ID Onboarding Tips
Imagine you’ve landed your first instructional design job. Your first day is approaching. Nerves are creeping in and you hope the team doesn’t regret hiring you. How can you make the most of your onboarding period and calmly handle the new challenge?
When you start at a new school, teacher orientation is very straightforward. You have a week or so to set up your classroom, lesson plan, and attend professional development. And then you are expected to do the job the day classes begin. Onboarding in a corporate environment is different because it could take months before you are producing work independently.
Having onboarded with two different companies in the last couple of years, I think the most helpful realization of mine is that everything can’t be a priority. My main priority is getting to know people, but sometimes I have a smaller item on my to-do list that is mandatory, like an ethics and compliance training for new hires.
To stay focused on your priority, I suggest keeping a daily to-do list of 5-6 items. Write a list for the following day before logging out at the end of each workday, so when the next day starts, you have your tasks right there in front of you. This little routine gave me peace of mind during the onboarding process.
Make sure to set aside time for meet and greets with anyone you will be working with directly. Those can be 30 minutes chats where you introduce yourselves, and you ask questions like “how did your career progress to this role,” “do you have any advice for me to be successful at XXX org,” or “what important company resources should I know about”?
Focusing on people is my main priority because relationships are so important for instructional designers. We are consulting with the business, collaborating with colleagues, and reporting to management, so getting to know those individuals matters. Learn people’s strengths and specialties so you know who to ask questions later.
During these meet and greets, I ask if I can shadow people. Getting to observe how my peers run meetings with product owners, launch new projects, or write design documents informs my process once I produce work.
Ask people for samples of great work the team has produced and study it. I dig into into source files to see how we are building eLearning. I pick apart Camtasia and Storyline files, and study the templates, so that I can hit the ground running once I am contributing.
Lastly, share progress with your manager regularly. Don’t be worried about over-communicating. During my 1:1s with my manager, I share a running list of what I accomplished that week, what questions I have, and what my goals are for the upcoming week. This has served me well as it shows initiative, and reveals any gaps in my onboarding experience that they may want to fill.
What are some of your suggestions for strong start with a new organization? Any tips for instructional designers to impress their teams during onboarding?
