April 11, 2018

Memories, Moments & Your First Day at Work

Our memories are defined by distinct moments in our life. These stick out and define our experiences. Knowing this, how can this be used in creating an awesome first day at work?

Memories, Moments & Your First Day at Work

I was recently came across a discussion of how our memories are comprised of moments. We tend to focus on the hight and low points and blur out all the other details. It was a rather interesting, though provoking topic and they even went into details on how companies use this to create a great first impression.

Life in Moments

Let's take a moment and imagine we went to the Disney Land Theme Park on a vacation. Typically, when you recall your experiences to a friend you would say something along the lines of it being fantastic & wonderful. However, if we dig a bit deeper you will see that the experience was actually filled with a lot of frustration & boredom while you waited in lines, paid for overpriced items and stood standing in sweltering heat. If someone had to hear that, they definately wouldn't think we enjoyed ourselves. But then why did we say we did?

Our minds look for the high & low moments and those are the ones that define the experience.

Even though the holiday as a whole may not have been great, the moments where you can hurtling down a roller coaster or when Mickey came out of the parade to high 5 your kid define the experience and that is what sticks out and you remember.

Another example of this is the Magic Castle Hotel. If you look at the image below you wouldn't believe that this hotel has higher ratings on TripAdvisor than other 5 Star Hotels in the Hollywood.

Magic Castle Hotel

You initial impression is how can this be? It is all about the experience! At the pool area, they have a popsicle hotline where you make a call on a phone and one will be delivered to you by a butler with white gloves. In addition, gone are the days of paying for overpriced snacks and drinks. At the Magic Castle Hotel they all free, but it doesn't stop there. If you have dirty laundry they wash & fold it for you, for free! They also have magicians walking around doing magic tricks. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

At the end of the day, people remember those experiences as those are the high points. People rave about it and their memories of the mediocre hotel just gets washed away into the abyss.

FOOLIENTATION

If we take the above concepts and apply it to companies & teams, you land up with something similar to Foolientation - Motley Fool's Orientation.

Before a new person starts at Motley Fool, they get a questionnaire asking them what food they like their hobbies are, their favourite movies, sports etc. The staff then go out and buy a whole bunch of stuff to setup their desk for their first day at work. The results are as follows:

Motley Fool Orientation

Motley Fool Orientation

In addition, they also start on a Friday and receive a "Survival Kit" filled with some cool stuff like Nerf Guns. They also get assigned a buddy who takes them around the office, answers any questions they may have. They then get taken out to lunch with all their other colleagues. Oh and don't forget the $100 voucher that you get given at the end of your day, so you can treat you and your family to dinner over the weekend.

What they are doing here is creating a moment. This will undoubtedly be one of the highlights at the company and something that they will talk positively about in the future. This will in turn attract more great people & talent to the company. All of this culminates in the person having an really great first day and setting up one of those high moments.

I'm Joining Readify!

On the topic of your first day at work, I would like to announce that I am super stoked to be joining the awesome people at Readify. They seem like a really cool company with a great culture and I am honoured to be joining them. I will check you all soon!

Until next time...keep learning!