Top Things to Do in the First Week at Your New Office

First few days at a new office, will give mixed emotions for a new joiner every time. They will be excited, as well as be anxious for a few days, as the entire atmosphere will be new for them including the job as well. This feeling will be among every individual, no matter he or she is a fresher or already a professional for few years.

So, if you are in a new place, where you need to spend most of your day’s time, naturally, you need to start mingling with the people around you as well as get adjusted with your job as early as possible. To make it easy for you, if you are a new joiner in any of the company, here are few small and key tips you can follow,

1.  Always keep smiling:

No matter what, as it is you who is a new employee in the company, it is your duty to start conversing with others with a  smiling face, as there are many employees, who don’t like to mingle with a fresher so easily unless and until they are familiar with you for the first few days. So, to make them feel easy as well as to make yourself comfortable, start conversing with your colleagues with a smiling face. As everyone know, knowledge-based skills are very much important to grow up in your career, soft skills as mentioned above like smiling and greeting the colleagues everyday is equally important to create a pleasant office atmosphere.

2. Develop a helping nature:

This doesn’t mean you should stop helping people in your workplace as soon as you become a senior in a company. It the initial stages, helping others is a much needed behavior, as that can be a better way to build a nice friendly relationship with your co-workers. Give ideas and suggestions to your team leads no matter you are a fresher. But it is advised not to share your opinion on the company’s business strategies in just the first week at office, as it might lead a negative impact on you.

3. Learn new things:

There can be no other better opportunity for you than in the first week in a new job or in the first few days to learn a lot of new things. It is in this period, where you won’t be blamed for minor errors as you will still be a learner at that time. So, make a good opportunity of it, and try sharpening your skills day by day by learning new things as per your work demands. Observing things is very much important, as you will be surprised to see you as an expert just by observing things and listening to what people discuss around you regarding the work. If you are given a task which you are already familiar with, then carry on with that work even before they give you instructions regarding that. By doing so, you can showcase the proactive nature to your employers and prove that you are a fast learner.

5 Key Hiring Metrics for 2013

With 2013 fast approaching, many of us will be using the traditionally quieter hiring month of December to take stock of the key industry developments and market trends of 2012 in order to refine our strategic approaches accordingly for 2013. These refinements may include a change in strategy, tactics or processes or it could involve the adoption of new cutting edge technologies.
Evidence does indeed suggest that the sands are shifting in the HR world, and I thought it would be a good time to take another look at the hiring metrics that we are using to check the relevancy of them going forwards and to see if any new metrics need to be brought into play or further examined.
1. Source of hire; With there being so many different methods for hiring staff emerging on to the market, such as employee referrals, gamification and crowd-sourcing,  it is more important than ever that you track source of hire to understand your most effective hiring channels and to establish whether key sourcing channels are being underutilized. Additionally, the recent shift toward more performance based or CPC job posting systems such as Indeed and SimplyHired allow a better understanding of total cost per applicant and cost per hire.
2. Cost. An oldie but still goodie. With the OECD having just slashed its global economic growth forecasts, the threat of recession still looms over many major economies, which means hiring teams will need to be able to demonstrate cost-effectiveness very clearly next year. There should clearly be some emphasis on the following metrics in 2013.

• Cost per hire
• Cost per hire as a percentage of average starting salary
• Cost of vacancy and money saved by reducing time to fill
• Revenue or productivity increase due to successful hire

