Talent Team – New Hire – Mentoring Program - Aibō - Buddy - 相棒

Glossary: Aibō - Buddy - 相棒and Mentī – New Hire - メンティー

Introduction

The Need

So much is unknown when an employee begins a new position. When one has a brick and mortar location to go to work on their first day, the employee often has a trainer either in an official capacity or assigned a co-worker buddyor Aibō to show the new employee the job, help them become familiar with the company, policies, procedures, and teams. More importantly, it is a first relationship built in the workplace. In a virtual workplace, with a strong reliance on virtual communication such as email, chat features, phone calls, and wiki pages communication exists, but relationships do not happen as readily. While these have value in the workplace, it takes time to know who to contact and if one really should contact that person. Upon hiring in a virtual setting, a group of new hires can connect with other new hires, and while that is a good thing, it does not help the individual trying to understand what others in their training class do not know either. What Lifebushido needs is a mentor,buddy, or Aibō that makes contact on that first day when the New Hire -Mentīreceives the email from Steve.

The Solution

Having someone walk a New Hire through the process provides an immediate sense of community within LIfebushido. Someone can answer questions, provide encouragement, guidance, and be the face of the company while the New Hire is completing the initial tasks. Having the Aibō with Lifebushido for a few months, possibly just after completing their first 30 days with the company, when the tasks and New Hire feelings are recent will provide a natural bonding moment to occur.

Ideally, the buddy orAibō would have an appreciation for the confusing and complex time of the first days as a new hire. When a new hire - Mentī looks at the checklist, the requirements for completing their New Hire tasks or orientation as it is, getting familiar with the wiki pages, figuring out the team or teams to work on, and just feeling comfortable with the adventure they will take on as a New Hire, it can get overwhelming. Having a person to talk to about their New Hire experience, who understands the process intimately as they too underwent the process is critical in the early success of the New Hire. When an individual begins the New Hire tasks in addition to training with a team or teams, there are a number of trainers, mentors, assistant team leaders, and team leaders involved in the process. That too can overwhelm someone and they need a sounding board to work through these emotions, feelings, and tasks ahead of them. This buddy would walk them through the first days and tapers off the amount of time spent being their buddy as the New Hire joins a triangle, receives a mentor from their team, and begins building relationships within their teams and with other teams they work with regularly. The ideal situation is one where the Aibō becomes friends with the New Hire and a solid relationship built during this time that lasts throughout their time with Lifebushido.

Program Details

The Aibō program provides the New Hire process an added level of support to the New Hire. It is in no way a replacement for the currently established mentoring relationships, triangles, and training programs.

Who are the Aibōs

The Aibō program is a part of the Newshido tasks to complete and begun before completing their 100 hours for eligibility to Ishido status. The goal of the program is to build a sense of community and this provides the opportunity for the Newshido to give back to Lifebushido. Additionally, the Aibō program provides the Newshido experience in becoming a mentor to others as their future roles and responsibilities require.

Aibō Role

  • The Aibō will act as a guide through the beginning stages of Lifebushido.
  • The contact between Aibō and New Hire begins when the New Hire sends their acceptance of the job offer via email.
  • Once receiving acceptance, the assigned Aibō will reach out to them via email to their assigned New Hire and CC (talent team, Newshido?).
  • The Aibō will send their email address and preferred method of contact: home phone, business phone, cell phone, google talk, aim, yahoo along with their preferred times to contact
  • The Aibō will set boundaries as to how much time, how often, and so on with the New Hire. The Aibō is responsible to setting, communicating, and maintaining the boundaries.
  • The Aibō will have a minimum of two contacts the first week during the New Hire’s first month for 8 to 10 contacts depending on the length/weeks in a month. The number of contacts depends on the type of contact one chooses.
  • Contacts include phone, email, and chat.
  • The initial email contact does not count towards the weekly minimum the first week. The initial email is a quick email introducing yourself and providing the basic contact information.
  • Billing is described later in the program details.

