Orientation Handbook – Getting Employees Off to a Good Start

Duration: Offered as a 90 minute webinar or 2 days in class

Course Overview

An effective human resource professional knows that managing employee performance is more than responding to problems, conducting performance reviews, or hiring staff. Performance management begins with an orientation to the organization and the job, and continues on a daily basis as employees are trained and coached.

A thoughtful new employee orientation program, coupled with an employee handbook (or website) that communicates workplace policies, can reduce turnover and those reductions save your organization money. Whether your company has two employees or a thousand employees, don’t leave employee retention to chance. Engage them from the moment they are hired; give them what they need to feel welcome, and let them impress you with what they bring to your company.

Learning Objectives

  • Understand how important an orientation program is to an organization
  • Identify the role of the human resource department in the orientation program
  • Recognize how the commitment curve affects both new employees and their managers
  • Know what companies can do to deliver their promise to new employees
  • Determine the critical elements of effective employee training
  • Establish the importance of having an employee handbook for new and long-term employees

Course Outline

1. Course Overview

2. Finding, Hiring, and Keeping Good People

3. Building Employee Commitment and Engagement

  • The Four Components
  • Clarity
  • Clarity Exercise
  • Competence
  • Influence
  • Appreciation

4. Perception

  • Why Perception is Important
  • Your Perceptions

5. Fast-Track Orientation

6. Designing a Successful Orientation Program

  • Using Your Experience
  • Mistakes to Avoid

7. Characteristics of a Successful Orientation Process

8. The Commitment Curve

  • The Big Picture
  • Stages of the Curve
  • Applying the Curve

9. Nine Orientation Habits of World-Class Employers

10. Obtaining Buy-In

11. Employee Training

  • Preparing Effective Training
  • Addressing Learner Needs and Expectations
  • Learning and Training Styles
  • Building and Sustaining Interest
  • Methodology
  • Case Study

12. Adult Learning

  • Principles of Adult Learning
  • Applying the Principles

13. Working with External Providers

14. Helping People Make Connections

  • Establishing Good Relationships
  • Buddy, Please Help Me Out…

15. Creating Employee Manuals

16. A Bridge to Onboarding

17. Personal Action Plan