Newcomer Orientation and Mentorship Radostina Ruseva

Hey, there! Every company I have worked for, even my own ones, have offered a mentoring program – at least in theory. Hereby I want to show you why it is important and encourage you using mentoring in your team, too. Mentoring works, go try it!

•  What is mentorship?

•  Why do we need to mentor new coming team members?

•  Who are the mentors?

•  What do they do?

•  What they don’t do?

•  How do they do it?

Mentorship is … … a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person.

The idea is …

•  To provide every new coming team member with a mentor

•  The mentor will welcome the new team member and show him how we work

•  The mentor will especially advise the new team member in the major development project stages, sources of information and support opportunities

Business Processes

Goals and milestones

Resource Planning

Information Management

The benefits of using mentors are …

•  Quicker onboarding

•  Efficient resource planning

•  Avoidance of bottlenecks

•  Better outcomes

•  Improved communication

•  Process test and iteration

•  Learning curve

Mentors … Support new coming team members in getting to know and apply our business innovation process

Major activities   Welcome the new team member upon arrival and schedule a first meeting to

walk him through our business processes

  Introduce our goals, and ask the new team member to schedule his presentations with the team assistant

  Show the new team member the location of the important presentations, working templates, and information sources

  Explain how we plan resources, and use tools, how we collect ideas etc.

  Assist the new team member on demand in any further questions on a lose base throughout his incubation

u  General overview of the project

u  How we measure success

u  Support him in getting access to important tools

u  As usual J

Don’t be nasty If somebody is trying really hard and it doesn’t work we might need to change something else, not necessarily that person.

Don’t take the ownership It is his project. You only help him integrate better in our way of work.

Don’t be negative It is the first impression that will influence new team members for some time. If you don’t like things yourself he will most likely not adopt them.

Don’t be dogmatic Our business processes constitute a roadmap, not a recipe. We follow them for the benefits of the company not to end in itself.

Respect other opinions Don’t belittle!

Discuss problems Embrace failure, give feedback and encourage all team members to do the same.

Cherish diversity Our way of work is not a recipe. Every business is different and needs to find its way through.