Question 4: What are the unique design features of your orientation program?
Question 14: What are the top three benefits of orientation to your organization?
Question 15: What are the top three challenges your organization faces in orientation?
Question 16: What are your biggest lessons learned? What would you do differently?

• 4 step process: before 1st day, 1st day, first five shifts & continued learning (up to 6 weeks & beyond for some positions). Has self initiated learning, partnered learning and web based learning.
• In the process of redesigning program. Hoping to get all new hires across country to attend face-2-face orientation at headquarters or largest west coast office.
• One-on-one time with HR person.
• My NEO covers everything about our organization and it is all done online except for the supervisor's part.
• We have training coordinators who mentor/coach new hires through the program. We also have an adult education specialist for those who struggle academically.
• Much of the content is presented through an interactive CBT.
• Our orientation is in the form of a passport, with employees getting stamps for each function completed.
• Workshops are delivered over a 6 month period, closest to the time the information is most applicable. Also, 90 days after hire date, they recieve Business Model Training followed by an HR Training sponsored lunch with the company president.
• Training in Company specific software.
• Built online 'Discovery Zone' intended to provide increasing levels of background info on the firm over first three months.
• Management and Admin employees spend time on the production floor learning about our product and even making it.
  We have a Welcome to our World survival kit which is on-line and employee receives Day 1. They then go through the Web Based Training Program and attend classroom training as a capstone.
• Tent building.
• Top Leaders do a lot of the disussions.
• Two major components: First day and a multiday program some time in the first 3-4 months. The multi-day training includes a diversity course required of all employees.
• In person.
• Highly interactive, games, hunts, discussion.
• When we have more than one new employee, dept. heads make a presentation to group.
• It has phases, beginning with pre-hire, Day 1, and the weeks that follow.
• I think what is unique is the time of day we have it. We mostly hire for 2nd and 3rd shift, so the orientation is held at 6pm until 11:00pm at night to accomadate those work hours.
• It's simple!
• Small company - 1 on 1 sessions.
• Tour of council chambers & video on history of the city.
• We are a state government agancy, so there is a lot of legal and policy issues that are unique to us. We are mandatory reporters of child abuse, for instance.
• New employees are given a 'New Employees Guide' orientation CD with their offer package. It's a complete guide to the organization, culture, benefits, and people.
• Night before phone call from Buddy.
• Streaming video from CEO welcoming new hires into the company.
• Appreciative story telling, humor, audience involvement.
• The support that we get from the executive team. Each one actually makes an appearance and presents a portion relevant to their department.
• Multiple presenters and delivery methods: 2 primary facilitators and 20 presenters as subject matter experts from the business. Held in 2 locations (UK, Canada) with a cross-functional audience-everyone is expected to attend within 2 months of joining the organization, regardless of role/level of authority. Coordinated and aligned with other function specific new hire training (eg: Sales Training).
• Welcome on the first day.
• Our company is constantly striving to improve orientation for new employees. We offer a chance for new/existing employees to strive for their personal best, keep them on track with their learning and receive feedback and support from their supervisor using the Performance Development & Review (PDR). After a trial period of 3 months, the supervisor meets with the new employee to help set job specific learning goals and to ensure a solid understanding of what their department does and how they impact the organization as a whole.

