Making a Modern Project Manager
SERIES ARTICLE
By Yasmina Khelifi
Paris, France
With high levels of churn in teams, onboarding has more importance than ever.
How do you welcome a new team member? Do you talk too much? Do you give too much information or not enough? Since I have been part of several teams at work and in the volunteer setting, I’d like to share my thoughts.
Onboarding is defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “the act or process of orienting and training a new employee.”
Let’s imagine a fictional situation: Monica is joining your team in June. She is coming from another department. Jim is coming from outside the corporation and will join in August.
Let’s go!
Be available
Before
In the case of Monica, the onboarding process may begin before the official date.
It may occur as part of the handover period between the two teams.
This can have several advantages for the new team member:
-
- To become familiar with the vocabulary and the process
- To ensure a smooth transition
- To answer questions
- To lower the stress that might be associated with joining a new team and meeting new people
Be available to answer questions. Perhaps one team member can explain one of the processes to Monica?
Jim may have practical questions. You may be able to answer some before he joins. Or you can explain to him how the first day will be structured and what is expected.
In some corporations, there are formal onboarding processes or integration days, buddies or mentors, and the human resources department is also active in the process. In others, this isn’t the case.
More…
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Editor’s note: This series of articles is by a project manager for Gen X, Y and Z project professionals. The author Yasmina Khelifi is a project manager with a large multinational telecom in France while also an active PM professional, authoring articles, interviews and a popular LinkedIn blog as well as a podcast with a global audience. Also active in PMI France for many years, she has been an international correspondent for the PMWJ since 2021. We are delighted that she has agreed to author a series of articles based on her personal experiences over the last decade.
How to cite this article: Khelifi, Y. (2025). Onboarding New Team Members; Making a Modern Project Manager, series article, PM World Journal. Vol. XIV, Issue V, May. Available online at: https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/pmwj152-May2025-Khelifi-Onboarding-New-Team-Members.pdf
About the Author
Yasmina Khelifi
Paris, France
Yasmina Khelifi, PMP, PMI- ACP, PMI-PBA is an experienced project manager in the telecom industry. Along with her 20-year career at Orange S.A. (the large French multinational telecommunications corporation), she sharpened her global leadership skills, delivering projects with major manufacturers and SIM makers. Yasmina strives for building collaborative bridges between people to make international projects successful. She relies on three pillars: project management skills, the languages she speaks, and a passion for sharing knowledge.
She is a PMP certification holder since 2013, a PMI- ACP and PMI-PBA certification holder since 2020. She is an active volunteer member at PMI France and PMI UAE, and a member of PMI Germany Chapter. French-native, she can speak German, English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and she is learning Arabic. Yasmina loves sharing her knowledge and experiences at work, in her volunteers’ activities at PMI, and in projectmanagement.com as a regular blogger. She is also the host and co-founder of the podcast Global Leaders Talk with Yasmina Khelifi to help people in becoming better international leaders.
Yasmina can be contacted at https://yasminakhelifi.com/ or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasminakhelifi-pmp-telecom/
Visit her correspondent profile at https://pmworldlibrary.net/yasmina-khelifi/
To view other works by Yasmina Khelifi, visit her author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/yasmina-khelifi/
