Starting a new job or taking on new role within your current workplace can be both exciting and nerve-wracking all at the same time. The improving human performance experts from The Oakridge Centre offer the following tips to make sure your first 100 days are purposeful, meaningful and enjoyable.

1.Ensure you let go of the old role and leave relationships in good shape. 

As the saying goes, try not to burn your bridges. Keeping in touch with colleagues and indeed clients from your old role is beneficial, however, remember you are in a new role now and need to concentrate on your new colleagues and new clients.

2. Get to grips with the culture and politics that surround your new environment so you can navigate your way through these.

Hopefully your new company has a clearly defined, positive organisational culture and is free of office politics. It is always useful to ask your line manager if there are things you should know that might not be specifically detailed in the staff handbook. Examples could include the timing of meetings, when people are in the office if the organisation is a hybrid workplace etc.

3. Identify and agree some quick wins with your manager and then make sure you deliver them!

Whether it is building relationships, making sales, or sorting out a process, quick wins in the first few weeks in a new role make everyone feel confident. If these are quick wins that are part of the organisations long term strategy, then you will have made your positive mark immediately.

4. Identify any obstacles and risks and put a plan in place to deal with these.

What could the challenges be for your first few months in role? Could you be doing something to overcome them e.g. reading reports, receiving training, ahead of your start date to ensure you feel confident and comfortable from your first day?

5. Establish some mutual expectations with your manager for what they expect of you and what they can do to support and get the best from you.

Honest and open communication with your manager will be essential throughout your career and never more so than when starting a new role. Their expectations of you and the help they are able to provide should be laid out clearly and those expectations should also be measurable.

6. Get absolute clarity on what your role is and what the key deliverables are.

Very similar to point 5 however this clarity of your role may involve more stakeholders thant just your manager. What is the overall purpose of your role within the organisational strategy and how will your success contribute to that strategy?

7. Develop your Stakeholder Map and relationship management plan to support your ongoing and future success.

A clear and defined map of key stakeholders and the relationships you will be required to manage will help you define where to concentrate your efforts within your first 100 days. Work with your manager to clarify your map and refer to your map regularly.

8. Spend time getting to know your team and their styles, strengths and limitations.

Teams are made up of individuals, all of whom work in different ways. If the team have been working together for a long time, there will be ‘ways of doing things’ that you will need to discover. If it is a new team, they will all be feeling the same excitement and nerves that you are so spend time explaining your initial aims and objectives.

9. Utilise your support network and the relationships you already have.

Reach out to your contacts for support and suggestions when needed. Do you know someone else who has also recently started a new role? They could be a great sounding board for you as you develop your own ‘personal brand’ within your new organisation.

10. Stay positive and utilise your strengths as it was these that got you the job in the first place!

Remember that the organisation you have joined need you, and your experience and skills. They want you to succeed and to become part of their future success and it is your positive attitude that will be recognised during your first few months within your new role.