Some newsrooms have cakes to honor people on their last day; some have cakes to celebrate a new team member’s first day. At Poynter, during monthly staff meetings we celebrated people’s work anniversaries by shouting, “Still here!” And at the TV station where I was news director we would celebrate new baby visits by lining up behind Lil Kleiman, assistant news director, my mentor and beloved friend and our “senior ranking mom,” who, after she washed her hands, would be the leadoff baby-holder.
Working from a distance demands imagination to create new rituals and adapt effective ones. News director Julie Wolfe says her Kentucky TV station recruits new team members with a personalized onboarding plan that used to rely on side-by-side work, pre-pandemic. Now the six- to eight-week plan is all remote. “Part of that was you would shadow each different place in the newsroom no matter what your role is to build an appreciation of what everybody was doing. We had to figure out how we still get that remotely. You cannot underestimate how much learning used to happen by osmosis, sitting next to people and having spontaneous conversations. So much learning happened that we lost going remote. You have to be intentional, do a lot of check-ins. Have a lot of one-on-one communication with the new employee.”
Share with us: What rites and rituals express your team’s commitment to collaboration, growth, and equity?
Advice from Jill Geisler, Bill Plante Chair in Leadership & Media Integrity, Loyola University Chicago, Freedom Forum Fellow in Women’s Leadership
