How to help yourself when starting a new job, or in other words – a self-onboarding exercise!

Onboarding is a period that requires a lot from everyone involved in it: from you – the newcomer, from your team, from your direct manager.

Have you ever thought about quitting during an awkward onboarding period?

Here’s something that can help you integrate more quickly into the new team. The exercise will enable you to feel calm in your new place easier and faster: Guide to working with me

What is the Guide to working with me?
A simple document in which you answer a few questions about how you like to work.
This guide will help your teammates understand better and more deeply what your INDIVIDUAL work style is. You will shorten the distance. And they will be able to get to know you more quicker.

What might be the questions in the guide?

These are the questions that Stephen Gates (award-winning design leader) uses in his team:

✏️ How to best work with me…

✏️ When I’m not at work…

✏️ As a Leader…

✏️ Things I believe…

✏️ Things I expect of my team…

✏️ I’m human, I’ve got blind spots that I’m working on (please help me!)…

📷 Photo conversation starters…

These would be a few pictures that show something important or interesting about you.

Stephen shares more great ideas for remote team building activities in episode 118 of his podcast ‘The Crazy One’.

You can change them or come up with completely different ones. I would add these questions to the guide:

➕ If you want to cheer me up at work…
➕ If you want to make me angry…
➕ What’s the easiest way for me to hear your feedback…
➕ If you want me to answer you quickly…

Add-on of the guide:
It can also be used as an exercise for all team members to do individually and then review all the guides together. Each new team member can familiarize themselves with the manuals of their colleagues, in addition to making their own manual.

And so:

Open a Google Doc or Word file
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Take 30 minutes to fill it in
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Share it with your team

You will thank yourself. And so will your colleagues.

If you want to facilitate the onboarding process in your team, see this idea for quick knowledge sharing 👉 Onboarding Library for Newcomers