New Employee Orientation - Case Study Example

Introduction

After successful recruitment and selection of new staff, the next important step to improve human resource effectiveness and manage talents efficiently is the proper orientation of the person into the organization. Employee orientation also known as onboarding involves assisting a new team member to adapt to the cultural and job aspects of the new position smoothly and quickly (Gary, 2010). The organization provides a means by which the person can learn policies, practices, attitudes, and systems available to achieve team and organizational goals. When orientations are conducted appropriately, they can enable the new employee to contribute to the organization’s mission optimally. According to Bauer (2010), a proper orientation program involves four C’s including compliance, culture, clarification, and connection. Compliance introduces the staff to legal requirements, policies, and rules to be followed when working at the new position. Clarification ensures that the employees understand the requirements and expectations of the job. Culture orientation provides the person with formal and informal organizational norms. Connection orientation reveals the vital information networks and work relationships that must be established when working in the new position. Below are five companies that carry out various orientation programs for their new hires.

IBM’s Orientation Program

IBM Company conducts a simple onboarding process for new employees that involve assimilating the person into the organization’s environment. The company acknowledges that new hires have different needs compared to long-tenured members of staff. Consequently, it established the assimilation process characterized by affirming, beginning, and connecting to induct incoming personnel into the company. The objectives of the onboarding program include providing the necessary resources, tools, and support required for adjusting in the business and performing excellently as well as ensuring long-term employee retention through thorough initiation and acclimatization. The process has clear timelines for each of the steps to avoid overlapping of activities and making sure each activity has sufficient time to be efficiently carried out.

Affirming – occurs before the scheduled start date for the new job at the office; mostly it occurs the first week of reporting to the office. It involves welcoming the staff, providing a workspace, and allocating the staff a personal mentor.

Beginning – this step happens during the first four weeks after starting the job. Foremost, the company has customary guidelines to make sure the person is met at the door, familiarized with colleagues, obtains a well-designed workspace, and completes all the necessary paperwork. The team member conducting the orientation introduces the fresh member to an intranet orientation platform called “Your IBM” that details all the nitty gritty of working in the company (Bauer, 2010). During those thirty days, the managers ensure that the employee has access to essential resources; they clearly outline duties, schedule check-in and check-out intervals to track progress in “Your IBM” as well as encourage the novel staff to make inquiries for more clarifications.

Connecting – this step occurs during the first twelve months of a hire starting a job in IBM. It involves three phases, and the first phase occurs after two months of working in the company where the coach assigned in the first step checks in with the new staff to ensure everything regarding the job is on track. At this point, the priority is networking, and the coach encourages the employee to find an exciting community within the organization and join it. Between four to six months, the focus shifts to the employee’s understanding of the company’s systems and his/her accomplishments so far. By the end of the year, the company considers the integration process to have ended and the new employee to be in sync with all organizational code of conduct, systems, business processes, and communication protocols.

The most remarkable component of IBM’s assimilation procedure is the assignment of a coach to a new hire who can reinforce concepts, answer questions, share tools and processes, and assist in the transmission of current company’s cultural values to the new hire.

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) Integration Program

BMS is a medium-sized pharmaceutical company with around 30,000 employees. Its orientation program focuses on two dimensions of integration including cultural and operational integration. The integration approaches aim to enhance a positive impact on new biotech personnel by assessing talents and managing placements of employees in line with the outcome of the assessments. The objectives of the orientation program in BMS include creating a first positive impression, accelerate the process of assimilation into the company, and impart knowledge about the history, present activities, and prospects of BMS.

Operational integration – BMS prepares an orientation checklist before the start date that is used to track the new employees’ progress during onboarding. One day before the start date, the hiring managers attend training to understand expectations for the integration process. The company provides a functioning workspace and work tools on the first day. Over the course of the following four months, teams from human resources, finance, compliance, Information Technology, and Facilities prepare and teach behind-the-scenes classes for the new employees to understand all departments.

Cultural integration – BMS understands that although a person may have experience working in a pharmaceutical firm, he/she still needs time and resources to assimilate in its formal and informal business environment. Consequently, the company prepares cross-cultural awareness modules characterized by managers sharing their experiences on how they integrated into the company. Besides, new hires get to know the history of the company since its inception as a traditional drugs company to its present and prospective states. This phase is also a platform for the novel employees to ask questions about the company’s culture and provide feedback to management about how the onboarding process is progressing.

