After two onboardings

I moved to another company for the first time in my life. So it’s my second onboarding and I saw common patterns between these two great companies. I’ve also been asked the question: what does exactly an onboarding involve?

You get your hands on the new project the company needs. You obtain the necessary accesses and accounts. Box ticked. You begin to understand how it works and its building blocks. Box ticked. People working on this project will become the people you spend time with, so it’s also relevant to meet and know them. Box ticked. What rituals or habits come with it: how we sync and how we communicate in this project? Box ticked.

The onboarding also comes with its first task on the project: how to do the first contribution? This is often something small and relatively easy. Nobody has really time for it or the business value is not that great. As newcomer the company does not expect direct value and provide time before being comfortable with the project. Simplify the onboarding process, writing tests or automate the use of the application on development machines can be a real benefit.

You also discover a new company and how people work together. What tools does the company use to communicate. How they handle the daily business? This is a dedicated time to learn it and that’s the onboarding.

The first time is always the best time to be open, ask questions and be curious. It’s the best time to find out what’s possible and what’s not, because it’s a trial period for both the company and the employee. It also means that you have to do it, because you have a certain amount of freedom when onboarding, and that’s exactly what it should be used for.

After writing these lines, I read the article Onboarding on Wikipedia and was very surprised: it covers everything I’ve written and more. For more information on onboarding, just read it.

As always, this post does not seem good enough, but better now than never.