“I am a mechanical engineer turned UX designer. Originally from India. I joined Ngrane about three months ago and had one of the best humanized onboarding experiences. Period.”

I’ve been working for 5 Months at Ngrane. So far, so amazing. 

My experience

My last official onboarding was nine years ago at a big corporate tech company, and all I can remember from the onboarding was boring sessions about how great the company was and how lucky I was to be a cog in the wheel of the company. Doesn’t sound too great, right?

Fast forward nine years, I’m joining Ngrane as a UX designer and was lucky enough to experience the complete opposite spectrum of onboarding. 

Onboarding is vital when starting a new position at a company. When you feel good right away, chances are you will come to love the organization.

— Jitesh Pujari

Let me tell you a little more about my first day at Ngrane.

Mar was my guide into the world of Ngrane from day one. Actually, day zero. They even started with a preboarding.
Mar called me up in advance to personally check whether I had all the information to start my first day at Ngrane. A call from a real human being, rather than an auto-generated mail really makes such a difference. It made a lasting impression.

On-boarding and cross boarding

The first day at work can be overwhelming. Thankfully, when I reached Ngrane I was greeted by Mar with a box of chocolates, a bunch of goodies, and a beautiful welcome card. Personalized Gifts – Check ✅

Ngrane starts the day with a stand-up, where everyone shares their plans for the day. Mar introduced me to the team in the daily stand up in a fun, generous way. I had the chance to tell a little about myself, and what I was looking forward to that day.

Mar had planned the whole day for me. For example; meetings with the team members whom I’m going to work with. But also a meeting with Stephen, the co-founder of Ngrane. We went over the contract. It was all in Dutch, but that didn’t stop Stephen. He translated it line by line, so I didn’t have to miss any important details.

I had a great first day, full of introductions, short talks with team-members about the company, ways of working and informal stuff.

The first few weeks

During the first few weeks, a lot of attention was given to understanding my expectations from the company, and how Ngrane and I could work together on our goals. It did not come as a surprise that a term like “co-creation” is part of our process with clients. We co-created how my job was going to be shaped at Ngrane, in which ways I wanted to develop that would be useful for Ngrane, and moreover: how I would feel best in my working experience. 

This resulted in a mature, sensible and responsible way of working together with the team at Ngrane, where we regard each other as valuable colleagues. 

In step further in co-creation

Our team outing and renewed direction towards the Ngrane Creative Sessions only further materialized the sense of co-creation when we all shared our ideas of where Ngrane should be headed. It’s always a co-creation, never a top-down decision brought by a management team. This made Ngrane feel like an authentic, human-centric, and open-minded company, where I really feel like a valuable part of a team. 

It is often said that treating your employees is a reflection of how you treat your clients. I’m pretty sure that that’s true for Ngrane.

How the onboarding helped me

The fact that it was not only personalized, but was well organized too gave a boost to my first five months at Ngrane. If I could sum up my last 5 months in Ngrane as a UX designer; it would be Humanized, Challenging and Inspiring. It led me to believe that the core value of Ngrane is the human centric nature and that shows in every internal process. And especially the onboarding.

When we think of onboarding, we often think only of the impact it has on a new hire’s first weeks and months on the job, when in reality, good onboarding goes far beyond this. Good onboarding helped create this everlasting impression of Ngrane as a human-centric agency, and that also translates into the work we do for our clients. For me, Ngrane is a keeper.

Want to get to know Jitesh? Find him on LinkedIn!