1st Year on the Job
Make a Great Impression in First Year of Your New Job
And Then Keep Advancing in Future Years on Your Job
This is a recommended priority list for your first year on the job with insights for every year thereafter.
Know and understand your organizational operating goals
Your overall goal is to work on the issues that matter to your company, your supervisor, and your promotion potential beginning the first day and continuing throughout the year. Those key issues are:
- Help your colleagues, coworkers, subordinates, and superiors to be more effective in what they do, while learning how to be a top contributor.
- Build strong relationships with stakeholders including clients/customers, organizational owners, suppliers, members of the board of directors, and communities in which the business operates.
- Find ways to make more money: increase business demand, improve products, increase profit margins, and make more sales.
- Determine ways to save money:
- Decrease logistics costs (vehicle usage, shipping, packaging, unnecessary expediting, more efficient loads, etc.). Logistics are major expenses with major cost saving opportunities.
- Save money spent on supplies. Cut waste. Use less expensive office supplies.
- Produce more efficiently to provide more output per hour spent.
- Opt toward frugal rather than lavish in entertaining and meeting expenses.
Look and act the role of your supervisor’s best subordinate
- Determine what motivates you in developing your plan.
- Dress to look at least as good as your supervisor’s boss.
- Arrive at least 15 minutes before the workday starts. Leave later than your supervisor leaves.
- Make your lunch hour last 10 minutes less than the time allowed. Whenever possible, leave your office for lunch, preferably with coworkers, subordinates, supervisors, or clients.
- Make certain that your subordinates understand your priorities for them including attire, working time, and behavior minimally meeting all organizational standards.
Steps to take before you report to work on day #1
- Purchase a notebook for you to keep your new job business plan and accomplishments. Purchase an extra annual calendar to keep track of all key accomplishments and actions taken. Use this calendar. Keep track of colleagues assisted, relationships strengthened, money earned, and money saved. Also use the calendar to set your long-term priorities for use every week.
- Research all information about the company.
- Check the Internet, review the company mission statement,
- Look at the company annual report, review any materials your new boss has suggested,
- Learn the names of key officers and what they do,
- Know what activities the company does,
- Ask best friends and neighbors what they know about the company,
- Check newspaper or magazine reports, and everything else that you can do to learn about the company character.
During New Job Day #1
- Thank your supervisor for confidence regarding your capability to do the job.
- Find out the job requirements from the human resources department at the beginning of your work. Study the list of requirements.
- Ask your supervisor to lunch on your first day or an alternative early day on the job to establish a cordial teamwork environment. You promise to protect your supervisor while guiding your supervisor in helping to position you so that you both advance
- Ask your supervisor for advice on priorities that you should do immediately.
- Are there any particular issues that need to be addressed now?
- Ask which people you should meet and how you should relate with these people.
- What is the supervisor’s advice about protocol for you in making the best impression to the supervisor’s colleagues and supervisors?
- What are your supervisor’s highest priorities?
- Will the supervisor invite you to join with him or her in meetings?
- Are there any particular pitfalls or political issues that you will be facing?
- After you feel comfortable, suggest that you will position yourself as the employee who will loyal to your supervisor regardless of the situation, good or bad.
- You always try to do the right thing.
- All things being equal, you will make decisions that will result in your making your supervisor look better, you always take that direction.
- Furthermore, you will keep them informed about any issues that you feel will affect the supervisor.
- Request that the supervisor will always keep you informed about issues that you should address.
- Indicate your desire to act with the supervisor as a colleague so that both of you perform as a highly professional team together.
New Job Week #1
- Plan the beginning of your week each week on Monday during the first 15 minutes.
- Develop an action plan which you will keep.
- You should include both short-term objectives and long-term goals.
- Be creative and take appropriate risks to serve the needs of your boss, your department, and your company. If ever in doubt, meet with the boss in his or her office for a few minutes and share your ideas. Make sure the boss believes in your direction if there is ever a question.
- Take the initiative in studying issues that you believe affects your boss and his operating plan.
- Take the last 30 minutes every Friday to summarize your weekly accomplishments and determine your highest priorities for you beginning work next week.
New Job Month #1
- Ask for your boss’s advice on the best person to help you get organized and acclimated into the company. Ask that person for priority list of key people both within the department and outside the department that you should get to know.
- Begin building relationships with company colleagues, clients, prospective customers, and suppliers as appropriate.
- Attend all meetings as approved by your supervisor and keep detailed notes. Participate in meetings as asked. At the beginning spend more time listening and less time talking with a primary goal of learning how the organization works and what is most important for your boss and his boss. Continue to take notes in all meetings and outline who said what.
