I just hired my first direct report. How do I onboard them in a way that actually sets them up for success and doesn't completely overwhelm them? Well, the first day, the first week, and really the first 30 days of onboarding a new employee is going to shape a number of things.

First of all, it's going to establish a level of psychological safety. How easy is it for them to take risks? How do you respond when they screw up? So psychological safety is paramount and is being developed in that first month. Performance expectations. What do you expect from them? And how does that measure up to what they expect from themselves and what they thought this job would be coming into it? What is feedback like from you? Both constructive feedback and positive. What can they expect and how often? It's also going to shape whether or not they see you as reactive or as intentional as a manager. And ultimately, it's going to shape whether or not they feel like they made a good choice in coming to work, not only for you, but also for this organization.

So the stakes are pretty high here, and you really don't want to screw this up. Onboarding is not about information transfer, and that's what a lot of people default to. Just like, tell them everything about this new job and this role. But really, it's not about just information transfer. I want you to think about this as designing the first experience of your leadership and the first experiences of them as an employee on your team and in your organization. So this is your opportunity to shape both of those things. If you overload them with too much information, you create confusion and cognitive overload. And if you understructure it, you create anxiety and like not knowing where they stand.

And both of those are design failures and both of those are easy to mitigate for. All right. So as you think about onboarding your new employee, the top overriding, overwhelming umbrella of this conversation is to be ready for them. Now, I got to tell you about my second job out of college. It was my first day on the job and this is the early 1990s. So for those of you who weren't born in the 1900s, you may not know this, but back then in the 1990s, women still often wore skirts and dresses to work, high heels and pantyhose. And so I show up for my first day on the job and especially, you know, on the first day on the job when you're making a good impression or to an interview.

But so here it is, my first day on the job. I show up in a blouse and skirt, heels, hose, the whole nine yards. Now, the company that I was going to work for was not ready for me. This was a medical tech startup and they were rapidly growing. I was the only person starting that day because it was a small company. I think I was employee number 23 or something like that. It was a very small number of employees working there and there was no place for me to sit. So the first thing that my boss and I did is build my cubicle. Yes, you heard that right.

We built my cubicle. So this is Herman Miller furniture. It kind of snaps together like Legos, but it's big and clunky. And so we're building another cubicle at the end of a line of cubicles. And so there I am in my heels and my skirt and my hose, literally down on the floor, you know, wrestling with pieces of Herman Miller furniture to build my cubicle. So that made a distinct impression on me, told me a lot about the culture. Now, here's the thing. I was not asked to do this by myself.

My boss was down on the floor with me and together we were building my desk. So it, again, it taught me a lot about the culture. It was, hey, we fly by the seat of our pants. We're never ready for things even when we've planned for them, even when we're spending money for them, on them. There's just not enough hours in the day here. So part of that was like, I mean, it was edgy because it was a startup and all of that, but it also made me feel like, man, if they weren't ready for me on my first day and they've known for 2 weeks that I was starting today, what else aren't they ready for? So there were some clear signals about the culture. Now there were also some clear signals about my boss and our relationship because our very first encounter within the first hour of working together, we're down on the floor building something. And so that also told me a lot about the company.

This is the kind of place where you're going to roll up your sleeves, you're going to get a little dirty, you're going to be down on the floor, it's a little scrappy, we're going to build our own cubicles, we're going to be building things together. So it was some mixed signals and all in all it told me a lot about the culture, but they weren't ready for me. Not only was there not a desk for me, there wasn't a computer for me, there wasn't a phone for me. So there was a bunch of things that were missing and I don't want you to fall into that same trap because remember, just like it did for me, those onboarding experiences, whether they're the first few hours as mine were, or days, weeks, months, are going to tell the person who's newly working for you a lot about your management style, the team that they're on, the culture of the organization writ large. So I want you to be intentional about this. Don't have happen to your new employee what happened to me. Be ready for them.

Okay, now inside of be ready for them, I want to give you a handful of ideas of things to do to make sure that not only are you ready for them when they come in the door on that first day, but that that whole first month feels like it is by design instead of by default or by accident.