Onboarding at Zappos

Zappos.com is a subsidiary of Amazon.com Inc. acquired in 2009 and is among the top 100 companies for employees to work for in the United States according to the Fortune Magazine (Bauer and Erdogan, 2010). The organization engages in an intensive onboarding procedure for new employees during a five-week training course. The objective of the course includes supporting new hires in understanding the company’s systems, values, and procedures in a manner that increases employee satisfaction and retention in the organization. The company offers $2000 to new employees to resign if they feel that they do not suit in the company’s environment (Bauer and Erdogan, 2010). As a result, the company has built a comparatively flat organizational structure characterized by a complete transparency that retains employees for long periods.

Bank of America (BoA) Executive Onboarding

BoA undertakes a unique onboarding program for its new executive employees to prevent derailment given the high rate (40%) of executive derailment in the industry (Conger and Fishel, 2007). The firm has three main objectives when conducting executive onboarding including accelerating performance outcome, facilitating a smooth integration process, and reducing high costs associated with executive derailment. The onboarding process for executive hires involves various tools and activities carried out during specific time periods. During the first day, the executives undergo an orientation program involving presentations about the bank’s history, culture, and values (Conger and Fishel, 2007). During the first week of entry, the new executives receive a written onboarding plan and leadership tools, which help them to organize and prioritize the integration process as well as help them understand the leadership frameworks of the bank respectively. During the first 2-3 months after entry, the executives engage in the major stakeholder meetings to allow information flows and set expectations; they meet their team members to accelerate development of working relationships; and engage in peer integration with the current executives (Conger and Fishel, 2007). By the end of three months, the executives are deemed fit to start their jobs as leaders in BoA.

Delta Airlines Orientation Program

Delta Airlines has a highly evolved orientation program that focuses on employee socialization where the new personnel get an opportunity to adapt to the company’s environment and appreciate the organization’s norms and values for acceptable behavioral patterns. The process can be structured or unstructured and varies during recruitment of employees depending on the type of job. For technical positions like pilots, engineers, and radio tower controllers; the orientation program is structured and occurs for a few months with comprehensive courses and specific timelines. The orientation for support staff, involves a one-month unstructured orientation process that aims to accelerate the integration of the new hire into the company, enhance loyalty to the airline, and build cordial employee relations. The first week of reporting involve welcoming, introductions, understanding company policies and rules, as well as the history of the enterprise. The company provides branded items to novel personnel including sweatshirts, mugs, and caps that make one feel part and parcel of the team. The second week involves tours to different company departments to learn about their functions in relation to the new role. The most impressive thing about the tour is the aircraft named “Spirit of Delta” found in the airline’s museum. It was bought through voluntary contributions from employees, community partners, and retirees more than twenty years ago after deregulation of the aviation industry to appreciate the then leaders but the teamwork spirit lived on to the present. The third week involves training for the job through an elaboration of the job description while the fourth week involves a team building exercise led by the direct supervisor.

Best Practices in New Employees Orientation Programs

Creating an agenda for the orientation period before the new team member reports for work is much easier, convenient, and professional to have the onboarding agenda before the staff arrives as opposed to creating one when he/she is already there. Such a practice gives a good first impression and makes the new staff feel valued.

Blocking-off time for orientation for the onboarding program can happen in a thorough and complete manner. The person or people spearheading the orientation program should make time for it and not do it while engaging in their daily work routines. Besides, the new employee should not jump into the job right away but should have time to acclimatize to the environment, the people, the systems, and the culture of the organization.

Providing new employees with company branded gifts such as work bags, coffee mug, or t-shirt makes him/her feel welcomed. Besides, the act builds brand loyalty from the beginning since the staff feels connected to the organization.

Planning a meeting with the immediate supervisor or manager after all the introductions have been made is a good way to set the new team member in motion. He/she can learn about the supervisor’s management style, work ethic, and on-job expectations.

New Employee Orientation

As mentioned earlier and according to Bauer (2010), an appropriate orientation process should include four elements including compliance, culture, clarification, and connection. Therefore, the proposed onboarding program will involve an induction procedure for a new hire characterized by the four elements with clear timelines for five weeks. The objectives of the program are outlined below, and the direct supervisor acts as the coach for the new hire during the integration process.

Topic

Tools

Learning objectives

Person responsible

Schedule

Compliance

Company policies

Human resource manual

To understand organizational mission, vision, and values

To raise awareness on various codes of conduct

Human resource manager

First week of entry

Culture

Company history and organizational structure

Presentation on communication protocols

To appreciate the past, present, and prospects of the firm

To learn the proper information flows and reporting guidelines

Vice president

Employee relations officer

Second week after reporting

Clarification

Elaboration of job description

Workshop on departmental functions

To understand the new role, job expectations, and performance requirements

To learn how the new role interacts with other organizational functions

Direct supervisor

Departmental heads

Third week after reporting

Fourth week

Connection

Team building exercise

To build cordial work relations with colleagues

All team members

Fifth week

Peer integration meeting

To network and learn from other’s experiences

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