Once upon a time there were three little starters, all looking for a job. The first little starter was very excited. He had found a job and he was off to his first day at work. He sang as he skipped down the lane. This was a really big day for him. Truth be told, he was a little bit scared as well, but mostly he was excited.
When he arrived, they didn’t seem to know that he was coming that day, but he just thought it was because he was so early. Eventually he was introduced to the other people he would be working with but his boss wasn’t there. She was off doing something no doubt much more important. They found a desk, and some filing to do, and he seemed to end up making quite a lot of coffee for everybody.
On his way home he started to wonder at the difference between his expectations and what the job seemed to involve. They were nice enough people, but they didn’t seem to care or understand how important this job was to him. The next day his boss was there and welcomed him onto the team. They gave him a handbook to read, some brochures about the company products, and some complicated document on the company pension scheme which he didn’t really understand. He did some e-learning on health and safety, although no one seemed to care whether he understood it or not.
He went home that day already wondering if this job really was what he wanted. He was no longer excited about it. The days came and went and he was excited again when he got his first pay packet, but then he was back to work the next day and it just felt like the same daily grind.
As you can guess by now, one day there was a problem, and tensions were high in the office. A storm was blowing through, and he, along with his teammates was expected to dig in and weather the storm. He tried, he really did, but he didn’t seem to have a foundation to dig into. It was as though his job was made of straw, and it just collapsed around him, and he walked out the door without looking back. He told his brothers never to go there because it was not a good place to build.
The second little starter also found a job. On his first day, they had a badge for him at reception and he spent the day with other starters in a classroom being told all about the company. He really felt like he was welcome and people were trying to help. He went home with his head full and spinning with new information. He wasn’t sure what a lot of it meant, but it seemed to be important to the company.
He joined his team and they gave him jobs to do. He had to keep asking for help, but that was okay. All that information from his first day in the classroom faded from his mind because it didn’t really help him with what he was doing from day to day. His teammates were helpful and kind, but after that first day which they called an ‘induction’, he didn’t really get anything else from the company until his first payday. His boss was okay, but he didn’t feel strongly about her one way or the other. He started to understand when one of his teammates said “It’s just a job”.
A couple of storms came and went, and he stuck with the job, but he got little in the way of thanks and certainly got little from the company itself that would make the storms easier to withstand. When the big storm came, he really didn’t have the heart to continue and he left his wooden job and told his brothers that there must be better places to build.
The third little starter found a job and like the others was so excited. When he arrived, his boss was waiting for him in the reception area. She made him very welcome and introduced him to people. She seemed almost as excited as he was about his first day at work. She showed him around the building and then gave him some tasks to do that would help him understand more about the company. She explained the tasks and why they were important and said she would come back later to talk through with him what he had learnt.
The next day she had some more activities for him to do, and all of them helped him to understand the organisation and how he could be a part of it. They had some sort of activity planned for him every day for his first month, and his boss discussed each one with him and told him stories about other people in the company. He really felt like he was becoming a part of it and that he could rely on the company and his boss and his team whenever there was a problem.
Like any other job, the storms came, and even a hurricane, but he had a solid foundation supporting him and he felt like his job was strong and built of bricks. He told his brothers, and they too were lucky enough to get a job at a company that helped people get started in a way that made them feel good about the job and themselves.