Building Onboarding into your Team
New rebels are the lifeblood of every team!
We know we need numbers. We also need the energy, skills, community connections and fresh perspective they give us. And, last but not least, we need our stretched coordinators to be able to take a break sometimes!
Sometimes it can seem like bringing new rebels into our teams just creates work. This can particularly happen when someone takes a while to be inducted and then decides the team is not for them or they do not have the time to give that they thought. BUT tempting as it is to think "oh, we'll just do it all ourselves", this can lead to a viscious circle. Without a continual flow of new people the team ends up consisting of very experienced, very stretched people with no time to show others how to do things. A healthy team has a mix of people of all levels of experience, with a steady flow of newbies learning, moving on to more complex work, showing others how to do things and relieving the more experienced coordinators of work.
Right, great theory, how do we do it?!
Before you even start recruiting, think about how you will look after the people when they arrive. New people often find XR quite bewildering and overwhelming! To minimise the chances they disappear as fast as they arrive, they will need a bit of extra care and attention at the start (typically for around a month). It is best this work falls to someone who is not frazzled from doing a ton of other things and typically this will be the team's integrator.
This does not mean it is the integrator's job alone to make new people feel welcome! This is a job for everyone in the team.
We know that one of the main reasons that rebels stay with XR is that they find a community with us. So how can we ensure that we are as welcoming to as many people, and as many different people, as possible?
The Job of Welcoming
It is an integrators job to find, contact and induct new rebels into the team. It is the whole team's job to welcome them.
Make Sure:
- A team member steps up to have a 1-1 chat with the new rebel in their first week!
- A team member steps up to be the new Rebel's "Point Person" or "Buddy" for their first few weeks. That single port of call if the new rebel has any questions.
- The team invites the new rebels to any social gatherings coming up or any activities they may wish to join.
- (This is especially important if you organise in multiple chats, ensuring they know whats happening)
New Rebel in the Chat!
When a new Rebel is added to your chat (Mattermost, Signal, Whatsapp...) make sure to say hi and welcome them. Make sure they know the purpose of various chats and where they can ask for help.
A Rebel's First Meeting
Do:
- Ensure that the team has included their roles in their screen names or start off with a round of names and role descriptions.
- Have a least one person offer to stay behind to check in with the new Rebel, see how they found their first meeting and if they have any questions.
Don't
- Use lots of acronyms and XR jargon! Try to have someone there to call people out on their jargon and ask them to define things.
This page was written by @Raenyah please contact me if you have any questions or think something needs to be added.