You're choosing what a new hire does first, and the first month sets the tone for the year
This is for you if a new hire starts soon and you're deciding what they touch first. You already sense that the first month sets how they see themselves here, and how the team starts to see them. You don't want the wrong first task setting that.
When a new hire starts, the reflex is to hand them whatever's most urgent, or the standard starter task everyone gets. Reasonable, and often a mistake.
The first work a new hire does is the work they get read by, by the team and by themselves. A strong first month in the work they're built for sets a reputation and a confidence that builds on itself. A rough one, on work against their grain, sets the opposite, and it's hard to walk back.
Their results tell you which work is theirs. Before day one, open two sections of their Career Discovery report. The Five Types of Work names their primary type and natural complement. Aligned Work Areas names the nine job areas built for how they work.
Now line those two reads against the real work you have.
- From The Five Types of Work, note their primary type and complement.
- List the real projects waiting for a new hire, obvious and leftover both.
- Mark the ones inside their primary or complement type that also match an Aligned Work Area.
- Pick their first project from that overlap, and let anything urgent outside it wait or be paired.
You finish with one named first project, and a short bench of good next ones. It's chosen so the first thing this person does well is the thing they're built to do. That's how you want them, and the team, to see this person from the start.
