Unwritten Rules of Work

Turn up five minutes early to a meeting, and you're being professional. Turn up five minutes early at others, and you're sitting there on your own for 10 minutes.

Nobody tells you which one your workplace is; you quickly find out with experience.

In many workplaces, there's the handbook you're given, and then there's the other 'handbook' — the one nobody can hand you, the one learnt through experience.

Last year, new finance software was introduced at work for payments and budgeting, the old system was switched off, then a short gap, and then new system was installed. Only low-interaction, high-level e-learning was provided — meanwhile, staff still had suppliers chasing payments, monthly forecasting to undertake and reports to run.

Staff therefore made their own processes; clicked around the new system. Built offline spreadsheets to plug the gaps.

Nobody was breaking the rules; they were trying to follow them while finding a way to still deliver results — filling the gaps between what the training taught them and what was needed to pay suppliers and meet deadlines.

This is one way unwritten rules are born; a workaround becomes the way it's done.

New Starters

One of the great things with new starters is they haven't learned the unwritten processes and rules yet. Asking the question everyone else stopped asking. They see it fresh.

That window can close fast; even in just a few weeks, people can absorb the established processes.

While you can't write down every process — that list would be endless. What you can do is make sure a new person isn't guessing in the dark on day one, and that they know their outside view is wanted.

The best workplaces make new people feel safe to ask, question and challenge.

If you're building that first-week experience for a new colleague, WelcomeChapter will help you get it right before day one. A single welcome page where the key colleagues contribute messages and practical tips before someone even starts, so new hires walk in already feeling like they are expected and wanted.

What unwritten rule did you only learn by getting it wrong?

See how it works: welcomechapter.com/employee-onboarding