5 Ways Empathetic IT Managers Can Set New Hires Up for Success

Hiring TipsEmployer Branding

When you create a welcoming environment and give them opportunities to shine, they'll be even more likely to become game-changing assets to your company.

You want to be sure that your new hire is just as excited about the job as you are. Here are a few ways to ensure a successful transition into their new role.

It's important to make a good first impression: The exciting experience of joining a new company is both a visible brand moment for your organization and an opportunity to gain valuable insights. Everyone on your onboarding team, especially the hiring manager, needs to treat this moment with care. Here are five ways to set your new teammate up for lasting success.

1. Making them feel welcome

Before they arrive, make sure to coordinate with your HR and IT teams so they have everything they need in terms of paperwork and equipment. Also, identify who will fill them in about company culture, values and benefits; who will give them a tour of the office; who can show them around the new tool stack and explain how the company communicates, documents and performs work tasks.

If you have an office, make it as inviting as possible. My best onboarding experience was at Textio when Levert Banks, our head of IT and onboarding specialist, met me at the elevator and told me he got to be my introduction to the company and would help set me up for success. It made me feel like I mattered from the very first day. It was great, being greeted with a big smile. He had my laptop ready, also he asked who I was and why I joined the company in a very friendly manner. I immediately knew I had a friend, someone i could ask for advice, and that was very important for me.

As the hiring manager, it's your responsibility to set up introductory get-to-know you meetings and prep your veteran teammates on how to lead the conversation. Make sure to introduce your new teammate to the company via email or at the all-hands meeting. The new hire should know what to expect: Will they be asked to say a few words? Answer specific questions? By talking them up and making them feel great about being on the team, you're helping them successfully transition into the company. Having meetings with senior leaders and the CEO is a great way to get ahead.

2. LEVERAGE THEIR ‘NEW KID’ FRESH EYES

It's important to get company feedback on a regular basis in order to improve the business and the product. New hires can be a great source of feedback because they're not yet familiar with the company culture and how things work. By having the CEO talk about the value of the new teammate’s fresh perspective during the all-hands meeting, Rubica was able to mitigate this issue.

It's important to receive feedback as a leader and to be thankful for it. By asking them to go deeper on the "why" behind those suggestions, you can better understand their perspective. It's okay to be honest with them and explain why the suggestion won't be implemented.

It's so important to me as a marketing leader to understand how my team members talk about the company to their loved ones. This type of feedback can help us make some great improvements to our marketing and recruiting strategies.

It's important to me that new teammates use the product and have a positive experience with the buying process. What didn't work as expected? What was their initial impression? While we can't please everyone, it's still important that the product is easy to use. Any feedback about basic usability is very helpful.

The importance of building empathy for customers from the start cannot be overstated. New employees in every department should hear from customers or prospects frequently. Making your company customer-centric starts from the beginning. By letting employees join product demonstrations with potential customers or, if you use Gong, giving them access to sales and customer success call recordings, you're on the right track. It is important for customer-facing team members to meet people in product or engineering orgs, so they have access to answers for customer experience questions.

3. OVER-COMMUNICATE AND SET EXPECTATIONS

By eliminating as much of the guesswork as you can, you can help your new teammate feel more comfortable, welcome and appreciated.

Offer a complete explanation about the team's working habits, regular meetings, hours, communication styles and response times. Describe the expectations for 1:1 meetings. Make sure they know who they will be working with most often.

Having a clear understanding of how you will be measured is crucial for success. By providing a 90-day review template within the first month, you are setting your team up for success and ensuring that everyone is on the same page.

They need to know that you have their back and that you will help them be successful.

4. LEARN ABOUT THEM AS A PERSON

We spend a lot of time at our workplace. Harvard Medical School studied how employee recognition and appreciation correlates with employee relationships and creating a company culture. They found that appreciating employees in the form of pep talks or gratitude can increase productivity by half. I find the best way to do this is by getting to know the person as a whole. What are their superpowers? What do they enjoy doing for fun? What do they read? What other skill sets or side hustles do they have? By asking these questions, I’ve found teammates in InfoSec who loved writing and a teammate in customer success who had a side hustle selling on Instagram. They were thrilled when I asked them to help out with marketing projects. On my own team, I found a teammate with a passion for photography who was excited to take executive headshots.

It's important to ask your new direct report about their learning style, communication style and how they prefer to receive and give feedback. By doing this, you can discover how best to work with them and set them up for success.

5. GET THEM A MEANINGFUL WIN AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE

It’s only natural to want to start them off small, but you hired them because you thought they could deliver results that matter. So give them an important project.

“I'm confident that our new marketing coordinator can create a great product launch video and some accompanying shorts for ads.” This project was a great way for him to get to know people across the company, learn our product and value propositions, and understand our brand and design parameters. By accomplishing such a visible and important first project, he felt trusted and valued. Not only did he over-deliver, but he also became an integral member of our marketing team and company within just weeks of joining.

By creating a welcoming environment and valuing perspective, you can turn new team members into game-changing assets.