Overview: Helping a new employee to the success is important for the growth of the company and the growth of the employee. Here are few basic steps to set a new employee to the success:

Begin with the end in mind: “Begin with the end in mind”, as said by Stephen Covey. The process of setting the goal begins before the hiring process. List out why the company wants to hire a new employee.

Employee’s goals: Before employee joins, set-up the goals for him/her. When writing goals, remember the steps of SMART goals. Means, goals must be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Let’s take a simple example. If your goal is to exercise daily, how you can write the SMART goal for yourself. Below are steps:

• Specific: My goal is specific. I have decided the exercise types for every day.
• Measurable: I will use my smart watch to measure the duration of exercise (30 minutes) and the intensity of it to qualify it as an exercise.
• Achievable: I want to ensure my goal is achievable. It’s reasonable for me to plan for 30 minutes of exercise in the morning. I do want to make it an hour but I am not sure if I can achieve it. Also, if I skip in the morning, for me, it’s difficult to plan for it in the evening. So, morning 30 minutes exercise duration is achievable for me.
• Relevant: I want to ensure my goal is relevant. As per the CDC, it’s important for adults to exercise. CDC has recommended guidelines and the weekly limits for the exercise routines. So, my goal of 30 minutes exercise daily is relevant.
• Time-bound: My goal is to exercise 30 minutes daily between 7 AM and 8 AM. This goal is time-bound.

Training plan: Employee must be clear about the training plan. It should be well written with the success criteria of the first day, first week, and further. It should be clear who will provide the training, what is the expectation from the trainer, and what’s the expectation from the employee. The key to success is to avoid assumptions and document the success criteria.

Cultural understanding: Helping a new employee to learn the company culture is equally important. Plan how you can help a new employee to learn the company’s culture. There are different ways to do it. Some common options are: company specific documentation, cultural training plans, mentoring plan, or a colleague to help the employee. It’s equally important to check-in with the employee about his/her collaboration with the colleagues.

Many other areas: there are many other aspects that are not covered here. For example, employee’s well-being plan, initial set-ups, etc. Help new employee to check-in on all these steps.

Periodic sync-ups: Let the employee know the frequency of sync-up meetings and the expectations of these meetings. Do you want him/her to prepare any details before the meeting? Does he/she know the next step?

Stay flexible: What if the goal change? Stay flexible to make the necessary adjustments to it.

Conclusion: Helping a new employee to the success is important to the company’s success and the success of the employee for his/her own career growth. We all are human and we all want to do the best of our abilities. These shared steps are very basic. Depending on the company size and company culture, these steps might vary. Planning and executing the defined steps will lead an employee to the success for himself/herself and to the company. I am eager to know your thoughts about it.

Are you living a break-free life? Are you living your dreams? Are you doing the things that you want to do? Are you in a job or in a situation you wanted to be in? Are you doing the things that are natural to you? In such a busy life, do you rarely get time to be a human who can pause, relax, and think about life? Or, are you a robot, with a fixed mindset to accomplish some pre-determined goals because not doing so will make you look odd to yourself, your family, friends, and so-called-society? If you are already living the life you always wanted to be, this article is not for you. If you are not, read ahead.

How can you really live a break-free life in that you don’t HAVE to do certain things just because everyone says it is the right way to do so? Let’s look at just three basic steps to live a break-free life:

Step 1: Do you know who you want to be?

1. Your childhood dreams: what you wanted to be as a child?
2. Your wishful future image of yourself: do you carry a bag of strong desires with an image of you, being you one day? What does that image look like? Perhaps you have words to describe it. Or, perhaps you do not. Let’s introspect deeper. How would your life be if you were the person who you always wanted to be?
3. What are things you don’t want to do: Have you noticed any tasks that are energy drainer to you? Have you noticed what makes you think to let the moment just pass somehow? For example, waiting for 5 PM and I am out of this <#adfdkfjdkfj#> place.

Step 2: Do you know what is stopping you?

What is stopping you today, to live the life you want to live? Is it one or all of below:

1. Fear of rejections by yourself and others around you?
2. Fear of failure to achieve what you want to achieve?
3. Fear of losing what you have?
4. Not confident in your ability to start becoming you?
5. Not knowing from where to start becoming you?

Step 3: How can you navigate to next steps?

With a great sorrow in your eyes, on your deathbed, do you want to let others know how they can live a break-free life? Or, do you want to look at the sky with open arms and say it loudly to yourself, “yes, I can dare to live the life I imagined?” To be a person you wanted to be, what if we look at a step-by-step journey:

1. As-is and to-be image: What if you write how you are living now and how you wish to live?
2. One step at a time: What if you take just one step to live how you want to really live? Not two, just one step. And, it is a lot. It is a big deal to be a more courageous person. It means pushing yourself out of your fear zone. Just one step. What is stopping you to move one step towards the life you always wanted to live? Is it your list of fears from Step 2 ? I do agree it will. As it is just one step challenge of a change, can you dare just for one step? The good news is that you are planning just one step towards becoming you. You can move back anytime. If you have 100% time devoted to your existing life situation, what if you decide to change just 1 % of it to be what you always wanted to be? 1% is roughly 15 minutes a day (to be precise, it is 14.4 minutes a day). That is 105 minutes a week and 7.5 hours a month. For example, if you are interested in writing, what if you write just 15 minutes a day?
3. What’s next: Review your life after a week and after a month. Did the sky fall as you changed 1% to being you? Did you notice a change in you? Did you enjoy your challenge? If yes, what if you increase it to 2% from next month? And, one day, what if it becomes 100% the way you want your life to be?

As George Reeves said, “you can if you think you can.”