Onboarding new contract PMs in our work from home (WFH) culture

Interesting discussion.

Its one of the effects of the post-Covid workplace. Teams, especially new additions, will simply not have the required time to integrate well enough in order to contribute effectively. That has to be the key in bringing members up to speed.

At the minimum, I'd imagine team leaders to spend a lot more time in 'agenda free virtual hangouts' with their teams to bond when compared to pre-covid times when employees were in a 'locationed' workplace. Essentially attempting to replace the same process that happened when employees are in an office and all the times they communicate on topics other than work (socialize?).

I would also think the concept of 'teaming' as opposed to 'teams' will get way more common. The idea that when there is simply no time to work with a fully formed team, leaders have to actively develop and build teams while a Project is ongoing. Maybe something to look into. This is something I'm just getting into so cant speak a lot on it just yet.

Hi Peter,
It's true that the WFH has greatly innovated and is innovating work space interactions during this pandemic period. Fortunately or unfortunately for some of us, the Pandemic didn't impact us

Peter -

Given that a PM requires organizational knowledge and relationships to be successful, without active support from existing staff (e.g. a transition time where you and the previous PM work together to have a clean hand off), it might take a few weeks at least.

This isn't to say that someone can't hit the ground running, but the risk of organizational awareness gaps will be much greater if someone hasn't taken the time to attempt to capture this information in an unbiased, coherent manner.

Will hiring managers and their companies provide this "runway"? It depends on a lot of factors including the relative urgency of the project, how close the nearest deadline is and organizational PM maturity.

Kiron

Long post, but I've just gone through this and have been thinking a lot about it.

In a very large organization, I would say on the order of 5 months under the WFH conditions to be effectively performing independently, but with the right organizational assets it could be significantly less. This is assuming a job of significant complexity that requires a highly experienced PM.

Prior to the pandemic. my rule of thumb was about 3 months to be performing at a high level in any new organization, managing complex technical projects. It seems long, but there is a lot to do and learn. The first month, employees are often struggling with administrative issues like server access, timekeeping systems and other items we later take for granted. The employee must then figure out who is who, the organizational culture, and their own job responsibilities as often there is a lack of role clarity. Even the mountain of new acronyms and office jargon take time to figure out.

The onboarding process is much easier if there are written instructions for the administrivia, and people take the time for effective knowledge transfer. In a busy org, the instructions may be out of date, and the incumbent employees may be too busy to spend adequate time with new employees. That's why they were hiring.

Beyond the first month or so, to operate effectively, the new employee has to understand the details of the domain area, and build important relationships. That takes time because it requires exposure. Attending the meetings, reading the documents and plans, having the many side conversations, etc. all take time, but in the right environment, I find that it takes about 3 months to achieve strong performance even for someone with significant experience.

In the WFH environment, I've found it may take significantly longer. It's more difficult to figure out who is who, and their communication styles. The hallway type conversations are less spontaneous. The pandemic also caused huge disruption to many organizations. For these reasons and others, it's harder to learn on the job.

I think with more organizational stability and learning what I have changing jobs under WFH conditions, I would get up to speed faster the next time. I still think it will take longer than under conditions where employees can be co-located with at least some of their critical teammates.