Onboarding in the future

I had a fascinating conversation with Chris Butler earlier in the week. We seem to have a lot in common, not least both knowing the wonderful Nick Drage who pointed us to one another.

One of the things Chris and I have been talking about asynchronously since is a thing that he is working on, a fictional “onboarding manual” that imagines what a new hire would see at an organisation in the mid-term future.

It’s a fascinating technique to imagine what a future world might be like by creating a prosaic artefact.

It gave me a bit of a dystopian vibe, though. Partly I think because I’ve watch too much Black Mirror, but also because things like onboarding manuals I find vaguely dystopian today, let alone in the future.

So, I’ve been wondering what the new hire experience of 20 years from now might look like, and I imagined it in this very first draft conversation.

It’s 2044, and I’m just starting a new role at BlndCo…

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Hey Matt. It’s Verity here from the people team at BlndCo.

Oh hi Verity. How can I help? 

Well I hope I can help you! We are really excited about you starting with us next week. I’ve been reading through your Manual of You and just wanted to give you some pointers so that your first few weeks in your new role are as enjoyable as possible. 

Sounds good! What do I need to know? 

Well, let me step through your Manual of You and give you a few pointers on each section? 

Let’s start off with the Conditions you would like to work in.

We assume you’ll mostly be working from home, but sometimes people want to utilise physical spaces.

You’ll be pleased to hear that we scrapped our open-plan offices a few years ago! The work hubs we use are super-configurable. If you want to organise a space to bring people together to co-work, we can do that with 24 hours’ notice. Just contact the Space team. They can also arrange multi-location events, depending on your team mates’ location. 

The same goes for workshop spaces, too. The team can help you work out what you need when and organise all the logistics to make the most out of face-to-face time. We’ve even got a supply of vintage watercoolers that you can have to gather around. I know that you elders still hold those things in esteem!

That sounds good. Are there any budget concerns that I need to be aware of? 

No. BlndCo is committed to making sure that our people and clients can get the right spaces when needed. 

Now, in your Times I like to work, you’ll be pleased to hear that your teammates will be within 2 hours of your local time zone. We’ve also recently introduced meetingly.io, so you can mix up synchronous and asynchronous time by using your meetingly avatar if you do get times when you can’t be there at the same time as others. The avatar will represent your key points and play back any meeting highlights you need to know. 

Looking at your teammates, the majority are morning people, so that should work well. Keep an eye out for the two Owls, though! Stevie and Jo both prefer working later in the day. 

That’s cool. We recently became grandparents, so there might be some time-shifting as we support our kids getting used to parenthood!

Well, congratulations! I’ll also send you some details of our grandparental leave policy. I know you’re just joining us, but those life events take precedence for BlndCo people. 

Ok. Just going through your section on how you receive feedback. 

We’ve lined up three potential coaches for you to meet for fit next week. The one you choose will then be your coach. You can use your coach as often as you like, but we recommend checking in with them every month. You can choose how much of your working data you reveal to the coach – they’ll talk you through that process in your first full session.

The relationship between you and your coach is entirely confidential. They’re independent of BlndCo.

What’s your experience of coaching been like?

Pretty good. I was wondering if I could continue to work with my existing coach?

For sure! As long as they have up-to-date credentials, we’re happy to allow you to keep your existing coaching relationship. Can you let me know their CSA registration details, and I’ll sort that out for you? You can still meet with the other three if you fancy a change. Think about that, and can you let me know by Friday?

Thank you. I’ll sleep on it.

Right – where next? Oh yes, social and content things. I know that you’re pretty active in writing about work experiences, and that’s obviously one of the reasons why we’ve hired you! I’ll send you a link to our Social and Content Policy. There won’t be any surprises, but we need you to acknowledge the policy explicitly. Let me know if there are any questions and I’ll get those answered as quickly as possible.

I’ll also give you a quick heads-up on the Learning policy. There’s no top limit to time and money on learning activities, but we insist you have at least five days each year on discretionary learning work. The mandatory things don’t count to that total – that’s something that some new hires have misunderstood. Think about some activities you can look to do after your first three months – that’s usually a good time to get some external input after the firehose of new role information.

We’ve got a catalogue of suggestions, but you’re free to find things that interest you that we’ve not picked up on.

That’s good timing. There’s the Speakery 20 summit coming up in September that I’d love to go along to. I’ve been attending since the first one back in 2024!

Book your place; that can be your first experience of the expenses process. It’s not too arduous, but there’s still room for improvement in making the experience as easy as possible for our people.

OK, one last thing. Sorry it’s been a bit of an overload! 

We’ll be arranging a series of coffee meetings for you for your first month. It’s all about getting to know people, and there is no agenda other than to talk. You’ll meet with all of your immediate team members and some key folk from other places in the organisation, too. We’ll also enroll you in the BlndCo Coffee Club. You can opt out if you want, but we continue to be really keen on getting folks to know one another, so by default, you’ll have two coffee meetings scheduled every month.

It appears to be random, but there’s quite a sophisticated algorithm that allocates those coffee meetings to help ensure that our communication paths across the business are as diverse as possible. This is super important when we don’t have the legacy of hierarchy.

So that’s it for now, Matt. Do you have any questions for me?

Erm… Oh, just one thing. Are you an automation?

Ha! No, sorry, I forgot to mention. We do use some bots in BlndCo, but they’re always clearly identified, and we restrict them from conversational interactions as much as possible. We like to know that when you’re talking with someone at BlndCo, you’re actually talking to them!

That’s great, Verity. Can’t wait to start next week!

We all look forward to working with you, Matt. Have a great rest of your week.