How to have a successful job start in times of Corona

Stefanie Berger had somehow imagined her start at ERGO Rechtsschutz in Munich to be different. And yet even under “remote conditions” it worked out.

The lawyer Stefanie Berger joined ERGO in Munich in April as a consultant. In her job, she is responsible for the entire benefits processing for legal protection – i.e. among other things, answering calls from customers and lawyers, and dealing with their requests, arranging legal services and much more. Normally, she would have been warmly welcomed in a face-to-face meeting on her first day of work and her colleagues would have introduced themselves personally.

However, this April everything was different: Instead of 18 colleagues in the benefits office in Munich, the offices awaiting her were largely empty. “Of course, I had expected the start to my job to be different. It was a bit strange to find long empty corridors and only a few people”, she describes.

Sufficient distance in the meeting room

The induction to the job was also unusual. Without Corona, it would have been done personally; a colleague would just have sat down with her at her desk. “Instead, we made do with a large meeting room, there was a big monitor and enough space to keep our distance.” In addition, there were skype and remote telephone training sessions, in which Stefanie Berger mirrored the screens with her colleagues.

Her boss, Sebastian Faust, is happy about the creative ways his employees found to accompany Bergers’ induction: “It worked out much better than originally expected, even if personal training was indispensable for some aspects, e.g. training in customer telephony. Thanks to the great commitment of all the team members, everything worked out quite well.” In the meantime, Stefanie Berger has got to know most of her colleagues personally.

“At the beginning, I had some doubts about how my induction to the job in times of Corona would work out”, sums up Stefanie Berger. “But it turned out to be easier than expected.”

Text: Ursula Lindenberg