Here is another valuable Management Tip of the Day from Harvard Business Review. To sign up for a free subscription to any/all HBR newsletters, please click here.
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A new hire needs to learn so many different aspects of the business that covering them all can feel impossible.
o Onboarding managers can get organized by dividing what the person needs to learn into three categories: technical learning is the company’s products, customers, technologies, and systems; cultural learning includes attitudes, behavioral norms, and values; and political learning is how decisions are made, who has the power to make them, and whose support the new hire will need. Help the new employee pick all of this up by connecting them to the right people.
o For each category of information, think about who has the relevant expertise (and communication skills) to explain the essentials. The head of product, for example, can probably talk at length about customers and systems, a senior leader might be willing to lay out how big-picture decisions are made, and a longtime trusted employee could be a good reference about important cultural norms.
Make these introductions for the new hire early on, so they can start getting up to speed as soon as possible.
Adapted from “7 Ways to Set Up a New Hire for Success,” by Michael D. Watkins
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