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As they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so getting off to a good start on a job is obviously important.
Of course, in an ideal world, your employer’s onboarding program would fully address that but that’s not always the case. Here are some things you can do.
Learn. Maybe the biggest mistake a new employee—even one hired at a senior level—can make is to make suggestions or changes too quickly. Learn a lot first:
Meet with your boss as soon as possible. Ask questions that won't likely appear in the employee handbook, for example,
- What would you hope I’d accomplish in the first few days? First 30?
- Every boss is different: What should I know that will help me work effectively for you?
- What resources, human and otherwise, should I be aware of?
Ask similar questions of coworkers. You might also ask one or more of these about office culture:
- How many hours a week are we actually expected to work?
- Is email or in-person the normally preferred mode of in-office communication?
- Any sacred cows here I should know about? For example, a piece of software, religion or politics?
Observe. How social versus all-business are employees? Do they go out to for lunch or typically eat in the break room or even at their desk? Do they do a lot of shop-talk in the break room?
Sure you can use Glassdoor and Vault to learn about your office’s culture but the people who post there may not have worked in your specific office and with your boss. Place greater trust in your first-person experiences.
Adapt the job description. During your first days, your job may be cast in wet cement—There may be time to escape before it hardens. If part of your job seems anathema, for example, it accentuates a weakness of yours, ask your boss if you might replace that with work you’d do better. Sometimes, you might first ask a coworker if you can trade tasks and if s/he agrees, ask for the boss’s thumbs up.
Map the power players. Every organization has official and under-the-radar power players. Both are important. By observing and getting the scuttlebutt, map who’s who and subtly ingratiate yourself.
Don’t overwork early. If you put in 60 hours a week in the beginning and cut back later, you risk appearing that you’ve lost interest in the job. If you want to put in extra hours to get up to speed, try to do that away from the workplace.
Get small wins first. If you're the big boss, after a brief learning period, you might want to take advantage of your honeymoon to make big moves: hire, fire, spearhead a major initiative. Otherwise, it’s wiser to first aim only for small wins. For example, let’s say you’d just received the agenda for a meeting. In thinking about it, you have an idea you’d like to share. It may be wise to first run it by a trusted colleague. Your idea may have been tried or contains a landmine such as violating the boss’s core belief. If your idea passes muster with your confidant, at the meeting, reduce risk by couching: “I’m wondering if X might be a good idea. What do you think?”
Then go bigger. After you’ve gotten your sea legs, think of a big perhaps visible project that would excite you to do or lead. Propose to do that instead of or in addition to your standard job. A good time to ask your boss is right after s/he has praised you for something.
For example, let’s say you’re an organizational psychologist. You might review communication training programs to find one that matches your organization’s needs and has strong evidence of effectiveness. Get trained in it and then deliver the training, perhaps videoing it so an edited version is available online to everyone.
The takeaway
These tips should help you get off to a great start.
Dr. Nemko’s nine books are available. You can reach career and personal coach Marty Nemko at mnemko@comcast.net.
