Five tips for getting new employees started

November 16, 2006

The anticipation's been building. You've been through the first and second round interviews and the phone rings. As the first day of the new job starts you are excited and ready to go to work.

As much as employees need to take advantage of this situation employers have a lot to gain or lose as well. Several places I've started it's been clear that they just plain weren't ready for me. If the job involves more than flipping hamburgers it's worth spending some time planning out the first days and weeks of a new hire's work with some care.

1. Make the tools available - Nothing is more unsettling than going in to a new company and not having the basics. At the minimum a phone, email and office or cubicle need to be ready to go on day one. Make sure the employee has keys or whatever things are necessary to get in so they can come in early or stay late (which they will often want to do).

On the road once more

November 12, 2006

It says something that I most often find time to blog of late when I'm sitting in the boarding area of an airport. It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks. I did bump into a fellow American Legion Boys' State person at the airport this morning. Thankfully he reported that his party had made an appropriate contribution to our state economy.

I'm afraid, however, that I threw off the statistical process. I was given a yellow card to time how long it takes to go through security. Though I went through about twice as fast as anyone around me.

Ed Bradley (1941-2006)

November 9, 2006

Sad news today of the passing of veteran journalist Ed Bradley. I was fortunate enough to hear Bradley speak at UNLV in the early 90's. Though I had not yet chosen to study journalism he was an absolutely inspirational person. "When it gets to the point where it's not fun anymore, I've always hoped that I would have the courage to say goodbye and walk away from it," Bradley said. Sadly leukemia caught up with Bradley and we are left with memories of this great journalist.

Bradley said of himself "I had had no training as a journalist and I used to listen to the CBS News hourly reports. That was my classroom." A great reminder to all the citizen journalists of the world that it doesn't take a degree and a lot of experience to get into the field. Instead it takes hard work and persistence.

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