Onboarding the New Hire Developer vs. Onboarding an Efficiencyware Team
Having created onboarding programs in the past for my team members, I know firsthand the time and preparation company leaders put into making that new hire’s launch experience the best it can be.
Especially in this cut-throat job market, creating any hiccups or friction in the first few days of a new hire’s life in your business is a huge risk. After all – companies are spending an average of 5 months recruiting and hiring new development team members. You certainly don’t want to put that investment at risk by not getting him or her off to a great start – like this guy. Not to mention the risk of letting semi-trained folks loose on your systems.
Let’s take a look at the timeline and activities for onboarding that special new developer in the typical business. Note: we’re assuming this Newbie has some decent real-world business experience and is not fresh out of college.
Day 1: Newbie is introduced around the office and is taken to lunch by team and leaders. Extra points for decorating their cube. They fill out all their HR paperwork. More extra points for beers after work.
Day 2: Newbie attends company orientation and meets with their Manager to review their Onboarding schedule and role expectations.
Day 3-7: Newbie takes training on company systems: email, phone, CRM, timekeeping, other operational systems.
Day 8-15: Newbie dives into learning how to do the job, studying your application or system documentation – user guides, SOPs – and tools used in the Dev team such as their programming platform and process tools.
Day 16-90: OK, time for some easy wins. Newbie gets a runway to take a turn at a few small projects to get their feet wet. This is where a few failures will occur and it’s key for managers to mitigate risk and inspect work carefully during this extended period.
Day 91: Given the right resources and mentorship, Newbie is ready to rock. Congratulations – after 5 months of hiring and 3 months of onboarding – you have a new team member.
Let’s contrast that approach with Onboarding an Efficiencyware Team. Note: Efficiencyware team members are almost all Senior level developers with ten-plus years of work in companies across numerous verticals.
Day 1: You review your Requirements with Efficiencyware CTO and Team Leads.
Day 2: Coding starts.
The beer party is totally optional, but we’re down for it if you are.