The arrival of a new life on the planet is always covered with positive expectations, motivation of those who will receive him (the parents), and a lot of preparation. Parents make the baby’s trousseau, prepare a place to accommodate him – a crib -, and a place to store all the newborn things. On his arrival, he is greeted with gifts from relatives and family friends, given a name and even a godfather to be his second father for the rest of life. Anyway, a total satisfaction and a welcome mood is given to the newcomer.
So what to say about companies? How are beginners usually been received?
Many are the requests and attempts to get a new feature for a particular company sector. Justification for the need for this resource are made and defended by the manager of the area, in order to get a spot in the company’s workforce; training and experience requirements are presented to the area of recruitment and selection, which in turn hires a consultant to ensure a consistent selection to the needs of the requesting area, and finally for the resource being available to the plaintiff industry.
However, a newbie’s arrival often seems to put a new face on things: No one in the respective sector receives him; someone in HR need to chase and capture the sector manager for him to nominate someone to receive the newcomer. In his turn, the newbie does not get half the tools he needs to start producing: passwords, computer, e-mail addresses, desk, chair, closet, extension, mobile phone, where applicable; nothing seems to be available for the start of activity of the newly admitted. An old-fashioned course on the company is offered to him in the first or second day of work, and the most unwanted, repetitious; low-value tasks are delivered to him (or her) without any explanation of the importance of the sector and labor he is getting for the company. But where was the pressing need of the vacancy and of the professional? Where was hidden the human culture in receiving newcomers (babies) with that planning and that sponsorship and attention? How to expect this newcomer to integrate the company, feeling proud to participate in that working group? It’s clearly an unfortunate lack of purpose demonstration of the industry’s manager and his collaborators, of such incoherence and incongruity with their own demands.
However, there is an alternative to this way of treating a beginner, that some companies have called “New Employee’s Guard Angels”. In this process, a manager – that should not necessarily be from the sector recipient of the resource -, is invited to be a sort of godfather to one or two beginners who are to reach the company, and at a stage where they are still being selected by the HR and its partners staffing. With the help of HR staff and his assistant – because this guardian angel is normally someone graduated in the organization -, the godfather should be concerned with the following steps:
PREPARATION PHASE: BEFORE ARRIVAL OF BEGINNERS
Step 1 – Identify the problems of integration: What is the profile of the position? Who will be his co-workers? What are the skills and knowledge required from the candidates? What kind of tasks will they do? What are the best jobs in the industry for they run at first?
Step 2 – Identify and provide the necessary infrastructure to work: Computer, passwords, office supplies, workstation, media, transportation, if applicable.
RECEPTION PHASE: THE ARRIVAL OF BEGINNERS
Step 3 – Presentation of the organization to the employee: Presentation of Human Resources Policies (Vision, Mission and Values); the Safety Standards; the products or services of the organization as well as its history and performance in the market.
Step 4 – Visitation to the organization’s main sectors: Requesting a new report after each visit, because it refers more about an organization’s study than a simple visit.
Step 5 – Submission of the new contributor to the company’s introductory training: Charging him satisfactory results at the end of training; the beginner should demonstrate what he have learned about the company.
Step 6 – Forwarding the new employee to his respective sector: A formal presentation should be made by the sponsor to the sector manager with a recommendation of the beginners to the manager in the form of a meeting. After all, at this point, the Guardian Angel knows better his novices than their future manager knows them.
INTEGRATION PHASE: DURING THE FIRST MONTH OF BEGINNERS
Step 7 – Monitoring and performance evaluation: A weekly meeting must be held during the first month with the beginners to understand their motivation with the sector, beyond their level of knowledge about the mechanics of the operating area; and also with the sector manager to provide, along with HR, a guarantee of quality of recruited human resources or a possibility of return.
This way of process treating the entry of a newcomer brings benefits to the four parties involved: to the requesting sector it brings the assurance that their appeal is actually being prepared to take the defendants functions and a sense of rear (BackOffice) unusual in modern organizations; to the newcomer it brings the necessary motivation to his larger commitment to the company and the satisfaction to start the right way under the responsibility of someone experienced and diligent in the company; to the angel-manager it brings a better understanding of the various parts of the organization beyond a certain prestige among the employees if their function is made with care and highlight – a true level 1 coaching; and to HR sector it brings everything it wants most: managers of the company working as true agents of Human Resources.
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