How was to start a new job during the isolation
How was to start a new remote position and the onboarding process during COVID-19 lockdown
About a month ago, I was starting a role in Xplor 🚀, my current company. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19, all the processes would need to be remote.
Before start
A day before, I received all the information I needed to begin my day, including a remote work guide and some websites to maintain my mental health while in isolation. 😍
The company uses a tool called BambooHR that made the process smooth. I had all the information that I needed in a task list format with links and even meetings that would be scheduled in the following weeks.
It also provided me information like who my manager is, the documents I submitted to the company, the organization chart, and more things. It made my life a lot easier.
First day of work
Finally, after all the waiting, the time has come, and I was very excited to meet my coworkers and see what was expecting me.
My first day was good, welcoming and I didn’t feel lost as I did on my first day in most of the places that I started. I think that was mostly because I already have a list of recourses provided me via BambooHR and also a card in Trello with a technical list that my team has prepared to me with things to do to set up my machine.
I also had meetings via zoom to know how the team worked, an overview of the company, and values helped me a lot.
First weeks
Part of the first weeks was filled with sessions to know all the different departments of the company and how they worked.
Those sessions were exciting to understand the history behind the company and how things worked.
I also spend some time setting up my machine, where my teammates helped me a lot, and getting used to the code.
Communication
Even remotely, communication has been smooth, in my opinion. We mainly use Slack for a chat with tons of plugins that makes things interesting.
A plugin that worth a mention is Donut. It matches you up with different people in the organization every week, so you have the opportunity to know more about people in your company.
On my first Donut chats, I found that a guy was learning how to fly a real airplane, and someone else also could speak Portuguese. 🤯
Some channels in Slack grasped my attention. Like the channel #pets that you can share a picture of your beloved pet and make everyone’s day a bit better, or the channel #praise where you can recognize your friends at work.
We also use Zoom for conferences, and I have to say that the feature of choosing your background is handy when it comes to hide your boring house and make you appear on an island or even up in space.
FUN FUN FUN
Work remote can be very lonely and tedious, especially if you are starting and don’t know anyone, but I feel like some things help to make it less alone, especially during the isolation.
One of the things that I enjoyed was that we always have some minutes, usually before the stand-ups, to just shit talk about anything. It has been beneficial to get to know the people that I work closely better and have common interests with each other.
Another is the remote company events like the trivia nights or the Fancy Dress Friday, where some of the people get to attend our close week meeting waring themed clothes.
People
Work remote can lead to all sorts of misunderstands and miscommunications. To avoid that, we have zoom meetings to kickoff tickets and also clarify any confusion. I found it beneficial to make sure that everyone is on the same page, especially me, without too much context in what is going on.
Be Humble is one of the values of the company, and it is noticeable that everyone is supportive in all aspects. I need to say that work in a non-political environment without people with huge egos has been amazing.
In short
The situation that we are living in the world now with the COVID-19 is pretty unique, and it has been different from the swine flu or the Zika virus epidemic that affected Brazil in 2015, as far as I remember, with a lot of feelings like anxiety and fear associated to it. Start a new job can add an extra dose of this feeling to it, but with some processes and attitudes like I described above, it can be minimized.
