You know that Sara will spend about an hour with your HR manager reviewing your firm’s compensation and benefits programs. About 10:00 AM, she enters your office. You could take Sara to her work desk and leave her there with a stack of brochures about the company and its products. But that wouldn’t be fair to Sara—she needs to know more about her job, how it fits into the work done by your unit, and how the unit in turn contributes to the corporation’s mission. Yes, you probably covered a lot of this during the interview, but you should go over the information to ensure that she has a clear idea about her job, the department’s values and mission, and the corporation’s strategic goals.
You also should have some assignments to acclimate Sara to her new job. For instance, you might want to leave Sara with customer correspondence to answer, or you might sit her at the customer service desk. Because she isn’t ready to answer many questions, you might have one of your other customer reps, Joyce, stay with her to help as the need arises. Should she have any questions, she can ask Joyce or you about the work.
At the end of the day, you should visit with Sara to see how things went. Does she need more help? Did Joyce help her? Because Joyce has a great track record with your department, knows the job backward and forward, and is patient with new workers, she was your choice to be Sara’s buddy for the first few weeks on the job—and you discover that you chose well.
You may want to talk to Sara about the standards by which her performance will be measured. Rather than talk about your expectations over the next year, break the time frame into manageable units—first a few days, then a few weeks, then months, and so forth. Establish periodic reviews to track progress and do them as scheduled. Keep performance problems from developing by being alert to any training needs or confusion about the work to be done. If your interview with Sara identified some development areas, now is the time to schedule such training before the lack impedes her job performance.
Don’t limit the time you spend with your new hire to the first day. Praise, encouragement, two-way communication, and feedback will help keep the new hire committed.