What Singaporean employees must do in their first 100 days at work

So you have gone through 3 rounds of gruesome interviews and you finally got the job. The day of your new beginning has come! What should you do? How would your new colleagues react to you? What type of impression should you be giving them? What is the working style of your new boss? I believe these questions would have raced through your mind as you would want to blend in as fast as possible, to be well liked and to get into your boss’s good book.

One hundred days seems to feel like eternity when you know everyone in your company is watching your every moves. It also seems to be really short too especially when your given learning curve is not that long after all. It’s not easy to be the new kid on the block. A hard balance indeed!

Like in other advanced economies, employment in Singapore offers tough competition and often entails huge expectations. Here's brief round-up of what Singaporean employees should during their first 100 days into new work.

LISTENING AND LEARNING is something which I will strongly recommend to begin with. God gave us two ears and a mouth so that we will listen more than we speak. He also placed each ear on different side of our head so that we will listen from all directions as well as both sides of the stories. If you have just boarded yourself on a managerial role,  your staff would either be very introverted towards you initially or they will be up close and personal to you almost immediately to fill you in with what has been happening when you were still been shortlisted for this job. There is nothing wrong with both approaches but there is a fine line in this. Ensure you do all your checks and be objective about your feedback to them. Secondly, learn as much as possible from your direct superior. Identify the gap that was left by your predecessor. Work very closely with him and take notes. Understand what are his future plans and what he wants to execute first. Don’t be just an obedient soldier. Feel free to contribute and challenge healthily using your rich past experiences if need be. Take initiatives to highlight yourself. That’s the reason you have been selected for this job.

MANAGING EXPECTATION is highly critical at this time. There may be lots of backlogs waiting to be dumped on you especially when this is a replacement role and it has been vacated for many months. By this time, the covering officers would have had enough of doing the extra duties for the resignee. Be careful. Do not overwhelm yourself by taking everything onto your lap and saying “Yes” to everyone just because you want to be deemed as a friendly and perfect team mate from the beginning.

You may lose focus of your core duties that you were going to be paid for. Always check back with your boss and align with him his priorities for you before you start embarking on any unnecessary task. Be accountable of your top tasks and update your bosses when it’s completed. Go back to them if you need more information or face challenges halfway. Do not sit and wait for miracles to happen as they are not fortune tellers either. You must be very mindful of the channel of reporting too. Do not override authority or get instructions from people you are not supposed to. It’s a perfect timing to under promise and over deliver. Take it slow , digest, analyse then accelerate.

THE IMPRESSION OF YOU is what everyone will be judging you by. Be sure you are punctual and on time for everything whether to work, meetings and even company drinking sessions. Feel free to demonstrate that you are willing to go the extra mile for your team and the company. The effect of you as a new team player in the company really depends if you are an energy generator or an energy zapper. Be the one to bring up the spirit of your team by celebrating the success of your team mates be it big or small. Book your colleagues for lunches and be genuinely interested in their lives. Honestly, you may not be able to make everyone your best buddies but at least you gave all the opportunity to know you better and I am pretty sure, you will find people who will begin to place their faith and trust in your authority , capability and most importantly your integrity.

Whether your first 100 days is going to be a living hell or an open heaven on earth, it’s really in your hands!

Allow me to leave you with a quote from Donald Trump, he quoted

“What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate.”