As a manager, onboarding a new hire isn’t just about providing manuals and login information, it’s about setting the employee up to operate autonomously in their role and feel comfortable within the organization. To do this, leaders need to emphasize the importance of developing strategic relationships with colleagues across the company who can share critical knowledge, and help contextualize and speed up their learning. There are three keys ways managers can help employees engage in internal networking, and thus boost their productivity, sense of belonging, engagement, and retention: 1) Create a knowledge map that shows who knows what within the company; 2) Create a prioritized networking list of people they should meet and why; and 3) Initiate relationship building to facilitate connections for your new employee.
