Onboarding new contributors to your team

Onboarding new people well is an essential part of running a great World Lab team. Every person joining your team needs to be someone who feels seen, heard, and accepted.

Schedule a meeting: If you can't onboard someone immediately to your team, schedule a time that works for you both when you have at least half an hour to get them started.

The onboarding process

Have a few minutes of casual conversation to get to know them.
1. What brings you to Boundless?
2. What's your personal life goal?
3. What do you like to do for fun?
Use the slidedeck you created to pitch your team to onboard the individual. Give them a copy afterward.
1. Keep that slidedeck up to date for onboarding purposes.
Plug them into your team's tools
1. Plug them into your chosen project management tool.
Assign them a task
1. Make sure they know the deadline.
Let them know who leads their department
1. E.g. show them how to connect with the team's art director.
Update the org chart with their name
Explain how far along the process you are in the calendar
Let them know that a working finished product is essential to the team being drafted in as official volunteers.

Introducing them to the team

It's important that there's a formal team introduction so that they feel like they have the right to fit within the context of your team.

You should say:

"This is Bob
(fill in personal facts or hobbies)
He works on ___
He will be helping us with __

Bob would you like to introduce yourself?"

After their introduction...

Bob, before you can be part of our team, we ask you to affirm our values in front of everyone here.

As a team we are committed to _, _, _,.

Once done, have them come to the next meeting, officially introduce them and have them commit to your values before the meeting starts.

Explain in this article how people should interact with new members of their team, guiding them through their pitch deck, going through each slide.

Require a buddy system.