Hacking Day One: Refreshing The Onboarding Process For New Employees

First days at a new job can be tough, and for many employees, fitting in at their new 9-5 home can be a little intimidating. It often takes time for new hires to feel comfortable and fully engage with the business.

The good news is, there are ways to make the transition easier for both the company and the new employees. Our brand-new onboarding workshops are designed to help advise companies how to make the process smoother, and we couldn’t have been more excited to unveil the workshop with RMS this spring.

RMS is an incredible company with a rich history and international roots. RMS models catastrophes – everything from what may happen during a terrorist attack or an earthquake or a hurricane. RMS’ software is super valuable to the world, but they wanted some guidance on making sure their new hires were engaged and excited about the work the company does from the very start.

That’s where Museum Hack came in. We spent a day with RMS to advise and consult on the company’s onboarding processes. We pride ourselves on our unique methods of engagement that have turned many museum skeptics into believers. We knew the way we engage museum visitors would be valuable for RMS and their new employees, so we set out to Hack Day One.

Revitalizing the onboarding process

RMS is a huge company with offices all around the world, and executives wanted to ensure that everyone in the business was on the same page. We ran our onboarding workshop on-site at RMS’ Hoboken, New Jersey location before we put together a shortened version for the company’s remote teams, who participated via video conference from California, the United Kingdom, and India.

The day kicked off with our Storytelling Workshop, where we revealed the Five Elements of a Hack that we use in almost everything we do. Our museum stories are all crafted with the five elements in mind. We taught RMS’ teams what those elements are and advised how to make them work specifically for their company to engage new hires from the start.

Discovering the cool stories about your company – and how to put them to work

Now that RMS’ teams were armed with new strategies for telling good stories, we wanted to help them figure out what stories would have the maximum impact.

Our team of expert researchers dove deep into RMS’ history, exploring everything from the company’s founder to how the business got its start to understanding how it morphed into the international icon it is today. We used that information to craft several stories for RMS, including one about the world’s very first earthquake detector developed in ancient China. These stories are designed to be shared with RMS’ new hires early, creating excitement and engagement.

What would you do if Godzilla attacked New York City?

RMS’ team was psyched by the cool, new stories we gave them. We also taught them a game the company’s CEO used to play with his new hires back when RMS was still small and we helped frame the game to make it useful for today’s employees. Teams were tasked with developing their own catastrophe models, showing exactly what’s they do if Godzilla decided to attack New York City. Each team was asked to come up with fun, creative solutions for the various problems Godzilla would bring to the Big Apple.

We left RMS with a fully customized workbook packed with our methods of engagement and stories. We included breakdowns on each story and games and icebreakers that could be used to engage employees. We also outlined ideas for making typical onboarding tasks (paperwork, benefit documents, etc.) less of a chore with unique activities to drum up excitement.

Hooking outsiders from the minute they walk through the door is a challenge many companies face, and RMS, despite their incredible history and valuable work, was no different. We loved diving deep into the company’s past to uncover amazing stories that help showcase how unique and exciting RMS really is.

Could your onboarding process use a facelift? We’d love to explore your company’s own unique past and revitalize the way you engage your new hires. Give us a call at 1-800-210-9676 or send us an email at info@museumhack.com to learn more.