March 7, 2024
Whether it’s your first day in the field or your thousandth, we’ve all experienced this: you walk in the door, and you’re instantly hit by an avalanche of acronyms. The WIS+RPO meeting is at 3pm. Don’t forget to email about the PPDs. And did anyone remember to tell the MSs about the budget update?
You’re in a foreign land. But worse, everyone’s acting like you should already know the language. Staffers wear the shorthand like a badge of honor, and no one stops to tell you what’s going on. And so, you decide it must be you and spend the next days and weeks working like Sherlock to decipher what on earth is going on (while trying to look like you’re in the know). There’s frankly no faster way to make someone feel like the new kid. And if it happened to you, then it’s happening to your new staff.
It’s time to make it stop. Here are our top practical best practices to ensuring your staff is in the know from day one:
Acknowledge Your Secret: Mention, from day one, that you have what you know is a strange secret language, and that folks should always feel free to ask if they have questions. You’ll shortcut that ‘outsider’ feeling and make it ok to ask for clarity.
Don’t be the Cool Kid: If you use an acronym with a new employee, define it. Don’t ask if they know what it means; you may get an awkward “of course I do” to save face. Instead, just share the meaning. And then reassure them that there’s a learning curve and they should feel free to ask if they need.
Make a Cheat Sheet: Add every phrase, acronym, and shorthand, even the ones that “everyone knows.” Put it on a shared spreadsheet and create space for folks to add and ask questions.
Don’t Assume: The hardest acronyms are the ones that name a group of staffers or constituents. If you have an Ops Team and an O-Team, don’t assume people will automatically know that the first manages facilities and the second runs administrative operations. Make sure everyone can easily find out more about both the team’s purpose and the names of the humans in each group.
Onboarding is hard enough, don’t also make it a cryptic puzzle. With this approach everyone will feel at home and in the loop from the get-go, making the whole 'joining a new team' experience a lot less daunting and a lot more welcoming.