Return to top

• Up to speed quickly with need to know information
• Client confidentiality is maintained
• Get them aclimated to the organization
• quicker productivity of employee
• Consistent message about values/mission
• Employee is welcomed to the company
• Employee doesn't feel lost in big, varied organization
• Retention
• Client satisfaction
• Learn locations of key organization areas
• Employees learn company 'way'
• Relative ease of rollout
• Existing employees meet new
• Retaining employees
• Understanding firm's culture
• Consistant Training
• Employees signed up for insurance
• Cultural acclimation
• Bridge learning curve
• Employees feel welcomed and valued
• Decreased attrition
• Understanding about the business
• Fast integration
• Employees feel integrated into the culture
• Understanding of the organization
• Higher big picture awareness
• Knowledge of firm policy
• Communication of a consistent message
• Explanation of benefits plans
• Employee commitment
• Provides a common language
• Makes them aware of safety in the workplace
• Understanding of the organization
• Dissemination of information
• Information
• Become quickly familiar with organization
• Introduction to staff
• Networking
• Common vision, mission and goals
• Knowledge of organization's history
• Reduces time to productivity
• Employees feel welcomed
• Consistent message delivered to new hire
• Better understanding of the job and expectations
• Quicker ramp up
• Socialization with other new hires
• Employee engagement
• Understanding of company philosophy
• Find out about benefits
• Acquaintance with the University's mission/vision
• Higher rate of acclimation to work environment
• Allows employee feedback and input
• Ensuring the right person is doing the right job
• Importance of self initiated learning
• Values and code of conduct are adhered to
• Higher level of engagement
• Consistency in knowledge shared
• Providing tools to make new employees productive
• Employee gets overview of benefits
• Gets to know supervisor
• Feeling of being part of the organization
• Line manager satisfaction
• Meet fellow employees
• Employees enroll in benefits
• Less time comsuming to internal resources
• Employees are ready for work sooner
• Showcase, demonstrate andteach organization's core values
• Ability to perform daily tasks
• Employees know safety information
• Smooth administrative process (e.g, benefits)
• Aclimatization with their surroundings
• Organizational familiarity and level of comfort
• Relationship building
• Understanding of their new department
• Less questions of HR re: benefits available
• Employees feel they are important
• Understanding of employee part
• Ability to represent to the company to customers
• Firm strucutre, organization compliance
• Making employee feel wanted
• Answers employee questions
• Identifies that the company is committed
• Appreciation of the organization's history
• Ability to meet leadership
• Sense of welcoming
• Get to know staff quicker
• Integration to company
• Motivating
• Policy consistency
• Knowledge of org. structure
• Increased Retention
• Policies, procedures and processes learned
• First day access to info
• Better company and product knowledge
• Retention
• Knowledge of the company's culture
• Understanding of our business and your role in it
• Understanding of business strategy and products
• Can always reference our company policies
• Establishing some form of connectedness/networking
• Retention
• Gets employee settled in faster in their position
• Employees have solid understanding of the business
• Help you feel welcome, to help you become a valued
• New starter feels part of team
• Higher level of productivity
• Gives new employees a good start
• Making new employees feel welcomed/valued
• Employee has list of who to contact with questions
• Supervisor taking part in the process
• Executive satisfaction
• Learn divisions
• Employees discuss dress code
• The first week is standardized for all new employee
• Everyone gets an opportunity to impact new employee
• Improved productivity in a shorter time period
• Making new hire feel welcome
• Employees know policies
• Retention/re-recruiting
• Documentation completed on time
• Consistent knowledgeapplication policies/procedure
• Partnering wtih corporate
• New employees feel welcomed
• Employees feel like they know where they fit in
• Understanding what employee
• Quicker start
• General awareness of areas
• Retention
• Communication of our philosophy
• Saves time and rework
• Gives them a chance to see the building as a whole
• Familiarization of the processes
• Sets positive tone
• Overview of company
• Get to know employee better
• Reinforcing culture expectations
• Informative
• Opportunity for people to network
• Knowledge of organization's purpose
• Validates the employee proposition
• Employee contributes quickly
• Efficient use of resources
• Quicker integration
• Employee satisfaction
• Meeting executive team
• Building relationships/interdependance
• Understanding of day-to-day mechanics
• Up and running quickly
• Diversity of units/people coming together
• Productivity
• Gets employee quickly acquainted w/the team
• Setting goals to maximize productivity
  

