For newcomers, learning more things in the early stage is much more important than a little more salary. I have led many newcomers, and they did make a lot of low-level mistakes at work. Human reminders or help to correct them are not effective. Finally, I summarized a set of general processes for management.
First of all, we have to make it clear that growth is our own business, and managers can only provide guidance. The final learning effect still depends on the individual. You have formulated some process specifications and he does not abide by them, which means that he is not suitable for this company. What we can do is summarize a set of general processes to help newcomers solve some common problems.
Where to start? Start with training. Many recent college graduates now lack work knowledge, especially business processes and working methods. These two areas need to be well trained before formal coding, which can reduce many problems.
1. Business training
For new employees in the company, they usually start by getting familiar with the business. Let’s make one thing clear: who are our target users, what problems we solve, how we solve them, and the current status, what competing products are on the market, and their respective advantages and disadvantages, etc.
Do programmers need to understand business? want!
2. Working methods training
2.1 Training on tool use
Preliminary preparation: use the account of the tool.
Work-related tools. For example, when we do research and development, we will use:
git code management tool.
- Commonly used operations. Submit code and write formatting requirements. When many newcomers submit code, the remark information is simply "fix the bug", so that others will not know what you have changed. Therefore, be sure to clearly write down the modification content;
- Handle conflicts. Newcomers sometimes fail to handle conflicts and mistakenly delete codes submitted by other colleagues. So you must pay attention to this;
- Finally, every time a version is launched online, a branch tag needs to be added. Occasionally, there is a need to make modifications on the old branch.
Coder Tools.
- Our team has an operation document of commonly used instructions for newcomers to refer to. A good editor can greatly improve coding efficiency;
- Code formatting standards must be unified within the team. Otherwise it will lead to many conflicts in the code;
- Coding standards force newcomers to name, annotate, etc. according to the standards. Newcomers are most likely to engage in extreme coding, either writing no comments, or writing all comments, with more comments than code;
- The code submitted must have been tested and can be run;
The formation of many habits requires external pressure. Although the company has formulated many regulations, it does not pay attention to whether the newcomers actually implement them. Therefore, this should be written in the coding specification and asked to be randomly checked by other colleagues. The standard for detection is: the code must be able to run and other colleagues must be able to understand the code logic based on the method name and comments.
2.2 Code explanation
Let’s talk about the overall structural logic first. Then let’s talk about the code distribution of different businesses. Mark some code files for key observations
2.2.1 Let’s look at the public encapsulated code first. For example, tool libraries and network requests for such code files.
If there is a lot of code, give priority to public methods. These are unique in the project and are called from multiple places. If you need to use it after making new requirements, you can use it directly. No need for you to redo it. Moreover, the code for general public use has been improved by the team, with few bugs and clear logic. A lot of programming thinking can be learned from it.
2.2.2 Let’s look at the code of the core business that needs to be responsible.
For example, if a newcomer is responsible for the development of a shopping app, he should first be familiar with the key steps of purchasing goods - submitting an order - paying. During the explanation process, first record your own questions and then ask them uniformly. You can debug it yourself afterwards. During debugging, you can adjust it according to the test cases and test various abnormal situations. Generally, after you debug everything, you can probably understand what the current code is like.
The way many excellent programmers improve is to find open source code on Github. Once you understand it, try to submit the code. Generally, it will be rejected at first because your writing is not simple and efficient enough. But as long as you continue to read and write, and continue to submit, one day you will receive feedback from the open source project manager. When one day the code you submit is run in an open source project, you will already be a very powerful programmer.
Of course, if you just join the job, you may not have that much time to spend learning the open source code of github. Another way is to read the code of the most powerful person on your team. Not only can you understand the business, but you can also learn coding thinking. This method is not difficult and is suitable for various industries. It is effective in personal testing!
2.2.3 Ask colleagues for advice
Before asking for advice, please tell the person what you have tried. If there is a problem during debugging and you cannot solve it yourself, you should go to your colleagues for advice. But before asking for advice, sort out the problem first and see under what circumstances the problem occurred, whether there are any problems with the parameters passed in, etc. Don't ask for advice just once when you encounter a small problem. Think about it yourself first, and then ask for advice at the same time.
3. Help newcomers integrate into the team
- Assign a mentor to employees. The instructor will introduce specific work arrangements. Facts have proven that studying with a tutor is very helpful in improving your abilities.
- The mentor introduces new colleagues to other members of the team. To reduce the pressure on employees to introduce themselves. You can give employees some fixed introduction templates (optional), including name + responsible position + hometown city + graduation school + hobbies.
- After getting to know each other, the mentor takes the newcomers to visit other office areas and introduces the company's products and important milestones.
- The instructor needs to send the work tasks just communicated to the employee's mailbox in the form of email. Format content: Welcome + recent work + long-term goals + work-related accounts + company rules and regulations (daily work documents such as attendance, leave, paid leave, reimbursement, assessment, regularization, etc.) + a must-read list for new employees.
- Help employees get familiar with the work environment. Many new employees don’t know where to eat or what delicious food there is. Therefore, the department head took the instructors and employees to eat the first meal together. When the person in charge is unavailable, the instructor will take the employees to dinner. One is to introduce a place to eat, and the other is to get acquainted with each other. After all, there will be a lot for two people to communicate in the future. Eat something good on this occasion, and the company can reimburse the meal expenses.
- Create a new must-read list library for new employees and summarize all the work-related questions asked by new employees during their probation period. All instructors are jointly responsible for organizing.
4. Reach consensus on goals
It is necessary to guide newcomers to determine their own goals. What standards do you think you can achieve before becoming a full-time employee? What standards does the company set for you? The two standards must be consistent. We must not talk nonsense here, but use facts to determine the outcome. Here I will reach a consensus with the newcomer based on the company's quantitative assessment. For example, this new employee has poor communication and understanding skills and cannot integrate into the team. Then the probation period must be increased to normal levels. This normal level should be quantified as being able to understand the product manager's demand description normally and repeat his own understanding.
After reaching a consensus, it is time to break down the goals. Keep the goals of the probation period as simple as possible because the probation period is limited in time. Managers should help employees break down their goals. Goals can be reviewed every week. The results must be clear at every review. It is important to clarify what new employees do well and what they do poorly.
5. What should I do if it does not meet expectations?
For newcomers, determine whether it meets expectations during the trial period. Managers must have the courage to let unsuitable employees leave. This is both good for them and responsible for the company. Generally, there should be a clear expectation at the end of the second month. Whether most employees are capable and suitable for the company can be determined in the first two months. The third month is usually just to confirm the results.
One mistake that managers tend to make at this stage is that because the project is urgent and such a person is needed to do the job, they will choose to keep the unsuitable person. The biggest problem with this approach is that you are breaking your own rules. If the consensus reached by both parties can be destroyed at will, no one in the team will believe in the consensus management done by this manager.
In the end, other people’s experiences can only be used as a reference, and what is suitable for you is the most important. Just like some companies recommend elimination of the last 271, this system has its benefits, but the premise is that you can recruit enough people. For many companies, if this condition is not available, it is not suitable.