New to the company: How to join the team

After a few applications, you finally have it in your hand: the acceptance for the new job. Without question a reason to be happy. Not without reservation, however, because that also raises the question of how best to join the team. We’ll tell you how to avoid mistakes and give you tips on how to join the new team particularly well.

Team entry: This is how the first time in the new job succeeds

The first time – and especially the first day and week – is a real challenge for most employees. Because now everything is new: New building, new workplace and, of course, new colleagues.

While one can prepare relatively well for the new tasks that come with the new job, this is not the case with colleagues. In short, you as a new employee do not know which colleagues await you and therefore how you can best succeed in joining the team.

Try this:

• Do not have too high expectations: Do not necessarily assume that you will receive your new colleagues exuberantly. It may well be that you have a lot of work to do with an urgent project and your entry is a little behind. But this has nothing to do with you as a person but is due to the current situation. Don’t be disappointed, make the most of it!
• Creating opportunities to get to know each other: Even if it is a stressful situation in which you are joining the team, there is something you can do: Create specific opportunities to get to know your new colleagues. You can do this, for example, by bringing cakes with you to get started and eating them together during your lunch break. Caution: Even if the lunch break is rather informal, you should always maintain a certain professional distance. After all, you are new to the team and should therefore not make mistakes, but let your colleagues act first.
• Be open-minded: Employees who are interested in the company’s topics usually have an easier time joining the team. Questions help encourage colleagues to share their work. This way, you can quickly get into conversation and contribute yourself. Good prerequisites if the team entry should work.
• Stick to agreements: After the first few days in the new job, if you already know a little about the processes, you will be given the first tasks. Here, too, you can prove yourself and lay the foundations for a good start for the team. Make sure you stay true to your promises. There’s no point in making promises you can’t keep just to impress new colleagues. Because that will almost certainly have the opposite effect: You will be viewed critically, and you will no longer be given time-critical tasks shortly.

Entry after training: What should I consider?

Employees who, on the other hand, already know their colleagues and join the company after completing their training, can sometimes be in a difficult position. Because suddenly you are no longer the trainee who can be sent quickly to copy, but a permanent and equal employee in the team. This role change does not always work perfectly. So here are a few tips for this case too:

• Don’t insist on your new role: give your colleagues time to get used to the fact that you are no longer the “errand boy”. Sometimes the changeover takes a while.
• Point out your new role in a friendly manner: After a few weeks, on the other hand, you can already point out that you are now an equal colleague with all rights and obligations and that you have your own tasks that you have to work on. Emergency services are therefore only available as an exception.
• Always stay friendly: Especially when it comes to a topic like joining a team, appreciation is the top priority. Always remember that, in the best-case scenario, you will continue to work with colleagues for several years. You should therefore pay attention to the rules of friendly and appreciative interaction with every response.