The first software house that I worked at had a company policy which I think was quite useful. The first day for any employee - (Contractor or Permanent) was spent going and introducing yourself to at least 80% of the people in the company. You simply had to go around the office, shake hands with each person and introduce yourself - tell them what project you were working on and what you were going to be doing. Also find out what this persons responsibilities were, how long they had been with company and perhaps a bit about their personal life - how many kids, hobbies, previous companies that they had worked on and field of expertise etc. If more than one person joined on the same day they could go around doing introductions together. This was quite intimidating for some people but since it was company policy and everyone else had done it before, people were very open when you arrived at their desk. I believe that this paid off in the long run, in various ways.

  • Conversations at the coffee machine where easier to initiate and integration into the team was accelerated.
  • You knew who to speak to if you were looking for stationary, timesheets, network connection problems ....
  • You knew who the best person to speak to regarding technical issues was. And if that person was not available, who the second best person was.