New colleagues see what we no longer see: onboarding as a moment to listen

Think back to your first week with your current employer. You probably noticed all sorts of things. A cumbersome way of logging in. A meeting nobody quite knew the reason for. A colleague everyone turned to, while nothing described everything she knew. That is exactly why onboarding new employees is a unique moment to listen.

A few months later you no longer saw it. Not because it had been fixed, but because you had got used to it.

Fresh eyes have a shelf life

New employees look at an organisation differently. They compare it with their previous employer, ask questions others no longer ask and run into things that experienced colleagues take for granted.

As early as 1980, Louis described how newcomers are constantly surprised: by what differs from what they expected, and by what differs from their previous job. They try to make sense of those surprises and gradually adapt. That adapting is necessary and good. But it also means the fresh view disappears. What stands out in week one is normal after three months.

That fresh view is valuable information. Not only about how onboarding is going, but about how the whole organisation works. Only hardly anyone asks about it, and when someone does, the moment has often passed.

What new colleagues often notice

What new employees notice is often surprisingly concrete. Think of:

For experienced colleagues this is background noise. For the organisation it is a free audit.

Why the first months matter

The first months largely determine how someone finds their place. In a meta-analysis, Bauer and colleagues showed that newcomers who understand their role well, have confidence in their own abilities and feel accepted by colleagues perform better, are more satisfied and are more likely to intend to stay.

So if you listen during that period, you hear two things at once: whether the new colleague is landing well, and where the organisation itself could do better.

Five moments to listen when onboarding new employees

Listening during onboarding works best at fixed moments, with a few short questions that suit the phase someone is in.

Before the start

How has contact been so far? What do you expect from your first day? Do you know who to turn to with questions?

After the first week

What struck you? What was different from what you expected? Did you have everything you needed to get started?

After a month

What would you have liked to know earlier? Who can you turn to? What is costing you unnecessary time right now?

After three months

Do you feel at home in your team? Is your role clear? What would you change about how we work here, now that you know it from the inside?

After a year

How do you look back? What helped you, and what didn’t? Where do you want to grow?

Keep it short. It is about the rhythm, not the length of the questionnaire.

From signal to action

The same applies here: listening without action costs trust. Perhaps even more so for a new colleague than for someone who has worked there for years. The first impression of how an organisation deals with feedback sticks.

This is how you arrange the follow-up:

• Discuss it personally. Have the manager or buddy briefly ask after the first week and the first month how things are going, and what could be better.
• Look for patterns. One new colleague noticing something is a signal. Five saying the same thing is a pattern. Group the answers per cohort or period, so anonymity is protected and you see what is structural.
• Give the observations a place. Take what new colleagues notice to the team meeting or the management team. It is free advice from people who don’t yet take the organisation for granted.
• Show what happens with it. Tell new colleagues what was done with their input. It is the fastest way to show that their voice counts.

The role of the manager and the buddy

A questionnaire doesn’t replace the conversation. In the first months, the manager and, if there is one, the buddy are the most important points of contact. They are the first to notice whether someone is settling in, and can ask more about what a new colleague noticed.

So give them the results of the short check-ins, and a few simple questions for the conversation. That way the questionnaire becomes a reason for a good conversation, rather than a replacement for it.

Onboarding as a two-way street

Onboarding is usually seen as something the organisation gives a new colleague: information, a laptop, a buddy, an introduction programme. That matters, but it is only half of it.

The other half is what a new colleague can give the organisation: a fresh look at how the work really goes. Anyone who asks for that view at the right moment gets insights that appear in no consultancy report.

Three questions for your management team

Curious how we help organisations listen at the right moments in the employee journey? Take a look at deepler.io.

Sources

• Bauer, T. N., Bodner, T., Erdogan, B., Truxillo, D. M., & Tucker, J. S. (2007). Newcomer adjustment during organizational socialization: A meta-analytic review of antecedents, outcomes, and methods. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(3), 707-721.
• Louis, M. R. (1980). Surprise and sense making: What newcomers experience in entering unfamiliar organizational settings. Administrative Science Quarterly, 25(2), 226-251.