Return to top

• Supervisor commitment
• Staff geographically dispersed
• The ability to have people travel to the corporate
• Some areas don't want to send employees to orientation
• Cost involved with staff to present
• Time constraints/support from presenters
• Getting managers to follow the program
• Ensuring all take the NEO
• Academic abilities of new hires
• No effort is made
• Don't learn organizational structure
• Dedicated time devoted to the new hire
• Scheduling conflicts (trainers and employees)
• Time
• Language barriers
• Consistency across geography
• Time - HR and the line managers time is tight
• Limited industry experience
• Remote locations
• Time
• Consistent delivery across divisions
• Increasing their knowledge of all department functions
• Scheduling
• Time for employees to absorb all the information
• Scheduling
• Making a more engaging experience
• Different locations, different approaches
• Time
• Creating an effective orientation
• Communication of relevant information
• Getting the ones hired outside normal processes
• Time
• No enough materials (manual, etc)
• Making the orientation a priority
• Knowing when people start
• Getting them oriented right when they start
• Time
• Effectively transmit information on policy and pro
• Could use more hours
• Time (away from work)
• Lack of time to devote to revamping orientation
• Accessing field employees
• Keeping content up to date
• Technological issues-ensuring first day access
• Making it dynamic
• Manager buy in and commitment to process
• Improving the efficacy
• Departmental orientations are weak
• Support/buy-in from certain business units
• Corporate culture difficult to understand
• Need to include more orientation to our culture
• Time
• Getting all new employees to participate
• Updating content
• The time and resources it takes to organize one
• Delivering appropriate/consistent training
• Supervisor time
• Program not sufficiently focused
• Headquarters for orientation
• Some employees think they know it all
• Cost involved with travel to 2 offices
• Budget to bring remotes to central site
• Are no tangible consequences if they don't participate
• Making sure the supervisor is involved
• Turnover
• Management doesn't understand the importance
• Can't find their way around
• Defined road map beyond the first week
• Currently no evaluation system
• What to train to avoid overtraining
• Different needs for different departments
• Blending personal touch with info dump
• Lack of management support
• Reaching field staff
• Supervisors not having time to be involved
• Updating materials
• Completion of evaluations
• Reaching all locations
• People attending
• Money
• Making employee feel part of the group
• Getting new managers to attend
• Bringing in others as subject matter experts
• No measurement tools
• Integrating them into the organization
• Consistency
• Giving them the right information
• Effectively communicate cultural norms for the organization
• Variety of business units
• Money (travel, etc)
• Lack of commitment
• Creating global standard
• Balancing with need to get the job done - time!
• Lack of personal touch
• Managing from remote locations
• Department specific needs
• Too much information...too little time
• Information overload
• Needs more information about customer service
• Resources
• Follow-up once employees return to their departments
• Global delivery w/ language needs
• Organization too large to support group sessions
• Providing a comprehensive orientation handbook
• Exec follow up
• Not a national approach
• Varied learning styles
• Cost involved with keeping program current
• Training on systems is limited
• Updating the online information
• Lack of consistency
• Have no idea about performance
• Lack of follow-up
• Having new hire understand firm's culture
• People's time
• Acclimating experienced hires
• Executive support
• Just launching intranet - too soon for online
• Marketing of all components
• Keeping it fresh
• Integrating the parts
• Too much information
• Personnel
• Getting them started on right foot
• Having existing managers implementing correctly
• Having a better follow-up system to track NEO's
• Methodology is limited
• Creating team atmosphere
• Materials
• Not confusing/overloading them
• Making the new employee feel comfortable quickly
• Not enough sessions
• Size (9500 employees)
• Locations throughout province
• Ensuring consistency with departments
• Keeping orientation flowing til 90 day probation
• Ensuring orientation goes beyond (on-boarding)
• Ensuring new employees have time to complete
• Transferring partial ownership of the process
• Disorganization when presenter doesn't attend
• Scalability - designing a flexible program
• Needs to be more specific about some policies
• Effectiveness
• Keeping presentations interactive
• Continuous improvement
• Understanding company's direction and individual role
  

