Poor onboarding leads to more "beginner questions" for longer. Underrepresented groups experience higher social threat. So if 3 employees start working at Tech Corp on the same day, and they are:

* A white man
* A white woman
* A Black man

And they all have the same beginner questions 6 months after their start date, then the Black man and white woman are more likely to be perceived as "slow ramp up" people, and face career consequences as a result.

https://xkcd.com/385/

Imposter syndrome isn't real. Imposter phenomenon is very real.

Imposter phenomenon is the combination of two things:
1) the belief that I know less things than others around me.

2) the belief that if this is found out, that I will experience harm from it.

In short, it's about psychological safety. It's a rational response based on the lived experience of the person feeling it, and their observation of how others are treated, it's not a shortcoming of the person experiencing it.

There are lots of things that we can do to minimize the imposter phenomenon. Better, more consistent, and deterministic ramp up experience, is one of these things. 👍🏿

This doesn't just mean documentation. This also means removing processes that shouldn't exist in the first place.

But in terms of documentation, one thing that really helps, is having a verifiable definition of being ramped up and onboarded.

Welcome Starfleet graduate! You've been assigned to the Transporter team! "Dream to Beam!"

Week 1:
✅ Get desk, comms badge, quarters
✅ Meet your onboarding guide (Scotty)
⬜ Join all team mailing lists
⬜ Take the "Teleportation basics" training

Month 1:
⬜ Complete first pair transport (inanimate objects)
⬜ Complete first solo transport (sentient life forms)
⬜ Join duty rotation (shadow your guide)

Quarter 1:
⬜ Complete first multi-party transport
⬜ Join duty rotation (solo)
⬜ You're onboarded!

The other thing about intentional, verifiable ramp-up plans, is that they make the person ramping up less nervous about their own progress.🤯

Without the plan:
"I've been here 20 days, and I haven't even transported a living thing yet! Not even a Tribble! I was top of my class at Starfleet, and I thought my paper on "Subspace tunneling to safely beam matter through singularities" impressed them! Do they not trust me? Am I messing up in other ways? Is... is it because I'm half Romulan?!"

@mekkaokereke

One other thing we've noticed that makes a huge difference, having a deliberate "Onboarding buddy" someone that the new hire can ask questions. Even better if they're not a manager (less concern about looking dumb).

Not knowing who to ask can be paralyzing for some. Having someone senior they can ask and know they're not bothering, removes lots of barriers. Plus, it's good experience for the senior person.