3 Preparing to start your new job

Hi, my name's Ploy. I work for iungo Solutions. And I'm their Human Resources and Recruitment Executive. So iungo is a start-up creative technologies company in south Wales. We design and build immersive learning within Workplace 4.0.

I would define Workplace 4.0 as immersive learning, so a lot of technology based within manufacturing, engineering, and industries alike. So we design virtual reality courses that can be used for multiple, instead of the traditional training day. So we do all our courses like that. We've partnered with different colleges to design courses within expectations and customisable of the new industry for that's coming into play.

What we do in the company is really well. So there isn't a set time that we need to come in, so we have our core hours, which will normally have our main touchpoints and meetings. But I think it's just the perception of not having that. We don't really micromanage. We don't – there isn't a check in, you know, like the traditional office where you where you check in your time, there's a timesheet. There's nothing like that.

I remember being in my little office at home because we were digitally native, so we didn't have an office space back then. So it was it was strange. I didn't really know what to do when I – we're very flexible, so we don't have a time where we say, oh, this is the time that we start and we expect you to be online. So I think that aspect was quite new, so I chose a time. And I didn't really know at the time, we were a team of 10, now we're a team of 20. So it was definitely strange. I was a bit confused before we had our daily meetings. But after that, it was quite clear of what my responsibilities were for the day, for the week. And then having daily touchpoints with my manager was really helpful. So we used WhatsApp quite a bit, so that informal communication really built up our relationship and it was quite easy, first day, overall.

So my onboarding experience started right after I signed the contract. Depending on the immediate starts, we normally give – we normally like to have one to two formal chats with the new starter. So for me, I had one chat with the CEO and my manager. We had to chat about the employment contract, any questions I had, and they run through with what the company was, what they stand for, and their beliefs, their the missions. And I had a more in-depth chat with my manager. We had a lot of – we had a lot of common things within our personalities. So it was quite nice to go into my first day knowing my manager was there. I had her phone number if I needed to call her. Everything was set up through WhatsApp for informal communication. All of my formal communications, like my Gmail and stuff, was already set up, so I had already, before I even started, built a network with my team before I even met them.

So you behave differently online compared to your way – from your personal life to your work life. So you will have to conduct yourself in a in a way whether it be electronically on emails or like in meetings, so you just familiarise yourself with that. Conduct yourself accordingly to your corporate policies and guidelines. Obviously, when you are at home in your own space, you can do whatever you want, so there are some restrictions probably depending on your corporate and your organisation. So I'd say that's the main difference, is a little bit limited to what you do, but you should try to follow an organisation that at least you can have a sense of self working there, rather than being completely different person.

The main things that you'd need to consider while working remotely I think are your environment and your equipment. So in terms of your equipment, you need to make sure that you have all the necessary equipment, such as your laptop, any tablets, or any extra screens that you might need to help you work a bit better, and your headphones if you're working outside the office, making sure that your, all of your software is up to date to prevent any cyber attacks.

In terms of your environment, if you're working remotely, depending on your home situation, you might be lucky enough to have an office. I say decorate it how you want. Because at the end of the day, it is your home. You need to feel relaxed, motivated. So just put a lot of customisation into it. I would make sure that, you know, to be respectful. Because depending on what your background is, just be respectful of your colleagues as they'll see you on camera, or at least we tend to just to gauge more in terms of meetings, and teamwork, and that.

The experience of working remotely and in the office are completely different. I think when people say, when people hear that you work remotely or you work flexible, they're very – they're like, oh, you know, you have such an easy life. I have to go into the office every day. And they don’t, they fail to see that it is quite isolating working from home. It's lucky enough that we have daily touch points, so we get to see the team's face at least, even though it's digitally. So it can be quite isolating at times, if you don't have any of the meetings or the touchpoints.

So you know when you're working from home, you haven't got the luxury of like looking over the shoulder in an office and saying, hey, can you help me with this? Or you know, I've got this paperwork – at least in my department anyways – I got this paperwork that I need you to fill in, can you please fill it in now? I know you got five.

So, yeah, it's when we are in the office, I definitely take advantage of those if I need any paperwork from anyone, or if I need to speak to anyone privately, or sensitive information. I tend to use that as – you know, scheduling meetings and stuff can be a bit – depending on their day can be a bit daunting as they've got, you know, five or six meetings that day. You can't really squeeze it in. So it's quite good to see them in the office and having that human contact, shall we say.

Working in HR, I find it easier working in the office from time to time. As I think when I send out a mass email about a certain topic or if I send out contract renewals and stuff, and depending on that person, if they do get a lot of emails, it can get filtered down quite easily, depending on their role. So I like working here as I can just remind them like, hey, I’ve got this. I need you to fill out. Or, I find working collaboratively is much easier, as well, especially if you've got like a whiteboard and paper.

We have what we call a Jamboard on Google that we use quite a bit. But it's quite different working from the office. You can see and bounce ideas off each other. And it's much easier to do collaborative work in the office than online. I find, at least.

