to remember them and apply them every day. I still remember them after all these years:
1. Take care of the customers and everything else will take care of itself
2. If you see something is broken, YOU need to fix it. If you can't, give it to your manager and ask her to fix it.
3. Your ideas matter. Be creative. Go crazy and share them with your peers and managers.
I have been trying to use these lines with all of my new and old team members.
We give all new hires a “Buddy” who is there to help them with anything they need, point them in the right directions, knows who’s who and what’s what and can explain anything about how the company / team works, culture, practices etc. Available anytime until they don’t need them anymore.
We always assign a peer coach on day 1 who helps them to understand not just our team's culture, but also our function and overall company culture. The employee will meet with peer coach on a regular basis for first 6 months or so.
Software Teaming, Mob Programming, or Ensemble Programming works very well for this among a number of other benefits. This even works well with remote teams, though if one person is remote, everyone should be remote even if they are in a cube. This levels the playing field, it does not work as well if just one person is on a call with 3 people in person.
This can be done as learning time or full time for all the work. Our teams have been mob programming for over 10 years now and it is very successful at onboarding new people to our culture and values.
I keep an asset packet at the ready that contains links to corporate materials such as templates for documents, presentations, and eSignatures. Plus how to change up LinkedIn profiles to reflect our company brand and messaging. We set up 30 minute meetings with a rep from each department to explain how the area runs, what our goals are, and where to find needed materials.