Episode 873 - What Your Newest Employee Sees First

0:04 Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of performance through strong human relations, team building, and goal achieving. This is the 7-Minute Leadership Podcast with your host, Paul Falavolito. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the 7-Minute Leadership Podcast. It's episode 873. Your newest employee is watching you, and I don't mean six months from now. I mean immediately. Before they understand your policies, before they understand the personalities, before they know who the great employees are, who the difficult employees are, or who actually has influence in the organization, they're watching.

0:50 They walk through the door on day one with a completely different set of eyes than everyone else. And that makes your newest employee one of the most interesting people in your organization because they haven't gotten used to anything yet. Think about the last time you walked into a hotel room. Within seconds, you noticed things. The temperature, the smell, the condition of the room, whether it looked clean, whether something was broken. You noticed because you hadn't been living in that room for the past five years. Now imagine the housekeeper...

1:26 who has cleaned that same room hundreds of times. They may stop noticing the scuff mark on the wall. They may stop noticing the crooked picture. They may stop noticing that the desk chair squeaks. It becomes normal. Organizations work exactly the same way. The longer people work somewhere, the more likely they are to stop seeing certain things. Your newest employee hasn't developed that blindness yet. They notice the employee who complains constantly. They notice whether the supervisor says hello.

2:02 They notice whether the workplace is clean. They notice whether people help each other. They notice whether employees talk badly about management or each other. They notice whether management talks badly about employees. They notice whether the rules they learn during orientation are actually followed. And one of the biggest mistakes leaders make is assuming that orientation is where the employees learn the culture. It's not. Orientation is where you explain the culture. The workplace is where they find out whether you were telling the truth. That's a huge difference.

2:40 You can spend four hours telling a new employee about professionalism, teamwork, customer service, accountability, safety, and standards. Then they walk onto the floor and see a 10-year employee ignoring every one of them. Now your new employee has a decision to make. Which version of the company is real? The version they heard about during orientation or the version they can see with their own eyes? Usually, they're going to believe their eyes.

3:08 This is why onboarding cannot end when HR finishes the paperwork. The first few shifts matter tremendously. Your newest employee is trying to figure out something nobody puts in the employee handbook. They're trying to figure out how do things really work around here? That's the question. Not what does the policy say?

3:30 Not what did the orientation PowerPoint say? How does this place really work? And they'll learn the answer by watching everyone around them. Imagine hiring someone who's excited about the opportunity. They bought new clothes for the job. They showed up early. They told their family about the new company. Maybe they posted about it on social media. They're proud. They're nervous.

3:55 They're paying attention. And then within their first hour, a veteran employee says, don't worry about that. Nobody does it that way. There it is. One sentence. And your entire orientation program has entered the courtroom. The new employee is now trying to determine who has credibility, the organization that trained them or the veteran employee standing beside them. This is where leaders have to understand something incredibly important about workplace culture. Every employee is a trainer. Some employees have the official title. Most don't. Your newest employee is learning from everybody. They're learning from the receptionist, from the co-workers, the supervisors. They're learning from the employee who's been there

4:41 15 years and complains about everything. They're learning... Even what leadership ignores, especially what leadership ignores, because tolerated behavior teaches people where the real boundaries are. If someone routinely violates a standard and nothing happens, your newest employee notices. If someone treats customers poorly and nobody addresses it, they notice.

5:08 If employees leave a mess for the next shift and everybody accepts it, they notice. And eventually the new employee starts adapting. That's when something dangerous happens. The organization starts converting the new employee instead of developing them. Think about that. You hired someone because you liked who they were. They had energy. They had potential. They had a good attitude.

5:31 They wanted to learn. And then we put them inside the organization and slowly teach them all of our bad habits. Six months later, leadership says, they're not the same employee we hired. Maybe we should ask what happened to them after we hired them. I think every leader should occasionally look at their workplace through the eyes of someone experiencing it for the first time. Walk through your front door like you've never been there. What do you see? What do you hear? What does the place feel like? How are people talking to each other? What happens when the phone rings? What happens when somebody needs help? What happens when something goes wrong? And pay very close attention to what happens when the leader enters the room. Does anything change?

6:17 Do conversations suddenly stop? Do people become uncomfortable? Or does the leader walk into an environment where people feel comfortable speaking, asking questions, and doing their jobs? Your newest employee doesn't know your history. They don't care that the organization won an award eight years ago. They don't care about the framed mission statement. hanging in the hallway. They're evaluating the organization they joined today. That's actually valuable information for leaders.

6:50 Your newest employee can see things you've become accustomed to. Ask them. After their first week, sit down with them and say, what surprised you? That's a powerful question. And then ask, what was different from what you expected? And then listen carefully. Don't defend the organization or Don't explain every answer. Just listen because somewhere inside their answer might be something your leadership team stopped seeing years ago. Maybe they'll tell you communication feels confusing. Maybe they'll tell you everyone was welcoming. Maybe they'll tell you they received different instructions from different people. Maybe they'll tell you one employee made them feel like they were bothering everyone by asking questions.

7:33 That information is incredibly valuable because you Culture looks different from the inside than it does from the doorway. Your newest employee is standing in the doorway. Use that perspective while you still have it. And there's another part of this that leaders need to think about. Who does your newest employee meet first? Because that person matters. If possible, don't randomly assign your newest employee to whoever happens to be available. Put them with someone who represents what you want the organization to become. someone who follows standards, someone who still cares, someone who understands that the new employee isn't an inconvenience. They're an investment. Your veteran employee might

8:19 be on day 3,000. Your new employee is on day one. Those two people are walking into the same building with completely different energy. The veteran knows where everything is. The new employee doesn't even know where the bathroom is. The veteran knows every shortcut. The new employee doesn't know the correct way yet. The veteran has seen hundreds of ordinary days.

8:43 The new employee might remember this day for the rest of their career. That's why day one deserves leadership attention because first impressions aren't limited to customers. Employees have them too. And those first impressions become in stories. I knew this was a great company when, or I should have known something was wrong when. You don't get to decide which story your employee tells, your culture does. And here's the leadership challenge I want to leave you with today. The next time you hire someone, don't only ask whether they're a good fit for your organization. Ask whether your organization is ready for them. Are your people ready to train them?

9:30 Are your standards actually being followed? Does the workplace they're about to experience match the workplace you described during the interview? Because your newest employee is going to find out very quickly. They're going to see things you've stopped seeing. They're going to hear things you've stopped hearing. And they're going to learn what your organization really values by watching what happens around them. That first impression matters because someday that newest employee becomes the veteran employee and eventually another new employee will walk through the door. Then the question becomes, what will they learn from the person you train today? So your newest employee is isn't only learning the job. They're

10:23 learning who you are. They're learning what exactly matters here. They're learning what gets rewarded, what gets corrected, and what gets ignored. So look at your workplace through their eyes. Sometimes the person who knows the least about your organization can see the most. This has been the 7-Minute Leadership Podcast, and I thank you for listening. For more Paul Falavelito podcasts, visit paulfalavelito.com.