Psychological Safety 101 — Part 3

Preparing them for their new environment

In parts 1 & 2 of this series we covered what is safety, how to show you care about it, and how to begin to know your employees’ needs. In this section we will begin go set the table by preparing them.

“Here’s what we will do together to prepare you for your new role in this team.” is a good way to start this…

“I’ll share my expectations for your role clearly.”

• Avoid ambiguity: This is just my opinion, but the more ambiguous the expectations are with your employee, the more likely you are to be misaligned on the vision of what success looks like. Don’t be afraid to ask them what they consider “must haves” in their role. You can fill in the blanks if there are any.
• OKRs & Performance ratings: Share with them how you will judge their performance, when it happens, and ask them what they think about their responsibilities and areas of influence to be sure you’re aligned.

“Here’s what I will do in my team to help you integrate. I’ll tell you about the influencers and company dynamics. Here’s the TLDR;…”

• Politics & Managing across: For god’s sakes TELL THEM WHO INFLUENCES in their circles and why. You can expedite the trust building for your new employee by actually helping them know how to influence and win trust with people rather than hoping they just get it right. Don’t skip this, especially if they are in roles that are transversal or require a high level of alignment across a lot of influential people.
• Treats & Tricks: Be an ally by telling your new joiner what the main goals are for those people. What are carrots for those folks, and what sensitive areas should be avoided lest you wake the sleeping beast in them.
• Compliments & Criticisms: If you can, outline how those people like to be approached for recognition and adjustment feedback as well.
• Empathy mapping: If you can do an empathy map with your new direct report on a few key people. (Google it there are a lot of forms of this out there.)

“I’ll help you find support in the team, networks in the company, and people to help you onboard.”

Get the help lined up: this can take a lot of forms but here are the most critical.

• Team buddy: Hook them up with someone on the team at their level who can answer the “soft ball” questions and help them immediately feel “a part of things”.
• Diversity buddy: Can you find someone to help them integrate if there are no other people like them in the team? Introduce them to a network ideally. If one doesn’t exist, think about starting one.
• Usual onboarding things: Outline very critical information like the company mission, medium-term vision, priority projects and why they matter, most important KPIs and where to monitor them, and a general who’s who of the people they will be working with regularly including the scope and empathy maps for them. Documenting this can be a good idea to help them follow it later. Yes, this is YOUR JOB.
• Shadowing / Peer review: It can be helpful to set up shadowing or peer review to help the person to know the ways of working in the team, and the general best practices the team respects to the letter.

Read part 4 next: how to prepare your team!