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I do new employee orientation when we hire, am I a trainer?
By Kelly Orehovec | June 6, 2008
Yes, you are!!! Even if you do not have the word “trainer” in your title, if you do new employee orientations, you are training! Orientations are prime opportunities for seasoned employees to share with new employees ideas about what makes the organization/company a great place to work. All of us train differently during new employee orientations.
This post is not about how to conduct an orientation—it is to help us explore how we, as people who conduct the orientations—can benefit from learning some training basics that will help us when we give orientations. The goal is to make the employees’ first day memorable (yes, that includes the Benefits and Safety info) and to leave them wanting more. Right?
So, how did we get those training skills to make our new employee orientations pop?
- Read, read and read some more about what others out there are doing. Steal all of their great ideas to make sure that your new employees leave wanting more.
- Attend the next Senior Forum with the ASTD Cascadia chapter on new employees.
- Start evaluating your new employee orientation process as it looks currently. Talk to people who have been with the company 6 days, 6 months and 6 years. What do they remember? What did they hate? What would they like to see happen?
- Look into facilitation skills training. A lot of our new employee orientations sometimes have as little as 2 (sometimes one!) people in them. With a group this small, you will be facilitating a lot of conversations throughout the time that you are with the new folks. Get good at guiding conversations.
- Check out ASTD National’s Infolines. They are filled with quick updates and blurbs about training skills.
What are other ways that we can learn more skills to make us do an even better job when we give new employee orientations?
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- Why should I join national ASTD?
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- Helping Hands for 2010 Success
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- Crafting Professional Competencies
Topics: Are you new to training? |
August 25th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
New Employee Orientation is a vital step in the process of hiring and training a new employee. That is really their first feel for your business and its environment and positive first impressions can go a long in setting the tone of the new employee’s experience and attitude towards your business.
I think it is a good idea to occasionally ask a new employee who has been there for a few weeks if there were any questions that they felt were not answered in the orientation. And remember to take any input you get as constructive to use to improve and fine tune your orientation.