How I Navigated My First Day at Meesho — A first person account by Senior Content Writer Mangala Dilip
Change is always scary, especially one that requires you to prove your professional worth, perseverance and all the other key words you include in your cover letter and CV without fail. Leaving the comforts of a job at the risk of never finding a new “work fam” can be daunting, and I had a pretty great work fam I had to leave behind when I embarked on the next phase of my career and the journey towards joining the Meesho work force in January 2020.
Not a stress test
What started off as a call for help to a friend of a friend, quickly opened up the channel for a serious discussion about employment, and soon enough I found myself completing an assignment that would determine accurately, if I am everything my CV paints me to be. Turns out, I was and onward I moved to an interview that had me face-to-face with my reporting manager and the head of Human Resources.
Truth be told, it was one the most comfortable yet extensive interviews I have ever given. The said interviewees had one agenda and that was to find out if I was a good fit for the role, and even in the most casual questions I could feel that their focus towards this goal was unwavering. Some of the questions that were aimed at me made me think in ways I was never inspired to, before, even going as far as to make me answer the question — Am I fit for this role at Meesho?
If I did not believe this before, I certainly did after the interview and I seem to have done a good job of convincing them of this too. Soon I found myself walking into Meesho’s quirkily done up reception area one fine day along with two other newbies. It was intriguing enough that there were so many new hires on the same day, with a few more joining us before the induction process would begin.
Day one at Meesho
Not only was I impressed with the very determined hiring spree Meesho was on, still is, on, but also with how well-managed the whole onboarding process turned out to be. Two — and at some points three — HR Ops members were present in what we shall call the induction room, and seemed all too happy to help us with whatever assistance we required of them. From answering some of our redundant questions to the more confusing matters concerning PF and medical insurance, they were right there with extra pens and an encouraging smile to nudge us in the right direction.
As someone who has been employed in one form or another for close to a decade and was yet to be part of a single induction programme, I was enamoured by the whole business, and what’s more, brownie points for handing the new joiners a lovely goodie bag too. In contrast to pointing me to the nearest laptop and asking me to figure out what to do next ( a practice prevalent in some of my former jobs), here I was at Meesho, being helped by an army of nice HR humans, pointing me in the right direction at every turn.
To this point, my fellow-new hires and myself hadn’t felt compelled to actually interact, except for the usual smirk, nod and turning our heads away immediately after, and boy, it was all part of a bigger plan hatched by team HR as I was to find out in a bit later.
An in depth presentation about Meesho, which explained its core values, objectives, and even more importantly leave policies, employee benefits, along with POSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment) rules was greatly appreciated by everyone. We got to clarify our doubts with the HR immediately after — including one about where the washroom is, put forth by yours truly. This was an experience I truly appreciated, because at many of my previous employment, I have gone years — literally — without knowing what the company’s core values are and whether a POSH committee existed at all.
Books and fitness for the win
Just in case that wasn’t impressive enough, we were told that Meesho employees have access to a large and diverse online library and a physical one on the fourth floor, a tie-up with FitPass which effectively gives us a 50% discount to access a host of gyms that offer various fitness programmes all over Bangalore, a tie-up with a daycare close by that offers attractive discounts to help out new parents, a months’ paid leave for employees who undergo gender reassignment surgery and so on.
It also doesn’t hurt that the office is beautifully decorated and that the pantry area is always stocked with fresh coffee, cookies of many flavours and sizes, bread and your choice of spreads, and namkeen.
Finding my Meesho buddies
You ask how I know my fellow newbies appreciated this too? Well, we finally talked. You see, getting us all together in the induction chamber was nothing but an HR ploy to ensure all of us had a chance to make friends with people outside our teams on the very first day. I have it on record, in fact, that the idea was to get us all talking with an ice breaker, send us all off on lunch together, and rest assured in the knowledge that they have made one day in the lives of six new people, possibly all on the same boat wondering if they will ever have a work fam at Meesho, a little less stressful than it needs to be.
And honestly, they did. After our ice breaker they sent us off on our separate ways, and yet we chose to wait for each other as all of us collected our laptops and other stationary from the IT department, and we chose to walk back to the reception together till we were taken to our separate locations by our respective managers.
It has been a few days since I joined Meesho now, and yet I know I have a friendly nod waiting for me as I pass the marketing department, or a small, leisurely chat I can anticipate in the women’s washroom, or even some friendly banter about whether or not peanut butter goes well with chocolate chip cookies in the pantry section.
Whatever life may hold for me at Meesho henceforth, I am already thankful for a great first day carefully crafted by the HR team, and I am certainly glad to be on board the Meesho Rocketship.
Want to join and team Meesho in creating 20 million entrepreneurs in 2020, then we are hiring across roles. Apply here. We are hiring!
