The Employee Orientation Process: Why Does It Matter?
Why Is Employee Orientation Important?
Your employee orientation process is one of the first impressions a new employee gets about your company. It sets the tone for what they should expect. Orientation helps prepare the new employee fit into their new role.
The orientation helps reduce costs in the long run. This process helps acclimate new people more quickly and reduces time coworkers spend away from their own jobs to help the new employee.
It can take anywhere from eight months to two years for a new employee to reach full productivity, depending on how effective your orientation process is. If done correctly, it will set them up for success, so they are less likely to leave.
The Orientation Process
Orientation should be consistent across the company. You may want to change up some aspects of the orientation based on departments or roles, but the process should remain the same.
Start with welcoming them. You want them to feel valued as a new member of the company, so they have a good first impression. You can also complete any paperwork that still needs to be completed at this time. It’s easiest if you take care of most of the paperwork before orientation though.
Provide them with handbooks, policies, and benefit packages and make sure they understand the company policy requirements. You might find it easier to provide these items online so they can reference them when they need.
Company Overview
During orientation, make sure new employees understand company goals. Be clear about their responsibilities and priorities and help them understand how their work goals should align with company goals.
Training on company requirements is useful during this orientation process. You also want to provide training on job-specific areas to help them better understand their role in the company. Any other policy areas that may need more focus are helpful to include in this training time, such as safety procedures.
Once you have gone over all the paperwork and training, they should be ready to get acquainted with their new job surroundings. Give them a tour of the workspace, especially the areas they will need to be familiar with. This includes preparing them for using any equipment necessary to complete their job.
Introduce new employees to their coworkers and let them have a chance to speak with them. Taking the time to meet the people they are working with will help them ease in and start to get a feel for the social networks.
Encourage new hires to ask questions as you go through the orientation process. You want to make sure they have all the information they need to get started and do their job well.
What’s Next?
While the orientation process is important to set new employees up for success, that’s not the end of fitting them into the company or their new role. You will want to do a post-orientation follow up after a week or two. Take the time to make sure they are doing well in their role and that they understand what’s required of them moving forward.
Follow up on training and make sure they are catching on and fitting into the company dynamic. It could also be helpful to have a mentoring program so they can learn from someone who understands the role and make connections with coworkers.
Making the Most of Employee Orientation
The orientation process sounds like a lot of work, but it is a helpful part of preparing employees. The better prepared new employees are, the more likely they will stay with your company.
You can simplify this process with online orientation training. Infinit-I Workforce Solutions has an online learning management system that will help you develop your orientation training and store helpful documentation for employees to refer back to.
You can request a free demo to learn how Infinit-I Workforce Solutions can help you simplify the orientation process from pre to post.
