A Stranger Walked Up A Hill And Came Down A Wolf

When you join Goram & Vincent you automatically become part of our Wolf Pack.

“For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.”

-Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)

Our motto comes from the Jungle Book. Together we are a Wolf Pack, we nurture, and support and challenge and push each other and ourselves.

A few Wednesdays ago we took a new starter up a mountain… no this wasn’t a horrible initiation but an opportunity to meet our newest member of the team doing something out of the ordinary.

It’s a brave thing to say yes to – you’ve not done a day’s work with the company, having only met once online and once in person for 1h at a time. To go on 2 trains, and a minibus up – what turned out to be more challenging than we expected – stroll up a hill. WITH 9 OTHER PEOPLE YOU DON’T KNOW YET. Fair play to Jon. I’m not sure I’d be brave enough.

The merits of this unusual start to working at our company have paid off. I’d like to think Jon entered our building on day 1 with more of a swagger and a ‘howdy doody’ than he would have if his first day was indeed his first day. The speed at which Jon has settled and got to know the team has been immense. He’s seen us at our sweatiest, our giant flying bugs freak out and our questionable use of the Baywatch soundtrack to motivate us up the mountain.

The shortcut to onboarding a new starter this way works both ways; we as a team get to know the new starter much sooner and can start having real conversations sooner. The new starter hopefully feels much more confident about the culture of the company they are joining and is more familiar with their new colleagues.

Onboarding doesn’t start on Day 1. Introducing the culture and ethos of a company starts from the job ad, through to their 3 month probation 121 (and beyond).

62% of companies with effective onboarding programs have a higher time-to-productivity ratio and a 54% increase in employee engagement.

(Source: Northpass)

Effective onboarding programs are essential to employee engagement and employees are more productive and settle much quicker. We were lucky our team building day fell a week before Jon started. This has happened on numerous occasions in Goram & Vincent’s history, with first aid courses and Christmas parties as Day 1 or even prior to working at Goram & Vincent. All of which had notable, positive and accelerated settling in periods.

To the extent where I believe that from now on, where possible, part of our onboarding process will be… I don’t know what, but something out of the ordinary.