Employee Orientation

Seminar 3 Current Topic Research

Employee orientation is a vital part of the new hire and training experience. The first article that I researched, Employee Orientation: Keeping New Employees on Board, states that orientating new employees to their new workplace and their jobs is one of the most important, yet neglected functions in many organizations. (Brown, 2012) The article also discusses that most new hires feel that orientations are quite boring and a lot of the information is irrelevant. A lot of employees feel that once the orientation is over with, then they are left to either sink or swim and are confused as to what is really expected of them. This is why it is important to develop an orientation program that is well planned and organized and distributes the right information to the right people at the right time. (Brown, 2012) The article then continues to discuss the benefits of having a well-planned and organized orientation in place, which include reduced startup costs, reduced anxiety, reduced employee turnover, saves time for management and it helps develop realistic job expectations, positive attitudes and an overall job satisfaction.

The second article I researched Top 10 Ways to turn off a New Employee, this article discusses different things companies do that turn off new hire employees and can create a higher and faster turnover than other companies. One of the key things the article stated that was a turnoff for new employees was “Start the new employee with a one or two day new employee orientation during which Human Resources personnel make presentation after presentation after presentation after presentation...” (Heathfield, 2012) To the new employee, this can become overwhelming and usually find it difficult to retain the information that was just presented to them, and at times has scared the new employee away.

In comparison, it seems that both of the articles are in agreement that the new hire orientation is a very important aspect...