How To Ensure That “Office Nightmare" Would Not Scare Your Newbies Away?

For fresh graduates and first time workers, what fears do they have to face?

1. Fear to ask question

In each company, the most confusing individuals are the first jobbers. For them, everything is “the first time”. H.A (fresh graduate) said: “The first day walking into the office, I have tons of questions in my mind, yet I was held back and would not dare to ask questions. I was also assigned a lot of new tasks so I made a lot of mistakes. I did not even know how to use the printer”. When everyone is familiar with their day-to-day operation, newbies like H.A were extremely afraid to ask questions since the fear of asking questions will make them seen as having poor adaptation and lack of experience. This is a psychological barrier that prevents fresh graduates from keeping up with their job.

In order to quickly overcome the fear of giving questions, the employee themselves need to memorize these steps when they have questions to easily fit in:

• Proactively finding answers through observation, and collecting information from the internet.
• Discuss with your supervisor and colleagues about your findings and see if they are correct.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong – Deputy CEO at Talentnet shared that: “Beside the proactiveness of the employee, the company also creates opportunities where employees can explore the working environment and ask questions”. According to that, employee can:

• Create a survival kit for “newbies” about the company’s culture, the working process, and facility guide.
• Create workshops for newbies feel free to share their questions

2. Fear of rejection

With their inexperience in work, fresh graduate employees are usually neither confident enough to express themselves nor ready to lead big project, or propose new ideas because of the fear of rejection. Frightened to take on new opportunities, the fear of rejection makes newbies become passive, trying to stay within their comfort zone and cannot utilize their opportunities for growth.

Overcoming the fear of rejection will be the door to opening employee capability, building trust in their supervisor, and elevating their career path. Therefore, employees need to “look inside themselves” to:

• Every time they are rejected, ask clever questions to find the reason
• Look at rejection as an opportunity to improve their weakness and maximize their strengths.
• Make note of times you are recognized for self-motivation

Beside that, to boost employee confidence when facing new challenges, companies need to proactively create opportunities for employees to explore themselves:

• Challenging tasks such as presentations, meeting clients, project management, etc.
• Open opportunity for employees to proactively take their tasks instead of being assigned.

3. Fear of not meeting expectation

Stepping into the transition from university to work, fresh graduates usually wonder if they meet company expectations. A.N (intern) shared: “I don’t know if I have been able to meet my supervisors as this is a workplace and my boss cannot show me every single thing and evaluate the outcomes like in university.” The mind of bosses is always unpredictable and the fear of not meeting expectations of newbies can make them confused because they cannot evaluate their own performance, which, affect the outcome of the job.

Facing uncertainty in whether they have met supervisors’ expectations, employee can solve their problem by:

• Clarify request with their supervisor
• Asking for a response, Regularly ask for feedback and constructive suggestions at the beginning of the task
• Planning to develop their expertise with specific goals.

Understand the worries of newbie, companies can help employee to overcome by:

• Discussing the JDs with specific requirements from the beginning
• Giving KPIs with specific timeline to evaluate employees’ capabilities
• Design programs to improve their expertise for growth

4. Fear of communicating with supervisor

When they are unfamiliar with the role of each employee, newbies have a tendency to avoid talking with their supervisors, especially senior managers. H.U (intern) “I’m super hesitated when being asked by senior managers, even when seeing them in elevator, all I can do is looking at my feet. I feel too small to speak in front of high-ranking people in the company.”

Speaking of the fear of communicating with supervisor, Ms. Hương suggested: “The unmemorable performance in front of an employee can affect the overall evaluation and the promotion opportunities of the employee. Therefore, the company and employee need to join hands in order to erase the distance between employee and supervisor.”

To erase the invisible barriers with your supervisor, newbies need to prepare a solid foundation and confidence by:

• Being prepared before approaching your supervisor for discussion
• Joining team building activities with participation of supervisor, initiate conversation to get familiar with the non-work characteristic of your supervisors

However, meeting and discussing between employees and leaders are not easy in the company, especially big corporations, companies need to create opportunities by:

• Hosting lunch-and-Learn sessions with friendly topics where employees can meet with leaders such as CEO, Vice President…
• Hosting sharing sessions, and team-building activities to improve employee connection

Worries and fear are normal when an employee has just joined the workforce. To overcome this feeling and quickly catch up with work, employees should be ready with an open mindset and eagerness to learn. With the company, finding solutions to help “newbies” overcome their fear is also a way for employee to maximize their capabilities and “harvest” their contribution.