6 Features for a Great Buddy - Make Your Buddy Program Matching Easy

You want to help new hires get comfortable at the office and are thinking about implementing a Buddy Program. You might be curious about how other companies handle the matching process. I'm here to help you figure how to make your matching process easier. It comes to knowing what makes a good buddy.

Great Communicator

A buddy's role is to provide helpful and relevant information about the company. But not in your formal playbook way. Your company has informal structures and processes. Pick a person who will be able to communicate those details. Ideally they should also have knowledge about the new hire's job, because let's be honest, sometimes you don't want to ask your manager about every detail.

Accessible

If the person doesn't have time for weekly meetings they might be a bad fit for your program. Consider asking colleagues to figure out how many daily meetings this person has. You don't want someone who won't show up for the scheduled weekly meetings.

Role model

It's best to choose someone that will communicate your company values properly. The trick here is to show, not tell. Ideally that person should have a track record of good actions that are based on your company values and will become a great role model.

Motivated

This criteria is hard to measure, but one way to look at it is to see if the buddy is here for the long run. If the potential buddy is leaving the company soon, it might be a bad idea to assign them as a buddy.

Peerful

Yes, it's a new word that we came up with! You don't want your buddy to be a manager or a mentor. The idea is to actually be a 'buddy'. Shocker, right? Well, not all people are used to this professional dynamic. Pick someone who is comfortable to just be a peer, a buddy without any superiority.

Wants to be a buddy

Let's be honest here, you can't force human connection. So pick someone who's willing to be a buddy. It's not always the most extroverted person in your Slack channel. The best way to know is to ask! But don't push the question too much. Give them a space to say No if they wish.

Conclusion

Your buddy program can become very successful by choosing the right buddies. If you want to make the scheduling part of the buddy program easier, we've covered how to automate it.