Return to top

• Introduce a national program and make it compulsory - it would consist of office introduction and phased online delivery
• Involve the business lines earlier in the process
• Build a stronger bridge with the recruiting team
• Partnering with IT department early was critical to the success of the program
• Keep the learning a blended format
• Believe it or not, some employees come in with NO computer experience while others are wizzes
• Since we are redesigning our program today, we are using lessons learned from the past, including: Need to involve executives in welcoming new hires, need to include remote/telecommuting employees, need to make sure those involved with facilitation are incented and enthusiastic (not just an extra task for them).
• Have support from the leaders of the company. Get their input/feedback on what the program should offer.
• I need to put a video of each division administrator in the NEO welcoming their folks to their divisions.
• I'd devote more resources to adult education specialists
• Try to create a positive impact with newly hired employees
• Include Training Dept in planning
• Create job aids
• Use existing company video to build enthusiasm
• Ensure consistency in delivery of orientation from group to group
• Include tours and other activities to help employees feel welcome
• Add online reference information
• Create an orientation Kit that is complete
• Document a road map that each new employee would need for their job - create an orientation program to match the road map
• Create a buddy/mentor system
• Utilize a checklist to insure we are doing our job
• Ask other departments who would like input into orientation
• Make it a project team effort vs. a one-person project
• Orienting new employees on simple procedures, such as how the phone system works, where to call if they are sick, the procedure for sending mail makes a very large impact on new employees. They are very overwhelmed with trying to become familiar with a new company and a new position. Learning these small day to day procedures that are unilateral throughout the company makes a new employee feel comfortable in learning something about the organization.
• More communication between various departments doing new hire training
• Focus on needs of participants vs needs of company
• Make sure all departments touching hiring and orientation processes are considered in design
• Make our department heads/ managers more aware of our program in order to get buy in
• Not enough time for open dialogue with participants
• More new employee involvement in designing the program
• Nothing different
• Get executive involement, make it active, and fun
• Start with a cross-cutting team of hiring manager's and solve their problems. Then work with a group of new-hires and solve their problems
• Broker the various needs through senior manangement
• Video!
• Executive support/participation is key
• Should be using web delivery to support other offices as well
• New program, but we need to have a kind of follow-up session a few weeks or months later
• Just being able to track NEO's better to address the needs of the NEO while on probation
• I have learned that orientation should be solely an HR's responsibility (as practiced in our case); it should be done hand in hand with the department where the new employee is
• Transfer it into video on demand so new employees would have quicker access
• To have an orientation in place with checklists and have by in from management
• would have started formal orientation sooner
• Not to dump too much information onto the new employee too quickly. Shift more of the orientaiton to the departments
• Should be higher profile for management - perception is a nice to have rather than must have
• Get mid-level management buy in and participation as well as top execs
• Make it positive, interactive and have a strong message about the organization that employees can walk away with
• Stay away from long boring programs
• Would have implemented our CD earlier and created evaluation measures from the start
• Create better benchmarks outlining expectations until 90 day probation is complete
• The biggest lesson learned was realizing the technological complexity of delivering a web-based orientation
• Hire someone outside to put on the orientations. Constantly supplying facilitators is a nightmare
• Still in the learning curves ourselves
• Use more self-directed (maybe online) approach; depending on employee status, send certain material before start date to give employee a chance to review it
• I would maintain more control over the orientation that occurs in the departments
• Executive sponsorship and accountability are essential-continue to grow this
• Content must be strategic not tactical which drives business results
• Introduce blended learning methods and a manager specific module
• Spend more time orienting them to our culture and consulting
• Include interactivity
• Build a follow-up piece to the main session
• Have a combination of on-line/one-to-one/group orientations spread out over a 2-3 month period
• Establish an across campus buddy system
• We are redesigning our program using Six Sigma methodology to improve our current award-winning program
• It is best to make it simple and have the employee involved throughout the presentation is key to information retention
• An example of how to keep the employee involved is via interactive games
• Success depends on everyone's understanding of where the company is headed and how each individual fits into the scheme of things
• Working hard to ensure all employees feel comfortable and involved, fosters a healthy and productive working environment
• We are currently striving to create a more comprehensive, consistent orientation manual