5 TIPS TO REDUCE THE ‘NEW EFFECT’

The first day at a new workplace is not the easiest day ever. To be new is not comfortable for everybody. You do not know anybody, anything, the corporate culture and the informal habits. It can cause discomfort, nerves and bad feelings.

As a HR manager, you can help new hires to ease their first couple of days. With your small help your new colleague can integrate more easily. He or she will feel him- or herself better in the new workplace in the first few days. Here are some useful tips to ease the integration of the new colleagues and reduce the ‘new effect’.

Introduce the new colleague. At the first day the first thing you can do the introducing.  Present the new colleague to everybody and present everybody to the new colleague. If it takes too much time, because lots of people work for the company, encourage the colleagues to present to each other. It is the easiest icebreaker.

Give information. Say the most important information to the new colleague about the corporate culture, the informal habits, dress code and show the important places like toilet, kitchen, smoking-room, offices of the bosses. Do not give too much information at one time, just gradually. It can help the new colleague to survive the first days.

Ask feedback often at the beginning. Ask the new colleague “How do you feel yourself here?  Is everything ok?”  at the end of the first day, at the end of the first week and sometimes during the first few weeks. It is nice and you can get feedback about how new employees see the company at the first view.

Organize a mutual program. Organize something that employees can do together, for example a lunch or a team building.  It is good, if it is informal, where the new colleague can get to know the others and establish connections. It can help much to fit in the company.

Set a mentor out. This is one of the most efficient ways to help the new colleagues. You point out one of your colleagues who works at same department where the new employee arrived and ask help from him or her. From the beginning this mentor will be the man who will help the new one and the new colleague can ask his or her mentor. It is very frequent and fashionable today.