No matter the industry, a job change can be an intimidating and stressful event, especially considering the plethora of new processes one must learn and the important first impressions one must make on one's new colleagues and company leaders.
Nevertheless, job changes are not unusual. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, job changes are happening all the more frequently, particularly in the post-pandemic environment. In a July 2022 report from the Pew Research Center, about four million people changed jobs each month in the first quarter of 2022, or about 2.5% of the total workforce. Over a year’s time, that comes out to almost 50 million job changers.
Three companies in Austin have a clear understanding of how those kinds of changes can be stressful — but also know how the stress can be mitigated with a people-friendly onboarding process. Built In Austin spoke with recent hires at Two Barrels, Restaurant365 and OJO to learn how new hires are made to feel welcome and valued.
Two Barrels is a product-focused company that provides custom software development, marketing, information technology and operations support.
At what point in the interview/hiring process did you realize that your now-current employer was the company for you?
I was looking for two big things in a new job: a good team to learn and work with and a local, hybrid workplace so I could collaborate with my colleagues at times, but have the freedom to program at home. Of course, these aren’t always easy to find since they also make places pretty competitive to work at.
I joined Two Barrels in April 2022 and quickly realized that this was the place for me. Meeting the team reassured me that I was in the right place. I always like to think that I can tell the quality of a workplace by its most common complaints since complaining is just a basic feature of humanity. Here people complain about the snack and parking options. It’s a good sign that worse issues get dealt with. The energy of people here is happy and energizing and I’m thankful I get to work with such a fun crew.
Speaking of the crew, we have engineers across the country who never come in, some who pop in occasionally, and those who are here nearly every day. And best of all, we can choose and change which of those we prefer with no restrictions.
How did your colleagues set you up for success and help you get acclimated once you came aboard?
When I joined, I shared an office with three other developers, but we had the space to spread out. I absorbed a ton of knowledge in my first few weeks from passively listening in on their conversations, as well as from remote developers whom I’ve never met sending me tips for my pull requests. The culture of knowledge sharing and asking a bunch of questions really helped me get up to speed as a new developer.
It’s always pretty intimidating to see a new codebase, especially in an unfamiliar language. A colleague led me through my first ticket, patching a small bug for our operations team, which I think is the perfect way to start at any company. It gives you experience with the full development process: How is work tracked here? How is code reviewed here? How does code get deployed into production? Thankfully it was only a one-line change, which gave me a great sense of accomplishment right off the bat. My first few weeks consisted of taking on gradually trickier problems that really let me ease in and learn the ins and outs of our codebase.
Since joining your company, what's your favorite success story?
My favorite success story at Two Barrels was building the new hub for our reports at the start of this year. This was a fun project from start to finish as I got to work on the whole stack. Conceptualizing and implementing various parts, such as permissions, logging and reports storage gave me a lot of experience with new systems. It also helped me delve deeper into our current codebase as I figured out how to hook it in and even repurpose some old systems. Collaborating with our UI/UX team, analysts and stakeholders also helped me figure out how to balance the various needs of a company. Bringing it to life at the end is always a great feeling for a developer and I’m proud to see what other developers have built on top of it since.
Restaurant 365 is a cloud-based SaaS company that provides accounting and back-office operations for the restaurant industry.
At what point in the interview/hiring process did you realize that your now-current employer was the company for you?
I discovered Restaurant365 in May 2021 at a time when I wasn’t actively job hunting. I had the pleasure of meeting a Restaurant365 employee in a social setting and we got to chatting about our positions in the field of HR. I was immediately drawn in when she talked about the company culture. At first, it sounded too good to be true, but then she shared stories of the culture in action, provided details about their robust benefit offerings and talked about the ample growth and development opportunities. My interest was piqued so I immediately took action and applied for a position. I had an interview with the hiring manager shortly thereafter and the conversation felt equally welcoming and inspiring. That’s when I knew Restaurant365 was where I belonged. I officially joined the team in June 2021.
How did your colleagues set you up for success and help you get acclimated once you came aboard?
My main objective for onboarding was to talk to as many people as possible within the first 30 days: executives, senior leaders, new leaders, employees, temps, etc. Transitioning from hospitality to tech was a major adjustment and I was advised the best way to get to know the organization, the business and how it all operates was to get to know the people in the departments.
I admit I was nervous to reach out and talk with such highly skilled individuals, fearing we may not have common ground or that their responses would be so technical that I’d have difficulties comprehending them. But an amazing thing happened: during these conversations, the culture that I was drawn to in the first place became a reality as I experienced firsthand what it was like to work with individuals who were open-minded, passionate and genuinely interested in making a connection with me to further my understanding and growth with the company. Our different skill sets, backgrounds and passions didn’t separate us, but brought us together and enriched the relationship. I attribute the success of my onboarding to those conversations and am grateful I was advised to have them.
Since joining your company, what's your favorite success story?
Shortly after I was hired, I was challenged with a stretch assignment to create a manager training program that would develop key leadership skills. I had little experience with curating training but knew how impactful a program like this could be and was excited for the opportunity to innovate in a meaningful way. I collaborated with others in my department, sharing ideas and receiving support and encouragement along the way. After a few weeks of research, program design and testing, I rolled out our first-ever comprehensive manager training program, R365 Manager Boot Camp. Featuring a mix of third-party micro-learning videos, bi-weekly discussion sessions and interactive group chats, our program came to life in August of 2021. With the support and sponsorship of our executive team, our first cohort was a success. We had 38 managers graduate from the eight-week program and registered an 18% participant skill lift as a direct result of the initiative. Since its inception, we’ve had over 150 managers graduate and the average skill increase has jumped to 27%. Not only is it my proudest achievement, but it has also shaped my career path by igniting my passion for learning.
OJO Labs is a residential real estate buying and selling platform.
At what point in the interview/hiring process did you realize that your now-current employer was the company for you?
I subconsciously made my decision to work here during my first conversation with the Chief Product and Technology Officer, Qingqing Ouyang. I was lucky enough that she was one of the first people I met from the company during my interview process, and she made such an impression on me. She is razor sharp, charismatic and wise and I knew that she was someone I should work for.
The more people I met at OJO, the more confident I was in this fact. The engineering department here is truly and uniquely strong in its talent, culture and productivity. I felt this way during my interview process back in March 2022 and I’ve been 100% certain of it since I joined OJO in June 2022.
How did your colleagues set you up for success and help you get acclimated once you came aboard?
My colleagues are easily my favorite part of working at OJO. I joined OJO early in my career and had a lot of ramping up to do. This was initially intimidating, but I quickly realized there was support wherever I looked. In addition to well-structured onboarding procedures, OJO does an excellent job of promoting both teaching and learning within engineering. People are eager to share what they know and that makes it much easier to jump into unfamiliar projects and learn new things.
There’s also a strong focus on personal and career growth. Managers truly invest time and effort into helping employees meet their goals, and mentorship is readily accessible at OJO.
Since joining your company, what's your favorite success story?
One of the most rewarding things I’ve been involved with at OJO was launching the minimum viable product (MVP) for OJO Pro+, one of the company’s big focuses this year. We combined engineers from several different teams into one and planned every inch of the technical MVP together. It was such an amazing experience to work with new people with different areas of expertise — living one of our core values of collaborative excellence — and pooling all of it together into one cohesive product. It was even more rewarding to see the impact of our work, both in how much the company cares about it and the positive reception from our customers. It was everything a good project should be: collaborative, well-planned, valuable and exciting.
