The sky’s the limit
Written on the 30th November 2023
In our last newsletter, we shared some of our top tips for successful onboarding, having welcomed two new team members over the summer months. Investing time with new starters certainly pays dividends, but what happens next? Here we explore the steps we have taken as a team to help us come together and perform even better.
“In the beginning, all you can expect is that someone is taking it all in, absorbing the information, and internalising everything about the company,” explains our Managing Director, Nicki Kavanagh. “There are many dimensions to how we work within Juniper, and you can tell that new team members have started to get to grips with it when they begin to play it back to you.
“This shows they are relating to how we work together, and they are feeling more confident to consult their colleagues and offer a point of view. They start to offer ideas and take ownership of things, like our different processes, and we are seeing that with both our new team members. Calvin Sadie, for example, has just run a training session for the team on Mural (the digital collaboration platform that we use), something that would have been too challenging just a few months ago. It is important to get the timing right - knowing when to push new starters in a positive way, without asking too much too soon.”
Calvin agrees. “I feel like I am getting to grips with everything and own key processes more, the deeper I get into the role. I can be transparent and open if I need help and I am at a stage now where I can articulate that, whereas before I was just trying to take everything on. I feel like we’ve become tighter as a team. The connection is much stronger through the time that we’ve had together. It is now easier to ask for help or to offer help to my colleagues. I’ve also got used to and am making the most of, the weekly working rhythm.”
Nicki believes strongly in the benefits of having structure and rhythm and aims to put both in place for new starters. However, she also recognises the need for team members to go with the flow. “We put a lot of emphasis on structure and rhythm when colleagues first start, and that’s great. But inevitably a curved ball soon arrives - you need to do something different with a client or a project changes direction - so it is important for them to be able to cope with both.
“New team members need to learn how to prioritise and to understand what they can spin faster and slower. To begin with, they tend to want to spin everything at the same speed, and then I can see them thinking ‘Well that’s not going to work, is it?’ because they can’t get to all the plates quickly enough. It’s important to create the atmosphere where new starters can learn which plates can be slowed down a bit, perhaps because the client expectation isn’t that everything must happen right now.”
Calvin likes the plate-spinning metaphor. “I think the plates are spinning a bit more smoothly now! It’s learning that things can spin at different speeds and prioritising those that need to speed up. Every day has been productive and focused on bettering myself.”
Our other new account manager, Hannah Speck agrees with the progress that has been achieved. “Our team sessions have definitely set us up for working really well together as a team and understanding each other’s preferences,” she says. “We’re definitely there in terms of being a high-performing team, that feels good and it’s just like we’ve all been together a lot longer than we have. It feels like it’s all come together nicely.
“On a personal note, I recently had the opportunity to meet face-to-face with one of my clients, so I now feel even more embedded and part of their team. It’s a nice feeling to have spent that time together and, again, it feels that we’ve been working together a lot longer than we have.”
“We are an extension of the client team, and I would hope that is how many of our clients would describe us,” explains Nicki. “We put so much effort into learning their rhythm, their language, and their approach.
“The successes that we have as a team are the product of the process that we all went through and put time and effort into,” concludes Nicki. “It doesn’t just happen miraculously and there is a definite benefit to spending more time together.
“I think it has been valuable for us to have dedicated days that we spend physically together in the office. When it comes to how much time is spent in the office, I think it’s important that you ask yourself the question, how connected do I feel to my team? And if I don’t feel connected, what impact is that having on me and what’s it having on my team? What can I do about it if it’s not as good as it could be? Feeling connected to your team is essential.