Happy Friday,

I was sitting down this morning to work on this newsletter when my inbox had an email from someone requesting I delete all the information I have about them. I had wanted to build a service to do this as well to help with CCPA, but ultimately didn't.

I found this to be very exciting and interesting because there's a congruence of laws, tools, and awareness around data privacy that I believe is going to create some pretty impressive change. I'll say it again if your company isn't taking things like CCPA seriously, the clock is ticking.

Moving on. I've been in a lot of companies, sometimes as an employee, sometimes as a consultant. Those first days of onboarding speak volumes to me about the reality of the company. I find it strange that companies are so desperate to find good people, but when they do, they spend so little energy helping them acclimate.

I had a client who was growing, and they had just brought someone new into the team. Within 2 days they quit. One of the reasons they brought up was that they felt like they were just dropped into things and they really didn't know what to do or who to talk to, and that they didn't feel welcome. This sentiment is echoed over and over again from people I talk to.

So the real question is, what does your onboarding say about you and your company?

If you're like most your onboarding says, "We're busy, figure it out."

Now, I don't think onboarding has to be some big event, but it does need to be intentional. Here are some elements I think need to be a part of all onboarding for technical folks.

1. Business history
2. Orientation to the org chart and who to ask what
3. Introduction to the team
4. Team introductions to the new hire
5. Account provisioning and hardware setup
6. Introduction to technical systems
7. Introduction to code through something like pairing
8. The first push to production

Many companies have 1, 3, 5 and 6 in some form, but the rest are often absent and spotty. This means that a new hire knows what the company is about, they know who everyone is, and they get access to most things, and a high-level picture of how things work. From then on, they're alone to figure out the rest.

This just isn't enough.

Find a way to add those extra steps. Want proof this works? Sample how long it took for the past 5 new hires to finish their first work item from the day they showed up. Try this onboarding and measure again. My bet is you'll save days or weeks by investing in onboarding.

Take Care,

Ryan