Need A Little (More) Time To Help Your Entry-Level Talent Get Up To Speed? Freelance associates can help

While the pandemic was disruptive for all of us, those entering the workforce in 2023 have faced an extraordinary level of interruption to their early adult lives.

Of course there’s no shortage of brilliant junior talent in the market, but companies are recognising that training and integration may require a different approach. An approach that often takes, at least initially, more time. We explore the post-pandemic challenges of getting entry-level joiners up to speed, and consider the ways in which freelance associates can help.
 

Why training might be taking a little more time right now

Firstly, as well as depriving so many young people of a fully in-person university or college experience, the lockdown years meant that many vacation internship and employment opportunities happened remotely, or not at all. As a result, the cohort of 2023 missed out on valuable chances to build skills in a physical office environment prior to entering the workforce.
 

Secondly, there's a 'lived experience gulf' between managers and new joiners. If you’re going to train someone well, you need first to understand where they are coming from: to step, imaginatively, into their shoes. But if someone has had a fundamentally different set of early-career experiences to you, that stepping can require a little more bandwidth than usual.
 

Unfortunately, bandwidth is something that many managers are currently very short of. Research suggests that the ‘great resignation’ may be on the rise again in the UK, and a wave of hiring freezes in recent months, mean that many companies are significantly understaffed. With capacity maxed out, particularly at manager level, it’s not easy to conjure up more bandwidth for training and development. This is where freelance associates can come in. 
 

How freelance associates can help

During the pandemic, a huge number of consultants decided to go independent - even those with only a couple of years’ experience. Data from The Accountancy Partnership showed that almost 40% of the new consultancies registered in 2020 were set up by people under the age of 30, and many of them are still going it alone. These Gen Z (and Gen-z cusp) freelancers are in a unique position to support in the current context.

Bringing freelance associates on board to focus on urgent project work can free up time for managers. Research, market-sizing, due diligence, project management are all bread-and-butter for freelance associates, and because they’re used to hitting the ground running and working autonomously, they can make a tangible impact from day one. If you know that some of your most urgent project work is off your desk and in safe hands, you’re going to feel more relaxed about devoting additional time and thought to getting new people up to speed. 

Freelance associates can also double up as training buddies. They can work alongside your new joiners, helping them to get up to speed with business-as-usual tasks, sharing skills and techniques (using the projects they're working on for you as live examples), and being on-hand to work through issues and questions. Your new joiners will get more bespoke, personal attention, and by working closely with an external consultant, who is perhaps a little closer to them in terms of lived experience, they may well feel more comfortable asking those all-important 'stupid questions' which are so vital for getting up the curve.

A stitch in time….

Engaging freelance associates to support in the early stages of on-boarding, will give you more scope to plan thoughtfully, create a shared language with your new joiners, and help them to build a strong, confident foundation from which to move forwards.

Five tips for helping entry-level hires transition into office life

Build extra 'chat time' into line management meetings

Getting to know your managees as people (and letting them get to know you) is vital for building trust and confidence. As well as checking in on the day/week's work, add at least 15 minutes of additional line management time for more relaxed, general conversation.
 

Make sure you're on the same page about urgency levels - and everything else!

Make sure your new starters know a) that tasks will have different levels of urgency b) how they can understand that level of urgency, and c) exactly what they should do when something requires an urgent response. If you’re briefing someone on a task, ask them to talk you through what they’ve understood afterwards and make sure it’s what you meant. Never leave people to fill in the blanks.

Make space for meeting heads ups and debriefs

If you’re sat in a meeting where you have no context, no sense of what’s going on, and you don’t understand half of the language used, the chances of you engaging are pretty slim: a little time out to context-set can make a massive difference.

Let’s say there’s a wider team meeting coming up: whether it’s virtual or in-person, open the room 10 minutes early so that you can give a heads-up around what to expect. Maybe it’s useful to give a rundown of terms or acronyms that are likely to be used, maybe it’s about talking through the agenda, or your company’s meeting etiquette. Similarly, it’s good to debrief afterwards - to get a clear sense of what people understood, nip confusion / misconceptions in the bud, and make sure everyone’s on the same page re take-aways.

If you’re going to be working virtually even part of the time, try to make sure laptop setups happen in-person

Sit down with new joiners and show them how your desktop is organised. In an office this happens via osmosis. In a virtual environment, it can take months for people to get the hang of navigating all the tech: platforms, folders, emails - all the hacks and handy shortcuts. If you get this right early on it will help exponentially with communication and speed of work. 
 

And finally…take the time to learn from your new starters

The fact that they have had a fundamentally different set of pre-career experiences from you is an opportunity as well as a challenge. Make sure you open the space for those different perspectives and experiences to shine through - you'll definitely learn a thing or two!

Choix connects the buy and sell sides of consulting, providing fair and transparent choice for all. If you want to talk to us about a project, or you’re looking to connect with our network of high quality freelance consultants and experts, please email hello@mychoix.com