Being Welcomed into the srcLogic Company Culture
Written By: Addison Petro
I am by no means a social butterfly, and the thought of meeting so many new people on my first day at srcLogic admittedly terrified me at the time. Now, just a short two and a half months later, I’ve met so many intelligent and passionate people, and I feel comfortable reaching out to anyone in the company regardless of position. So how did I get to this point? srcLogic’s healthy approach to building strong social networks for incoming new hires.
One of the first things that comes to mind when I think about meeting a bunch of new people in a professional environment is the dreaded icebreaker question, “what’s a fun fact about yourself?” When I hear this phrase, my brain just freezes up, and I forget the half a dozen ready-to-go answers I keep handy for when the question inevitably arises. Luckily, srcLogic does icebreakers differently with the question of the day during new hire training. I really enjoyed the more directed questions like “which artist was your most played on Spotify wrapped last year?” and “what’s your favorite holiday and why?” This approach to icebreaker questions helped reduce the pressure I normally feel when asked to introduce myself, and they were a great way to learn more about my fellow new hires and the managers helping us throughout the training process.
During training, new hires were also assigned onboarding buddies – other employees not involved with the rest of training that we met with one-on-one once a week to talk about how training is going and to ask any questions about the company that we might have. Having a familiar face to check in with regularly was very useful and helped me feel more integrated into the company right from the start. In a similar vein as onboarding buddies, we also had coffee chats each week where two new hires would meet with an existing employee to talk about working at srcLogic and living in the DMV area. It was really helpful getting to meet so many people at the company so early in my career.
In addition to all the explicitly social aspects of training, the lessons and presentations also helped introduce the new hires to various people at the company that we might not have interacted with otherwise. Most lessons during training were taught by employees not directly involved with organizing training that volunteered to share their knowledge about a topic with us. This allowed us to interact with dozens of employees throughout the company who all have different skillsets and experiences. Additionally, existing srcLogic employees were encouraged to attend and provide feedback on the presentations that new hires gave during training. This provided a low-stakes environment where we could meet new people while also learning from their expertise.
By the time I was done with training at srcLogic, I had met at least half the company in a variety of capacities. Every social interaction I’ve had at the company so far has been healthy and uplifting, and I’m excited to continue meeting such talented individuals.