While our jobs may not be as publicly visible as those of heads of state or any political candidates to lay out a plan of what they will achieve if elected in their first 100 days in office, many commonalities are shared between us: new people, new environments and new processes. And how you adapt to these elements will go a long way to determining your future prosperity and happiness in your new job. A well-defined approach can help stabilize you in your new environment and put you in a solid position to excel. Here are some strategies to help you lay a strong foundation in your first 90 days, according to job portal, Monster.
Know your “product.”
Hopefully, you spent a lot of time and energy learning about your new employer and their respective industry during the interview process. Even so, it behooves you to spend some additional time in your first few weeks entirely trying to understand your role within the company and the company’s role within their industry. Many new employees can get so caught up in their job’s micro details that they often lose sight of the bigger picture. This broad view will help you contextualize your work and better understand the product or service your company produces. This can also help you understand your customer’s perspective – something that can prove invaluable when learning new tasks.
Embrace the team
It is essential to quickly learn everyone’s name and role so that you can understand how to interact with them professionally. Also, it is important that you fully understand your role and how it intersects with everyone else on the team; this will help lay out a strong working foundation. You will also feel fulfilled in your job if you can integrate into the team quickly.
Become autonomous
Your first couple of weeks on the job are likely to be a blur of new faces and places. As such, it is entirely understandable if you feel somewhat overwhelmed. But you must ensure that you spend this time learning as much as possible about your new surroundings. Your colleagues are (hopefully) going to be generous with their time in the early days to help you onboard smoothly. So, take advantage of this by absorbing as much information as possible, as your immediate goal is to become self-sufficient quickly. Yes, ask as many questions as necessary and perform as much research as possible to get yourself up to speed. Nothing is going to make you feel more valuable to your new team than being able to pull your weight.
Solicit feedback
Most Canadian employers have established some probationary period to protect against bad hires. And these periods traditionally last 90 days, as this has been widely determined as a reasonable time frame to evaluate a new employee properly. Whether you are enrolled in such a program or not, actively solicit feedback from your supervisor within your first 90 days to ensure that you are on the right track and to correct any issues that may lead to problems down the road.
Recommend improvements
Historically, organizations have been reluctant to embrace the opinions of the newbie as they may lack context or institutional knowledge. However, many industries have started to learn that having “new eyes” can be highly beneficial as a fresh perspective can help untangle long-standing problems. As such, you must approach your new job very objectively – even critically. Being new to the organization puts you in a unique position, so try and use this to your advantage. Try and leverage this early on, as you will rapidly lose your fresh perspective. If you successfully develop a new process in your first 90 days, you will take a significant step towards improving your next 900 days.