Inviting someone new to join your team if only half of the story. the second part is connecting them in a way they helps them feel at home, comfortable and free to talk about how they are feeling within the team. Below are three basic steps in helping someone new find their feet in a new role.

How to help new team members find their feet:

1. Classic leadership 101

• First, do the role while they watch and ask questions
• The second time do it together
• The third time allow them to do the role while you watch

While this three-part process is ideal, sometimes this just can’t happen. The main thing is people feel supported, appreciated and know they are not locked into anything.

2. Re-Assess

How has the initial involvement gone? Do they want to be involved in the future? Talk about frequency, commitment level and expectation then talk through the extra details eg. rostering system or any other processes or reports needed to function in the role.

If the team you are building is new and it doesn’t have a rostering system or set roles and responsibilities, yet then this next step might differ. When establishing a new team, it doesn’t hurt to begin gathering people with a common goal and let it be a free for all while seeing where people naturally find their focus. From there you can begin talking about roles and working together to come up with a plan.

3. Set them up to win and keep the conversations going

If everyone is happy to move forward then show the person how the roster works, where the team meets, who do go to if there is a problem etc. Then keep the conversation open.

I hope this helps and I’d love to hear how you go.