I’d say the advantages is that due to some of the nature of my role in HR, I find that I deal a lot with confidential information and quite sensitive information. So working from home, I don't have to worry about it, you know, another team member walking past to look at over my screen and stuff like that. So I do find it much easier in terms of like collecting documents, drafting up those confidential documents before they're released. It's much easier at home because I haven't got to worry about those sort of issues.

I think in the future, the world of work is going to be a bit different from what you'd imagine. So I think a lot of people would say it would be quite technology based and I do believe in that. I think that there will be a lot of work in terms of the people that run those computers, robots, or the AI and stuff. So I think it will be quite flexible and hybrid working, at least much more of it.

I think – I hope that hybrid working will eliminate the traditional 9 to 5 that we have. I think there's going to be a higher level of healthy work–life balance, and just people who enjoy their roles. I think the idea of the traditional 9 to 5 is slowly going out the window as people learn that there's more in life than the work. So I think it's definitely going to be quite hybrid and flexible in terms of that at least.

So I see a lot of large corporates still doing hybrid, even though COVID has, I think has kind of dissolved as much – it's how much influence these days. So a lot of people are still working from home. A lot of people have transitioned, so maybe like 25% of the time in the office, or like 50% of the time. So I see a lot of – or I've heard a lot of corporate companies shutting down some parts, for example, if they hired three floors, they're now only hiring one. And they give the options to their employees to come into the office and book out timeslots, if they wish to.

I think us as a generation – I think the new generation coming into the workplace next really expects more than the traditional 9 to 5. So they understand now that there are more ways of making money and gaining financial stability than working in an office job, a desk job from like 9 to 5, where they can work flexibly. They can have a better work/life balance. They can work less but still making the same amount of money, or they can, you know, not travel for 2 hours at a time to commute back and forth to work. And I think it really has become an expectation now, rather than a perk or a benefit of not going into the office.

My first day of work was an induction day. It was a group meeting with myself, two of the new starters, and our HR lady, Ploy. She sort of gave us an introduction to the company, what we do, introduced us to each other, so we have people to speak to that joined the same time that we did. And then after that, I had a meeting with my manager, who sort of went through what my role would be in the company, what I would be doing, explained what the current project was that we were working on, and also sort of who I can speak to if I needed help or assistance with anything.

Then we had a group meeting with everybody across the companies because iungo was, well, quite small when I started. There wasn't that many people. But it was a group meeting just to get us all introduced to each other. And so I can familiarise myself with everyone. And it was like, sort of, if you have any questions, you can ask anybody. And they'd be willing to help.

And so the onboarding experience was pretty good. We got the information about the company itself. We got the employee handbook and just sort of relevant information about the role itself. We also got told who we can go to if we need help or support, the different emails that we would need for different contact information.

When working from home, it's important to have a specific area where you're going to work from. So I took an empty room in my house and made it into an office. I put a desk in there, my laptop, and a desk chair. And I used that specifically for work, so that I can separate my work life from my, you know, my regular life, I guess.

It's important to create a plan as well of your day when you're working from home, just to make sure you're taking your breaks at the right time. And you're working, you know, your full contracted hours without then going over that time as well. It's also important to not procrastinate and just do the work that you're supposed to do and not think, oh, I'll do that later, or I can do that later. But then you don't actually end up doing it. And then you're rushed to reach deadlines and things like that.

But it's important to also, you know, take time out of your workday to maybe go for a walk to stretch your legs, do something, because you're sitting for hours at a time with your computer. And so it's important to actually, you know, sit back, take a break, and just go from there.

All of our meetings are done via Google Teams. So you have to be able to have the knowledge of, I guess, how to navigate that, and also how to communicate with everybody online. So as opposed to in-person, where you can just speak to someone face to face, it’s more how to write those professional emails and how to set up those meetings with other members of the team.

There's also different applications that are used within iungo, especially within the tech team, that when I started, I actually wasn't familiar with, things like GitHub and the coding studio that we use. So it was quite daunting when I first started because I wasn't actually aware how to use those. But I think with any job, you'll be – if you aren't familiar with something, you can just ask and people will be able to help you. And they're more than happy to help you. So that you can develop those skills and use all of the programs that they require you to use.

Working from the office is actually a lot different from working from home. So we come into the office once a week. And I feel like when I'm in the office – well, when we first started coming to the office, I was much more productive at the office compared to how I was at home. And that was because I knew that there were other people around me that were working. And so I, therefore, also had to work.

But we did end up changing the structure actually of the meetings that we were having, so that we were having daily meetings instead. And with those daily meetings then, because you had to show your progress and sort of say what exactly what you've been doing, even when working from home, there was someone still checking up on you. So I guess with that, I became more disciplined with the work that I was doing. I made sure I set myself achievable daily tasks. So they were similar to what would be done at the office, but I could achieve those at home.

Another thing that is different to working from the office is obviously that you're by yourself, so there's not other people working with you. And it's different. And the fact that if you need help with something, you can't just go to the next room and speak to someone or, you know, ask for help from the person sitting next to you. So you do actually have to, you know, email someone or set up a meeting. So it does take longer for someone to get back to you with things that you need help, but you have to learn to be patient and you'll get those answers that you need.