Cindy

Droog

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December 18, 2007

New Employee, and Baby Brother, Orientation

When we brought our newborn home a few weeks ago, we had to set some guidelines for his big brother, our curious and energetic toddler. He loves his baby brother very much, but we’re not sure if he’s quite distinguished him from a stuffed animal that he can dress, pretend to feed, squeeze and tackle – all in five minutes.

During that process, I realized that perhaps the same rules should apply to companies when they hire new employees. After all, they’re curious and energetic, and often, just like toddlers, want to do it all very quickly. They also have a new and unique perspective on your world – one that’s always worth listening to.

So, rule number one for our toddler, and for you, hiring company: Be gentle! Your instincts may tell you to test the new employee’s strength immediately, just like our oldest son thought it would be a good idea to sit on his baby brother’s lap. He’s known very few people whose laps he could not sit on if he wanted to, so it all made sense to him.

To you, it might make sense to see if your new employee can handle a crisis. If she can write a memo to top management defending a decision they didn’t make. If he can do your Power Point presentation to the Board of Directors by tomorrow.

Instead, be gentle. Try a little pat on the head before sitting on them.

Rule number two for our toddler was to learn the baby’s name. From day one, he called him “baby,” and that was fine, but every picture, and every other kid who doesn’t walk yet is also known as “baby.” So, we encouraged him to call the baby by name.

If your company is small, following this rule with new hires should be very easy. If your company is large, here are a few tips. You know that email you send announcing the person? It’s got all that great – albeit quite useless – information about where said new employee went to school, her hometown, work experience, etc. But no photograph! Think about it – what’s more helpful?

Rule number three: Sometimes, you’ll need to be quiet. Our toddler was used to yelling at the top of his lungs whenever he felt like it. In fact, looking back, we encouraged this. It was entertaining for us! Now, there are just one or two times a day when we’re encouraging quiet time – a good rule to dictate your existing employees’ interactions with their newly-hired peers.

After all, we’ve all been there. You’ve just started your new job; you’re in a meeting with someone and they lean over in a near whisper to tell you, “Well, Alexandria only has the job she does because she has a big secret on the boss,” or, “Mike is the owner’s nephew-once-removed, and he only works 37.5 hours a week around here.” Before you know it, Newbie is filled with negative information, and his head is spinning, trying to balance the great company he thought he signed up with against the signs of dysfunction he’s now sensing.

Doing this to a new employee should be grounds for firing. Unless your office has a naughty chair like we do for our toddler. I guess you could use that. 

Rule number four: Don’t have so many rules. We only have three. It works for our toddler, and it can work for new employees, too. Instead, the typical new employee gets inundated with handbooks, web sites, an orientation presentation from human resources, and once, I even got three videos I had to take home. I didn’t have the heart to tell my new boss that we’d gotten rid of our VCR years ago, and so I went to the next door neighbor’s house to watch them.

The bottom line is, do they really need to know – right now – that the company has a policy against violence and what the consequences are? Do you really think that’s applicable today, on their very first day?

Punishment for breaking these rules is another topic entirely. Unless your office has a naughty chair, or another good place for a time out, you just might have to write a memo for the offenders’ personnel files. And we all know how useful that policy is – especially as it applies to the owner’s nephew.

I think the “do not feed the baby” rule does not apply here.

© 2007 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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