- Begin looking for opportunities to help make money, save money, assist coworkers, and serve stakeholders. Meeting outcomes are valuable for this purpose.
- Be sure to start every week with an action list and end every week with a summary of accomplishments. If you fail to achieve planned accomplishments, make sure they are at the top of your priority list for the next week.
- Arrange to meet with your boss at least a minimum of 10 minutes each week to review your priorities and your accomplishments. Summarize the 10 minute meeting items in your notebook every week.
New Job Month #2
- Prioritize your month for key short-term items and long-term items. Share your priority list with your supervisor, gaining his insights, suggestions, concurrence, and advice.
- Focus each week in making key accomplishments in areas in which you have control or the opportunity to contribute particularly focusing on additional revenues, profits, saving expenses, assisting coworkers, and contributing to the needs of stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, company owners, stockholders, and/or the community.
- Propose a plan or promotion to focus on one of the four key areas. Present the plan to your boss, secure approval, secure budgeting as needed, and set an action plan and timetable for each item component.
- Begin working on the plan.
- Place particular emphasis on long term plans. Projects that are important but not urgent have a two edged sword. Being not urgent means they tend to be over-looked. Being important means they are vital for your advancement.
- Start on your organizational professional development plan. Learn how to add something to your effectiveness. Consider taking a workshop or course to improve your skills.
- Keep your boss posted on your progress with a minimum of 10 minutes each week. Never quit doing this, no matter what.
New Job Month #3
- Propose a meeting to your boss for your boss’s direct reports and his close colleagues to have a brainstorming session on contributions the department could make to help higher-level executives and the company to improve revenues, profits, save money, improve employee effectiveness, or contribute to stakeholders’ needs. Secure his conceptual concurrence.
- Establish a meeting agenda for all team members. Take the agenda for each of your team members and ask them for any ideas that they might want to be included on the agenda were deleted. Determine what kind of meeting materials you need. Then schedule the meeting. Advise all colleagues of the meeting date and time.
- Lead the meeting, have someone take minutes, and record the meeting’s accomplishments. Recommend a follow-up of meeting conclusions in another within 14 days.
- Conduct a follow-up meeting and determine action plans. There might be one action plan each for increasing revenues, increasing profits, reducing expenses, helping one another to be more effective, and serving stakeholders.
New Job Each quarter of year # 1 and future years: Conduct quarterly reviews with subordinates, supervisor, and senior management with boss approval.
- At the beginning of each quarter summarize what happened in the previous quarter.
- Document each accomplishment using the S T A R acronym.
- What was the situation?
- What was the task?
- What actions were taken?
- What was the result?
- Outline work in process on existing projects and tasks.
- Is the situation the same as it was originally defined?
- What results have been accomplished to date?
- What is the expected or revised timetable?
- What new actions are needed?
- Who will do the needed actions?
- Determine new projects and tasks that should be undertaken.
- Work with your supervisor to review the previous quarter activities and accomplishments.
- Conduct your personal appraisal outlining all projects undertaken using the STAR acronym: Situation, Task, Action, and Results.
- Conduct appraisals for all of your direct reports.
- What did each person accomplish?
- What strengths were shown?
- What improvements are needed?
- Is a promotion justified?
- Should there be a warning, demotion, or dismissal?
- What plans are needed to achieve needed improvements?
- What development opportunities can you identify?
- Request annual performance evaluation from your supervisor if one has not been scheduled within one month of your employment anniversary or typical time of year that appraisals are conducted.
- Offer to share your self-evaluation.
- Be certain to outline your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
- What are your development needs?
- What should you be working on for your highest priorities in the next year?
- What kind of development can you pursue?
- What is your opportunity for promotion?
- Develop your conclusion: Have you performed successfully in your role of serving your supervisor’s needs?
- Identify changes needed and make the changes.
- Continue and improve activities that work.
- Plan for promotion within a maximum of 30 months on the job. If you do not face imminent promotion within two and one half years with a company or in a position, look for new employment.
- Consider the value of changing employers at four or five years on the job for maximum upside career potential.
- Contact a career coach for guidance in moving your career forward or getting it back on track.
- Ask for the supervisor’s insights about the accomplishments and priorities for next steps.
- If appropriate, recommend meeting with your boss’s leadership to summarize accomplishments and next steps.
- Conduct an informal appraisal of each of your direct reports, outlining strengths and weaknesses and recommend training for improvement opportunities.
- Schedule a new quarterly brainstorming meeting with the team to review accomplishments, work in process, and thinking for new projects.
New Job and future year annual reviews
Second year and subsequent years on the job:
Contact the Career Coach Online for more information
