Starting a new job is always an inspiring thing to do. Therefore, it is natural to have first-day jitters:
How will the colleagues be? Whats task expects me? And - not unessential at all - how does the office look? Looking back at the beginning of 2020, these were the kind of questions I was asking myself when thinking about my start at LeanIX. So far, very usual. But nothing went usual with the Corona-Crisis. With the global spread of COVID-19 through, it became apparent that my first day might not look like as expected. LeanIX changed to a complete home office mode at the beginning of March. At that point, new thoughts started crossing my mind:
What if I cannot meet my new manager and colleagues face to face for a longer time? What if working in a completely new established team, where most people do not know each other, does not work out? What if lines between work and free time start blurring?
On the first of April, I started this exciting journey at LeanIX in the newly founded Professional Services team... I quickly realized that many of my concerns were unfounded. Even remotely, the team have welcomed me with open arms. In the following, I want to give a brief overview of my top 3 measures at LeanIX, that helped me having a smooth remote onboarding:
1. Turning a group of strangers into a team
Forming a group of people that were more or fewer strangers to each other’s (as the Professional Services team has been established just recently) into a team remotely is a big challenge. But right from the beginning, we agreed on having daily check-ins in the morning and check-ups in the afternoon, to see how the onboarding is progressing. Furthermore, we have a weekly 1 to 1 meeting between the manager and the employee. Moreover, chit-chat and team-building were part of virtual lunch coffee breaks as well as virtual Jackbox sessions.
2. Virtual Ramp-Up Sessions
The first weeks has been packed with virtual ramp-up sessions on all sorts of company-related topics (e.g. HR, Customer Success, Product, Marketing, Finance etc.). Getting an overview of all the different departments at LeanIX helped to build a common understanding of how LeanIX as a company works and how our Enterprise Architecture and Cloud Native Suite are positioned in the Enterprise-Architecture ecosystem. Furthermore, these sessions helped a lot, making first contacts into each department.
3. Culture
From my point of view, culture is one of the essential elements feeling welcomed and at home at a new company. So far, I ́ve experienced a culture that supports knowledge sharing, new ideas, and own initiatives as well as giving public credits on achieved results. I was expecting that kind of culture but were a bit uncertain if that could be kept up in a home office mode. I have been proven wrong.
I am happy to work for a company that tries to hold up their values even (or rather especially!) in times of COVID-19.
A big kudos to everyone at LeanIX for making it so easy to arrive and start here, especially in these crazy times of COVID-19. I am looking forward to the upcoming times and of course, meeting the whole team at the office - hopefully soon!