|
|
- Conducting Effective Employee
Orientations
- - Orientations are performance
trend setters
- By Claire Belilos
-
- Do you have two steps, or even three in the
Orientation process? There must be a general orientation, a departmental orientation,
and the specific job orientation, conducted by different parties. The General Orientation
is usually managed by either the Training Department or the Human Resources Department,
with the Departmental Orientation by the Department Head or first Assistant, while the
specific Job Orientation can be carried out by an experienced and trained employee
(trained on how to train). These guidelines are intended for people conducting the General
Orientation:
- A general rule of thumb for having the audience
interested in the general orientation is
- (1) to make them feel at ease (open circle)
- (2) make sure that they had enough time to read the
employee manual ahead of orientation time
- (3) spend a good portion of the intro time towards
self-introductions, spiced with open questions
- (4) get them acquainted to know who Management is: have a
big chart in the orientation/training room which depicts how the organization is set up,
with photos of the management team next to their title
- (5) get them acquainted with the operation: have another
large chart in the room depicting the flow of work and communications regarding the
organization; this flow should include customers, suppliers and all parties affecting the
organization (I had just planned such a chart for the hotel where I dealt with Training
and Development, wrote it out in text, had an artist express it in carricature format
(humorous colourful chart) - after all this was a hotel. Maybe in a technical company
humour is not allowed. I explained it to the artist and we showed how each job position
affected the final product since the customer's/guest's first contact with the operation
and ending with the last contact.
- 6) have them know and see departments in operation: based
on this drawing I conducted the orientation and explained all functions of the hotel,
promising a personal tour of all the departments we discussed, including back areas, where
the Department Heads received us personally and gave further insight on their departments
- 7) allay their fears and doubts: cover subjects which are
usually never mentioned in orientations, such as the difficulties new employees or
supervisors experience, about turnover figures, about how people assimilate better after
hanging out three months, about how they can turn to you for any difficulties they
experience, be it regarding their rejection by existing old-timers or other matters. Let
them know they can always turn to you for confidential advice (do not forget that any new
person has fears and doubts regarding being accepted, succeeding or failing)
- 8) encourage friendships among new employees: try to
create a team spirit among the existing group of newcomers - by the end of the day or the
two days you will have created a group of employees at different levels and from different
departments who will cooperate and enhance communications across the organization
- 9) extend respect to them as human beings: have lunch
with them as a group (I saw too many people who conduct orientations go to a different
lunch room and this is very insulting)
- 10) enable first hand contact with upper management: have
different Executives come to welcome the group and assure them of management's commitment
to help them succeed. Introduce each of the newcomers, dwell on their position, career
background and personal interests.
- 11) assure them how the organization welcomes their
observations, comments and critiques.
- 12) and last but not least, sharing company goals with
them. Discuss it with them. Ask what their own personal and career goals are and try to
right there and then mesh their own goals with the company goals.
- This strategy (action plan) has proven to be highly
successful. It cuts down on turnover drastically, engenders trust, cooperation and
motivation.
- Copyright ©1999 - All Rights Reserved
|
- Claire Belilos is the founder of CHIC Hospitality Consulting Services. Her
background includes Hospitality operations. She specializes in solving people management
problems, organizational training and development, supervisory coaching, training of
trainers, designing effective job, training and evaluation tools, and training for
customer service excellence. For more information, please visit her website at http://www.easytraining.com or
e-mail: or
e-mail: or
e-mail: chic@easytraining.com
|
|
|
|
|