Mentī Role

  • Respond to the Aibō’s initial email
  • Provide the Aibō preferred contact information, best time to communicate, and best manner of communication.
  • Prepare for the communication - have questions ready, documents handy, wiki pages up, and similar items to make the call efficient.
  • Communicate with the Aibō before a scheduled contact if the contact if unable to make the contact

What Makes a Good Aibō – Mentī Relationship

Any relationship, no matter the source requires open and honest communication, a willingness to teach and learn, respect for other’s time, consideration to one’s position, feelings, and differences, and transparency. The Aibō and Mentī do not have to have similar personalities to have a good Aibō relationship. The commonality of understanding the New Hire process has more of an influence on the development of the relationship rather than the personality type of the other person.

Common characteristics of both Aibō and Mentī found in successful relationships:

  • Approachable
  • Easy to talk to
  • Knowledgeable
  • Responds in a reasonable time
  • Completes tasks/requests as promised
  • Accepts responsibility
  • Moves the conversation along
  • Has energy and desire to complete the Aibō and Mentī program

Length of Program

The length of the Aibō program is for 30 – 60 days. This will take the New Hire through their first two months with Lifebushiso. The intent is that the Aibō and Mentī relationship supports the New Hire during the first month and builds a sense of community within Lifebushido. The intent is that the Aibō could anticipating spending 1 hour billable per Menti. Anything over the 1 hour is volunteered and not billable. The New Hire process should not take more than 5-10 hours to complete. The Newshido tasks will vary some. The whole point of this is to establish a relationship and help the New Hire through the process.The Aibō’s role will taper as the month ends, but the hope is that a friendship will replace the Aibō and Mentī role. As the New Hire joins teams and begins work, the two will run across each other in their working relationship, just another layer of a sense of community within Lifebushido. The manner in which the New Hire process is set up allows him or her to become involved in a triangle, joins teams, and assigned mentors. However, this takes time to do and in the meantime, the New Hire has a support system in addition to the New Hire Team.

The Breakdown of the Aibō Program

30 minutes – Contact 1 – Initial Contact – Meet New Hire and go over the New Hire process

15 minutes – Contact 2 – Follow up with New Hire regarding any questions

15 minutes – Contact 3 – Contacts in general to answer any questions

15 minutes – Contact 4 – Review Newshido steps

15 minutes – Contact 5 – Contacts in general to answer any questions

Goal of the Aibō Program

The goal of the Aibō program is simple, to build a sense of community with the New Hires to improve the rate of successful transition from New Hire to Newshido. A few moments of connecting with a New Hire, providing support and encouragement allows the New Hire to gain confidence of their abilities to succeed in Lifebushido.

Becoming an Aibō

As a part of your Newshidotasks, during your 10-100 hours with Lifebushido you will complete the process for signing up for the Aibō program. The instructions for this process found at this link:

  • No later than the 15th of the month, send an email to Talent Team with the following subject line: NewshidoAibō Program – Aibō Position – FIRSTNAME LASTNAME – Date
  • In the body of the email include the following:
  • Your name
  • Date of Hire
  • How many hours you completed
  • How many Menti (New Hires) you want (maximum 3)
  • The phone number and email you wish to use for this program
  • If you were a Menti, who your Aibō was
  • Any request for participation in the Aibō program after the 15th of the month runs the risk of not having a match made.
  • If you submit a request after the 15th and no match made, you will have to reapply by the 15th of the following month for a match. The Talent Team will not automatically match you the following month.

Billing Details

For phone calls following the breakdown below:

30 minutes – Contact 1 – Initial Contact – Meet New Hire and go over the New Hire process

15 minutes – Contact 2 – Follow up with New Hire regarding any questions

Complete a goal action with the exact minutes per phone call. The maximum time allowed for billing on all tasks is 2 hours.

If you choose to use emails to assist your Menti, you can only bill 2 minutes per email read and responded too, and 1 minute per email that you simply read. However, you have to keep the total billing time to 2 hours maximum.