Starting a New Job Remotely

Author: Art Markman

You should always be proactive about getting acclimated to a new role. But when you’re starting a job remotely—and won’t work side by side with your new colleagues much or at all—it’s especially imperative that you take initiative in getting up to speed. Here are five things you can do to fill the gaps and minimize the bumps as you make the transition into the new job.

Schedule a Lot of Brief Check-ins with Colleagues

One of the hardest things about starting with a new company is that each organization has a culture of its own. That culture is often made up of unspoken goals and norms and is often wrapped up in a unique language that members of your new team have already learned to speak. In my consulting work, I’ve often been baffled by terms that employees regularly use inside companies but that have no meaning outside it.

You learn these subtle aspects of the workplace through everyday interactions with colleagues, hearing conversations and having discussions about what other people are working on. You pick up on workplace jargon and surmise from these conversations what activities are valued and what styles of work are appreciated.

Under normal circumstances, these interactions are a natural part of being in the office. Now, you’re going to have to manufacture them. Reach out to your new colleagues, and set up 10-to 15-minute one-on-one discussions. These can be by phone or video and shouldn’t be one-offs. Try to meet with your colleagues regularly to mimic the short, informal interactions you’d have in person. Use these conversations to ask questions you may have about your current projects, but make sure to ask people what they are working on too so that they have a chance to describe their work. Pay attention to any implicit statements about what they think is most important.

Rapidly Assemble Your Mentoring Team

Throughout your career, you need a team of people who will mentor you. There are two types of mentors who are particularly important inside your current company. The first is someone who knows how things get done in the firm and can help you navigate the procedures for everything from getting reimbursed for expenses to accessing equipment. The second is a person who is well connected throughout the organization and can introduce you to people you need to know.

Ordinarily, you can afford to develop these relationships slowly. When you start working for a company remotely, though, you want to identify initial candidates to play these roles for you as soon as possible. You can’t just make your way around the office, finding colleagues who might point you in the right direction. Instead, your requests are likely to involve emails or queries on Slack, and those responses can be slow. If you put some good mentors in place quickly, you make it easier to be productive quickly.

However, don’t feel as if you have to commit to having these people as mentors throughout your tenure at the company. The downside to choosing fast is that you may settle on someone who is available but isn’t the perfect fit. As you get to know the organization better, you may choose to reach out to other people to be your guides. But having someone early on is better than having nobody.

Announce Yourself as New

When you start a job in an office, people tend to notice they’re seeing a new face around. And under normal circumstances, you can expect people to introduce themselves and even offer help.

That is not going to happen when you’re the new person in the virtual office. Ideally, your new manager will introduce you, but you’ll most likely “meet” many of your new colleagues as one of a sea of faces in a virtual meeting. That means you need to be more explicit about announcing yourself as the new person in the office. If there is a team meeting, see if you can get a moment to introduce yourself. Also, let people know you’re the new person in forums like Slack and by sending some brief emails to other people in your unit. These steps may be hard if you don’t like to call attention to yourself. But you want to let folks know that you’re new and that you would appreciate their help in getting settled. Many of your colleagues would like to welcome you; they just need more explicit reminders to do so than they might otherwise.

Ask for Help

In the office, colleagues often pick up on a quizzical facial expression or tone of voice and may offer assistance if they think you need it. On video and phone meetings, it will be hard for people to see if you are confused or aren’t keeping up. As a rule, when there is something you need, say so.

You might be worried that your colleagues won’t want to help. After all, everyone has a lot going on. Yet research by Vanessa Bohns and Francis Flynn suggests that people are often much more willing to help than you believe they will be. So, don’t wait for offers of assistance. Ask for what you need.

Keep a Daily Diary

When you’re in the office, it’s easy to take care of problems as they arise. You can often just get up from your desk and find someone to help you solve them. When you’re working at home, if you dash off an email or a note on Slack asking for an answer, your request may get lost in the noise. And if it’s a small issue, you may even forget to follow up.

So end each day by going back through your schedule and making some notes about how things went. Write down the tasks you accomplished and the obstacles you faced. If there are particular issues that are still unresolved, highlight them. Then, when you have your next meeting with a supervisor or a colleague, raise those issues and ask for their perspective.

Your memory for what happens each day is strongest around things that are familiar, normal parts of work. That means that you are the least likely to remember the novel aspects of your new workplace—which are precisely the elements that you need the most help with. Writing down the events of your day while they are still fresh in your mind is a great way to overcome this bias.

It’s never easy being the new person on a team. But by being proactive, you can more smoothly acclimate to the organization and prove your value quickly.

Art Markman is the Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology, Human Dimensions of Organizations, and Marketing and the vice provost for academic affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He has written more than 150 scholarly papers on various topics, including reasoning, decision-making, and motivation. His most recent book is Bring Your Brain to Work (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019).