JOBS: How to Overcome First Day of Work Anxiety
Starting a new job is exciting and you may feel anxious about it. It's okay to be anxious on your first day at work but don't let the anxiety take over you such that you fail to meet your expectations. The anxiety might not go away immediately but as you progress, you become easy with the work environment.
Leah Mukangai 
You may have no prior experience working in that position or for the company, and starting a new job is a major life change. Recognizing your nerves is the first step toward overcoming your anxiety and feeling confident in your new job.
Here are some steps to guide you on your first day at work.
1. Sharing your feelings and thoughts with someone you trust
Talking to a trusted friend or family member about your new job nerves and any concerns you have can help you relax. Talking about them with someone you trust can help you unburden your mind and relax.
Explaining why you are nervous allows you to focus your positivity on specific areas. The person you speak with may also be able to provide helpful advice on how to handle your first day and deal with any nerves.
2. Take more time to get ready for the day and the tasks ahead
When starting a new job, feeling prepared can help to reduce tension and anxiety while increasing confidence. Choose your outfit for the first day in advance, research your new company, and test the best routes to work.
You can also contact your new manager to see if there is anything you can do to prepare for your first day.
3. Ask questions
On your first day, ask questions to learn as much as you can about your new job, coworkers, manager, and the company. If you require clarification on a specific point during your onboarding, make sure to ask for it at the appropriate time.
4. Have a positive mindset
Your new job is a rewarding experience that will allow you to learn and grow professionally. If you make a mistake, figure out how to fix it and how to avoid making it again. Recognizing the possibility of making mistakes can lift your spirits and put you in a more productive frame of mind as you begin your new job.
5. Keep reasonable expectations
It's critical to remind yourself that starting a new job entails learning new skills and becoming acquainted with a new culture and way of working. You will need more than one day to learn your new job and feel at ease with your coworkers and surroundings. Maintain realistic expectations by remembering that you are new to the job and will require time to learn.
With this in mind, you are definitely going to overcome the anxiety that you might experience on your first dy at work.
Here are some latest job samples in Kenya that you can apply for.
JOB 1: Assistant Underwriter-2 at Absa Bank Limited
About Absa Bank Limited
Absa Bank Limited (Absa) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Barclays Africa Group Limited. Absa offers personal and business banking, credit cards, corporate and investment banking, wealth and investment management as well as bancassurance. Barclays Africa Group Limited is 62.3% owned by Barclays Bank PLC and is listed on the JSE Limited. The Group is one of Africa’s major financial services providers offering personal and business banking, credit cards, corporate and investment banking, wealth and investment management as well as bancassurance.
Job Summary
To deliver claims-related administrative support services through the execution of predefined objectives as per agreed standard operating procedures (SOPs).
Job Description
- Quality Assurance: Maintain a desired level of quality in a service or product, especially by means of attention to every stage of the process of delivery or production
- Claims assessment: Check different types of information for accuracy and inconsistency with the aim of verifying the validity of claims made
- Meeting deadlines: Completes tasks timeously
- Claims process: Ensure that the claims process is effectively and efficiently executed as per standard operating procedures
Method of Application
Job Purpose:
Risk, Regulatory, Prudential & Compliance
- Ensure the overall Non-Financial risk management, governance, and control across the business in conjunction with wider Risk Management teams
- Ensure that the Business is supported by a robust framework of policies and standards with appropriate approval authorities.
- Facilitate the development of common processes across Business to ensure compliance with policies, operational standards, and set controls.
- Promote, track and report on continuous improvement Initiatives to ensure compliance with relevant regulatory requirements as well as control standards
- Provide oversight to business activities with regular audits of conformance including deep dives, reviews, and liaison with internal and external auditors.
- Provide oversight and support for the implementation of the country's program of work to BCM / DR / Contingency planning,
- Support embedment of all new and emerging Non-Financial risks
- Provide assurance to management that all risk policy requirements are addressed and embedded in the business unit
- Provide information in an appropriate way for different audiences, e.g. business leadership so they understand the most significant risks, to governance committees (i.e. Mancos, Operational Risk Committee (OPCO), Risk & Conduct Committee (RCC), etc. Ensuring they are aware of risks relevant to their parts of the business, and to relevant individuals within the Business and understand their accountability for individual risks.
