This document is about the general priorities and policies for how we as a company bring new employees onto the team. As a new person on the team, if you have questions about starting at Clef, check out Your First Day at Clef.

We may also create specific onboarding recommendations for different roles in the future.

Before Arrival

After a candidate accepts an offer to join Clef, there are a few things that we can get out of the way before they show up.

1. Employment paperwork (these should end up in their Personnel folder, which should be shared with them in Google Drive)

   1. Signed Offer Letter

   2. Signed Proprietary Information and Inventions Assignment Agreement

2. Creating accounts

   3. Google Apps account

      1. Gmail NAME@getclef.com

      2. Google Drive (base folders should be pre-configured for them)

      3. Calendar (follow team’s calendars)

      4. Two-factor auth should be set up with them

   4. Slack

   5. Trello

3. Background reading

   6. A talk Jesse gave about cryptography

   7. A pretty good article about the public key crypto Clef uses

   8. A great explanation of Bitcoin

4. Payroll, benefits, etc. set up -- introduce to Patricia, who will manage this process

5. Put 3 events on whole team’s calendar -- NAME’s First Day, Team Lunch to welcome NAME, and Team Celebration of NAME’s First Day.

The First Day

A new employee’s first day is critical to making them feel welcome at Clef. The goals of the first day are to help them get set up, situated, and comfortable with the team. It is the responsibility of the person who led their hiring process to make sure that happens.

Some guidelines for the first day:

• The day should start at 10:00 — this lowers the commute stress and gives us time to set up their desk and get the team ready for them.

• The new employee should arrive to a desk with their new computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. set up and ready for them. So far, we have opened the computer, updated software and installed tools, then reboxed it (because the unboxing process of a new computer is nice, but this helps save them annoying time on the first day). There should also be a nice note signed by the team, a copy of Daring Greatly, and anything else that feels welcoming or personal to them.

• Everyone in the office should know that they are starting, their name, their gender pronouns, and what they’re doing. There is one person in charge of the onboarding process, but it is everyone’s responsibility individually to make the new employee feel welcome.

• The person in charge of onboarding should block out the whole day and plan to spend it with the new employee helping them get set up. In practice, they won’t need the attention for the entire day, but should never be stranded when they do need it.

• The employee should push something public live during their first day. That might be a code commit, a design change, or a blog post depending on their position, but publishing something is important. This ensures that they’re getting set up to contribute and that they don’t feel restricted while they get up to speed.

• The whole team should eat lunch out together, and this should be put on calendars as far in advance as possible so people don’t schedule other meetings.

• The day should end at 5, and at the end of the day, the new employee has the option of how to celebrate (a team high five, a drink out, or dinner). They should pick one before the day starts so the team can plan, but they can also change their answer at the end of the day.

The First Week, Month, Beyond

The first week of working at Clef should be focused on learning -- learning the company norms, learning how to work with everyone, learning the tools we use, etc. New employees should be contributing a little bit all week, but the expectation is that they ask questions and get set up, not that they immediately assume leadership.

After a week, the new employee should have their first one-on-one meeting. This meeting should go over all of the normal things that we cover in One on Ones, but should also probe about any gaps in their knowledge. Importantly, it should also cover OKRs, and go over the company’s objectives. After this meeting, the new employee should write their OKRs for the rest of the quarter (this fractional quarter should be viewed as a sort of practice run). Another meeting to talk about the OKRs should be scheduled for the next day or two.

From there, the process should merge towards the normal process. It’s important to set reasonable expectations and be very supportive for as long as it takes for the employee to feel comfortable at Clef (this might be a week for some and a month for others).