It should feel intentional. Now again, to the employee, it might feel completely seamless. They might not even know that you've put as much planning and work into it as you have. Again, you want to design a great experience for them. So number 1, Define what success in the first 30 days looks like and feels like. Now, we're not thinking here output. So for example, if they're a software developer, we're not measuring this in lines of code or how many things compiled correctly. Okay? So it's not like that.

Instead, we really want to focus on them learning and coming up to speed and understanding not only what their job is, but what our team does, what our larger unit in the organization does, what our whole, or, you know, what the whole company does. So this is really much more about learning than it is about them being productive in a traditional sense. So another thing I want you to think about is the relationships that are getting built within those first 30 days. Now, yes, they're going to be developing relationships with you, but think more broadly. Who else do they need to be developing relationships with and rather quickly? So think about setting up informal meetings with other team members and not necessarily with everybody all the time, but especially in those first couple of days, Set up some lunches. Maybe it's with the whole team. That might feel a little overwhelming. So maybe it's one-on-one lunches, maybe some other informal, meetings, coffee dates, that sort of thing.

Or maybe even in the learning context, have this person sit down with you and talk through how we do timesheets. Have this person sit down with you and talk through how we do project status updates. So parsing it out so that the learning isn't all coming from the same person. This will help establish relationships, and it will also, again, serve that dual purpose of bringing them up to speed on the different types of systems that they are going to be interacting with. Because ultimately, it is about understanding systems, understanding how we do things here, and understanding that big picture framework much more so than about, you know, checking boxes and getting things done.

Now, the second big idea I want to instill you with is the idea of Limiting inputs. Again, just as a new employee, there's a lot of cognitive overload. Everything from where to park, to does the vending machine have my favorite flavor of soda, to how do I get work done here? Okay, so there's a lot that's already going on just in terms of one's cognitive capacity starting a new job.

So don't invite them to 14 recurring meetings. Don't give them an entire architecture diagram of not just your product, but all the different products in the organization. No, you want to stage it. You want to give them lots of white space, and you want to give them things to do in that white space. So we don't want highly structured days. We want days that have a lot of autonomy built into them, but a lot of learning as well. So you're going to give them, whether it's product documentation or maybe even the product itself, to use and learn from the inside out as if they were a user. So, or I should say from the outside in, not the inside out.

They're going to learn from technical documentation and from looking at code or, you know, whatever the nature of the product is, they're going to learn it from the inside out that way. But you may want them to learn it from the outside in as if they are a customer of it. And so then you're going to give them access to it from the customer's perspective and let them play around with it, use it, and so forth. So again, you want to give them lots of white space, but inside of that white space, there's a lot of things for them to do and learn autonomously. All right, and then number 3, create feedback norms and feedback loops. So you want to give small, low-stakes assignments before giving those high-stakes assignments, and then give them lots of feedback on it. Give them the positive feedback, give them the critical feedback. And the more you can do that, the more you're establishing that it is safe to make mistakes.

Again, that goes back to psychological safety, safe to take risks, safe to make mistakes. And if you're giving those low-stakes assignments to begin with, then it's going to be much easier for them to feel comfortable making mistakes because there's not a huge amount of things on the line for that. Another thing to do is to give a short weekly priority summary. So what matters the most this week document. And, you know, this could be a bulleted list. It could be you talking through it and them making the list. But if you do it that way, you're going to want to check and see what they wrote down. Just to make sure that their mental model matches what you said.

And this can be a real stabilizing anchor in, again, a lot of cognitive overload and potential overwhelm. When somebody's got like what matters most this week and they see like literally learning objectives, the things that they're supposed to learn instead of the things that they're supposed to do or get to done, that's going to give them a certain sense of breathing room. And again, it's going to be that stabilizing anchor. Now, in your first week, I'm going to suggest that you do daily check-ins. Obviously, the first day there's going to be a big chunk of time probably spent with you, their manager, but then at the end of each day, I want you to spend 5, 10 minutes at least— I'm sorry, at max. It doesn't have to be a huge long meeting. 5, 10 minutes at max at the end of the day, which allows them to share what they learned, what they did, what where they have questions and so on. And then, especially if it's, you know, at the end of day 1, day 2, and day 3, that sort of thing, you can then set expectations for the following day.