- Provide risk input with regard to assessments for change initiatives /process reviews and ensure material Non-Financial risks are duly mitigated
- Implementation, validation, and monitoring of operational risk management processes within the business
- Provide adequate operational risk review and evaluation of new product releases, and emerging risks due to changes to products and service offerings within the business
- Provide oversight for the management of all entries as well as data related to RCSA, KRIs, Incidents, and losses uploaded on Risk tools.
- Validate reported operational incidents and exceptions, perform root cause analyses, and identify potential opportunities for improvements to upstream processes/systems.
- Supervise continuous improvement in the quality of assessment reports, Adhoc tasks e.t.c
Strategy, Culture, Data, and capacity building
- Provide input into the Non-Financial Risk Management strategy to ensure all non-financial risks are managed appropriately across the enterprise.
- Support NFR's digital and automation strategy
- Collaborate with Business unit heads and other stakeholders (e.g., Operations, Legal, Compliance, FCC, GRES, Physical Security and other risk type functions, and IT)
- Lead and drive a risk culture across the business segments and the bank in order to provide clients assurance on the upholding of the highest levels of integrity and meeting all regulatory and reputational requirements.
- Support the development of BUs in understanding NFR through interventions in areas relating to technical knowledge, NFR monitoring tools, insights and trends, and hands-on supervisory support in managing risks.
- Continuously improve the operational risk processes with the intention of adding value to business whilst introducing practices that are fit for purpose in line with leading global practices.
- Collaborate with members of the Risk Community to ensure that actions on Business Top Risks are accurately and appropriately defined and tracked to ensure successful remediation and mitigation of high-risk issues.
Qualification:
- Degree in Business Commerce/ Finance and Accounting or Risk Management
- MBA or Risk certifications will be an added advantage
Skills and Experience:
- 5 to 7 years of experience in Risk in a large global corporate environment, a good understanding of all aspects of Operational Risk Management, a High degree of understanding of all aspects of risk within a technology environment, a good understanding of the operations function and business processes relating to Wholesale and Retail banking transactions.
Method of Application
Job Purpose:
The report developer will be responsible to develop new data marts, reports, and dashboards, or building data extracted from the existing ODS or EDW as per business requirements. In addition, he will also have to attend to any user requests for any user access, data related, or report queries. As part of daily operations, he should ensure the availability of Reporting applications and ensure the accuracy and integrity of data available to business users. He should provide recommendations and technical assistance to meet the strategic goals of simplification, standardization, and automation
Key Responsibilities
- Responsible to design, developing, build, and maintaining reports and queries from the existing Operational Data Store (ODS) and Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW)
- Responsible to troubleshoot existing report issues and training business users for self-development of low to medium complexity reports
- Design and implement business universes, data marts, and semantic layers for business users to access information from the reporting tools
- Implement (Extract Transform Load) ETL procedures for all data projects and solutions and perform Unit testing
- Work with internal subject matter experts and external data modelers for gathering business requirements and designing report specifications
- Provide technical, analytical, and business guidance to other team members and other departments
- Collaborate with the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) team to ensure Data quality and alignment with Data Architecture/Governance
- Manage the users accesses to reporting tools and enforce the approval matrix
- Perform any other duties as may be required
Qualifications, Experience & Skills
- Bachelor’s Degree in a related field or equivalent work experience is required
- 1 – 3 years experience using BI Tools
- 1 – 3 years experience using Microsoft Office Tools
- Strong knowledge of SQL/PLSQL
- Knowledge of the SAP BO reporting tool is desirable
- Knowledge of Finacle Banking system architecture/database is desirable
- Strong analytical, problem-identification, and solving skills
- Able to understand and document end-user reporting requirements
- Take ownership of problems and develop sound solutions
- Ability to work well under pressure and independently
- Excellent technical and interpersonal communication skills
- Able to fully research business situation, identify areas of concern and present solutions
- Experience in a banking environment, understanding of banking products, and knowledge of departmental objectives constitute a definite advantage
Method of Application
