Changing and improving: onboarding

Question 1

Situation

Answer 1

• A new team member was joining our newly formed team.
• Her onboarding experience on the previous team had been a bit rocky.
• Most teams took a lean approach to onboarding.
• I believed this could be improved

Question 2

Task

Answer 2

Develop an onboarding programme that emphasised social cohesion and psychological safety

Question 3

Action (research)

Answer 3

• Research psychology and anthropology of initiation rituals.
• Partly inspired by coursera course “Power of Team Cultures”.
• Combined findings with my teacher training course which covered the psychology of learning.

Question 4

Action (implementation)

Answer 4

• Developed ‘welcoming’ session based on common themes which exist in welcoming/initiation ceremonies across cultures (including workplaces).
• Iterated on the first draft by working with colleagues to get a sense of comfort levels, preferences.
• Amended draft with their suggestions so everyone felt involved.
• Only proceeded when everyone OK’d the plan (including new joiner)

Question 5

Result

Answer 5

• I facilitated the welcoming session with the team (including the PM).
• Sent a feedback form in which team reported feeling a stronger bond with each other than before.
• New joiner felt especially welcomed.
• “Renewed” the experience with every subsequent new joiner.

Question 6

Reflection

Answer 6

• Strength: innovative, interdisciplinary approach.
• Built strong foundation of social cohesion.
• Most psychologically safe group I’ve ever worked in.
• Improved: added follow up tooling (esp. feedback) for how to confront people you care about in a healthy way.
• Create a saying good-bye ceremony.