And that way, if you've got first thing in the morning meetings and other things that you need to attend to, you don't have to feel like you need to check in with them first thing in the morning. So if you do that end of day process with them, again, 5, 10 minutes max is really all you need. You can give them more if they're really wanting more, but just 5, 10 minutes max at the end of the day to bring— for them to bring you up to speed on what questions they have, how far they got in learning things, and then set the stage for the next day. Again, that frees you up as their manager to not necessarily have to check in with them first thing in the morning. And then you'd also want to be explicit like that and say, hey, now we have tomorrow's objective set. We don't need to necessarily check in. And oh, by the way, I'm in meetings until 10:30 anyway. So, then you also want to make sure you have a formal weekly one-on-one.

Now this might be towards the end of that first week, and then again recurring every single week after that. And I'm doing an episode next week on what a one-on-one should contain. So if you don't know what to do in a one-on-one, you're going to want to hang in there for next week. Make sure you catch next week's episode. But at the minimum, here are a couple of things to think about in that one-on-one. What is the top priority? Absolutely top priority. What's that top priority? What's confusing? Where is there friction? And then how can you help? Okay, so just those three things. And I go into that much in much greater depth next week.

So hang in there for that one next week. But in the meantime, just at least do that. Have that one-on-one and set the expectation that you'll do one-on-ones, even if they're only 30 minutes long, but just to set that cadence of we're going to do this. Now, at the end of week 1, as part of that one-on-one, I'm going to suggest one additional step, and that is wins and losses. So in addition to, you know, what's our top priority, What friction are you experiencing? And then how can I help you? In that end of that first week, what are the wins and what are the losses? So where did the employee feel really supported? What do they feel like they learned? What they got accomplished and so forth. And then the losses are anything that they struggled with, anything that you could be doing better, that the organization could be doing better and so forth. All right. Now, when people are overloaded, they don't retain more.

They actually retain less. So you really want to make sure that you're not putting them in a state of cognitive overload. Now, before we go, let me give you 3 common mistakes that people often commit, new managers often commit during that first week of onboarding somebody. So 3 common mistakes for you to avoid. Number 1, do not overload them so that they can prove they're capable. Smart people still have working memory limits. We still get cognitive overload. So do not overload them so that they can show you how much they know. Okay?

Big mistake number 2, withholding context until they earn it. So sometimes managers will hold back on important information or hold, you know, kind of spoon-feed the employee on things. That slows integration, it leaves people confused, and it does not build trust. So if they're asking for things, don't— then, you know, answer their questions, make the introductions if they need to talk to other people in the organization to start building those relationships. Whatever it is, don't withhold the context, especially if they're asking for it.

And then number 3, big mistake that new managers often make is they assume that HR does all the onboarding and that HR onboarding is team onboarding. Okay. HR has a very important job to do, but it is different than your job as the hiring manager. HR's important job to do is all about compliance and finance details. Okay, people need to know what they need to know in order to check the box and stay in compliance with the organization, whether that be IT security, safety, you name it. And then they also have finance questions. When do I get paid? What's my 401(k) contributions going to look like? All of that. Let HR take care of all of that. HR is your compliance champion. But compliance isn't culture.

The culture piece about working for you, working in your team, and what it's going to feel like to be your employee, That comes from you, and that is culture. So don't skip that. Again, HR has a very important role, but it is finance and compliance. All right. HR onboards employees, but managers onboard contributors. Okay? So your job is to really make them feel welcome. They can feel part of the culture of your team and let them know what to expect. So for you as the manager, I want you to think about yourself differently.

I want you to think that you're going from like, I just hired someone, to this: I'm responsible for designing this person's experience of work on my team. I'm responsible for designing this person's experience of work on my team. I just had to repeat it for you so it really lands. And that's UX thinking in action. Onboarding isn't information delivery, it's experience design. All right, now if onboarding conversations feel awkward, especially setting expectations clearly without sounding too rigid, that's exactly why I created the Hard Conversation Starter Script Pack. It gives you some scaffolding so that you're not guessing at what to say. This is with onboarding conversations, with performance management conversations. I cover 22 different types of conversations in there.

You can find that at janelanderson.com/script. Okay, again, janelanderson.com/script. We will link that up in the show notes. This is episode 258, so you'll find those show notes at janelanderson.com/258. All right, my friends, we'll catch you right here next week on the Working Conversations podcast.