A good first month with someone in India looks a lot like a good first month with anyone. The difference is that you have to be deliberate about the things that happen by accident in a shared office: the quick question, the overheard decision, the lunch where someone learns how things really work.
A satellite office does not replace good management. It removes everything around the management, so the time you do spend goes on the work.
Before day one
- Access is ready. Email, chat, the repository or help desk, the project board. Nothing kills a first week like waiting for permissions.
- The first task is chosen. Make it small, real and finishable in the first week.
- A buddy is named. One person on your team who answers the small questions, so they do not pile up for you.
- Rituals are in the calendar. The daily standup, a weekly one-to-one, and the team meeting they will join.
In a satellite office, the desk, the laptop, security access and the employment paperwork are ready before day one. Your list is the one above.
Week one: context
- Walk through the product as a customer would. Then walk through how the team works: where decisions are written down, how work moves from idea to shipped.
- Ship the first small task. The point is not the task. It is going through your whole process once, end to end.
- End the week with a 20-minute conversation. What was confusing? What did they expect that was not true?
Weeks two and three: ownership
- Hand over something with an outcome, not just a ticket. “Clear the support backlog older than a week” is better than “answer tickets”.
- Make written updates the norm. A short end-of-day note helps everyone, and it matters more when people are not in the same room.
- Give feedback early and specifically. The first small correction is the easiest one you will ever make.
Week four: the first review
Sit down for 30 minutes with the outcomes you wrote in the brief:
- What is on track?
- What is not, and why?
- What should change in how you work together?
Write the answers down. They become the baseline for the next review.
What stays your job
- What gets built, and in what order
- What good looks like
- Feedback on the work
- Including them in the team: the meetings, the context, the decisions
What does not
- Payroll, compliance and contracts
- The office, the laptop and IT
- Leave and attendance records
- The HR conversations that are not about the work
We run those, alongside a week-one integration check-in and a monthly operations report. Leave and expenses are shared: you approve, we administer.
Time zones, briefly
Your person works in your time zone. The schedule is agreed during onboarding, so standups and reviews happen when your team is working.
See all the touchpoints in what’s included, the steps in how it works, or talk to us.