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3 Rules for Integrating New Employees into the Workplace

Guest post by: Sylvia Lafair

Article Overview: There are certain cardinal rules to follow and they are as important as filling out the required forms for insurance and all the other parts of business. There are emotional factors at work whether you want them to be or not. If you tackle these areas you are guaranteed to have a better chance of new employees ready to sprint from the starting gate.

3 Rules for Integrating New Employees into the Workplace

It's looking up! Yup, it really is. U.S. employers added 290,000 jobs in April and beat market expectations.

If you are on the hiring end and add to the better bottom line congratulations. If you are thinking about hiring in the next few months, good for you. And if you are still hesitant, your time will come soon.

Wherever you are on the continuum it is important to think about your workplace culture and workplace etiquette. Integrating new employees is always a challenge. It is even more so when individuals have been unemployed for many months, maybe even a year or so.

There are certain cardinal rules to follow and they are as important as filling out the required forms for insurance and all the legalities that are part of running a business. These are the emotional factors that are there whether you want them to be or not. When you tackle these emotional areas you are guaranteed to have a better chance of new employees ready to sprint from the starting gate.

1. Welcome with cupcakes. Well, not necessarily cupcakes, it could be with cold cuts, or even a pizza. In other words do something that is inexpensive yet shows your workplace culture is more than pie charts and to do lists. Here is the rationale: eating together is about as basic as you can get to the core of relationships. It has a deep meaning. In fact, in older cultures no real business (like how to start or end a raid on a rival clan) was done without first breaking bread.
2. Share stories.No, I don't mean, "Hello my name is and I'm..." you get the drift. And no, I don't mean gossip. Research and just good common sense shows that people work better with people they know and like. So, take a coffee break, gather the troops around, and simply talk about where you like to go for vacation, sports, "Dancing with the Stars", anything that fives some clues to personalities and preferences. it pays in the long run to know just enough to make the day working together more fun.
3. Set boundaries. While you are sharing stories set the guidelines about the practical part of working together. Stuff like who tends to making coffee in the morning, how to be mindful when on the phone, who to tell when taking breaks, how to reach someone and who it should be in an emergency. This is always done better in a group (while you are sharing stories and salad or those cupcakes) than when the official papers are being filled out, then it is tmi.

These few, relatively small additions will help the new employee quickly feel part of the team and will become value add in a New York minute. Remember, work is both a logical and an emotional place. Leave out logic and you have the real life version of the TV show "The Office". Leave out emotions and you have an ugly real life version of that old favorite movie "Wall Street".

Make your organizational culture one that you can be proud of, one that encourages loyalty, and that breeds collaboration and productivity. We needs minds and hearts working together to make work work!

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Article Tags: Collaboration, Communication, Conflict, CoWorkers, Cupcakes, Dancing with the Stars, Productivity, Workplace Culture, Workplace Relationships



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