3. Employee Referral rates
We have written extensively about just how influential employee referrals are becoming as a source of hire, with surveys from Jobvite, CareerXRoads and others all showing that employee referrals are the most influential form of hire a the moment. As well as this, the Jobvite survey has shown that referred employees are hired quicker and stay longer than employees hired through most other channels, which means that in theory increasing your emphasis on referrals may reduce time to fill and empty desk time. For all these reasons, we expect this employee referrals trend to strengthen in 2013,  as social recruiting technologies like Mesh-hire and Jobvite begin to take hold.
Hiring teams should clearly be placing emphasis on tracking referral rates versus other sources of hire to see if they are fully utilizing what is currently thought to be the most effective form of hire.
4. Quality of hire
We reported recently on a study by Futurestep which found that hiring metrics are beginning to shift their emphasis to more sophisticated analysis. The most important metric of all was ‘performance of new hire’, followed by ‘new hire retention’, with the traditional metrics of cost to hire and time to hire being considered of lesser importance.
There is no doubt that in 2013 ‘quality of hire’ should really be the primary metric that hiring professionals are using to effectively manage the performance of their function.
5. Pipeline of talent
With an increasing focus on talent communities and strategies to engage with passive talent, (who are thought to be the lion’s share of the candidate market), employers should be developing actionable pipelines of quality prospects who can be reached out to at future times of need. You should be consistently assessing the size and quality of the prospects in your pipeline and the number of people that you actually recruit from the talent pipeline you have engineered. Is all the effort you are putting into talent communities, passive talent engagement etc… turning into results?
I’d be interested in hearing about any more hiring metrics that you think will be crucial for 2013.

5 Onboarding Best Practices

How does your organization help new employees integrate into a new job and workplace? I’ve heard numerous stories where a new hire was thrown into a position without any training or background knowledge. If you’ve been going with the baptism by fire model, then you should consider taking a different route. Statistics show that new hires who went through a structured onboarding process were 58 percent more likely to be with the organization after three years. It’s evident that a structured onboarding program can reduce turnover rates.

So what are the best practices regarding onboarding? It should come as no surprise that transparency ranks among the highest, but below I’ve outlined the five major onboarding best practices—those you certainly want to consider when bringing in your next new hire(s).
Representation
There are only a few things that can deflate that new job buzz faster than realizing that the job you thought you had applied for really isn’t the job that you are going to be doing.  An incredible 76 percent of new employees say that their job description was drastically different, or not as originally described when they started. One company I interned with provided me with the job description and required duties during the interview. Yet, once I accepted the position and got into the groove of things, I quickly realized that my actual duties were far from what I expected.
Go over the responsibilities of the position with a fine-toothed comb, in black and white if possible, and have the employee initial the job description. This will make the boundaries and duties very clear and prevent any miscommunication in the future. Believe me, no one likes to get duped and this is especially true in the workplace.
Paperwork
Calling to different departments, printing forms the first day of work and running around looking for files is not a good way to start things off. Make sure that all relevant paperwork is ready the day before, preferably in a professional manner such as a manilla folder or portfolio, so that the employee can go through the paperwork, fill out each form and quickly move on with the onboarding process..
Also make sure that the employee’s office or workstation is filled with the tools he or she will need for the job, right down to the very last pencil or package of copy paper.  It will not only make the new worker’s office feel homier, but make him or her feel more comfortable and welcome. Every new hire desires to feel like the company is expecting and anticipating his or her addition.
Introductions
Although this part is quite simple, many employers neglect to do it. While sending an introductory email is always a good idea, it should not be the first and only step. Physically introducing yourself, giving the new employee the lay of the land, showing him or her where the bathrooms and break room(s) are and introducing the worker not only to their superiors, but to their peers as well is the best way to help new hires get acclimated.
Technology
If you have specialized software, you will need to send the employee to a one-or-two day training course (either internally, or externally) so that he or she has a chance to familiarize him or herself with the software systems. The worst feeling as a new hire is not understanding how to operate a company’s system and no one being available to teach you.
Stay Connected
You will need to be ready to answer a barrage of questions from the new employee, so stay available. Whether it is by email, phone or in person, you have to employ an open-door policy. Schedule regular weekly progress meetings for the first month, which gives new hires an opportunity to open up and be detailed about where they are thriving and where they are struggling. Based on their progress, provide feedback and decrease (or increase) the frequency of the meetings as times goes on.