New Employee Orientation

What is new employee orientation?
It is important to provide a meaningful welcome to new and returning faculty and staff, provide a positive start, avoid miscommunication, clarify expectations, and make a successful transition to their job, department, and team membership.   This requires time and effort, but offers numerous benefits in the long run.

Goals

• Create a positive first impression.
  
  
• Answer questions and allay concerns.
  
  
• Familiarize the new employee with Zane State College’s values, layout, primary functions, and relationships.
  
  
• Lessen the “trial and error” approach to learning the job.
  
  
• Provide information about and access to critical resources.
  
  
• Communication of expectations.

A systematic, comprehensive orientation for the new employee:

• Provides information that is needed to transition from their previous job into their Zane State roles, team membership, and identity with the college;
  
  
• Provides a clear, comprehensive picture of the College, their department, and the expectations of the position they have been hired into;
  
  
• Offers an overview of system-wide and departmental policies, procedures, resources, history, culture, and tradition;
  
• Provides answers to questions the employee might have and offers a chance to reduce any anxieties typically related to joining a new organization or team;
  
  
• Establishes a supportive, trusting working relationship with the employee’s immediate supervisor;
  
  
• Inspires the new employee to commit to and support the College, their department, and their team members as they adopt the desired culture and values of Zane State College.
  
  

Who is expected to attend new employee orientation?

     Employees who are:

Newly hired from outside the Zane State College system; new to the position (full-time faculty, staff, administrators, and part-time annual staff) – full orientation

Newly hired from outside the Zane State College system; previously held position elsewhere – full orientation

Newly hired from outside the Zane State College system; new to position (part-time faculty) - abbreviated orientation coordinated with Evening Programs

Existing Zane State College employee changing area (department, facility, position) or status (part-time to full-time; full-time-to part-time) – department/job orientation

Previous Zane State College employee returning after absence of more than two years – full orientation

Existing Zane State College employee returning from extended leave – abbreviated orientation

Long-term Zane State College employees on an ongoing basis as system culture, job requirements, or performance expectations change ongoing, as needed

Why is new employee orientation so important?
An effective orientation of new employees:

• Improves retention by decreasing turnover in the first three months;
  
  
• Decreases start-up costs by getting the new employee up to speed faster and with fewer trial-and-error mistakes that must eventually be corrected;
  
• Reduces the anxiety typically found when joining a new team or starting a new or unfamiliar job;
  
  
• Provides an alignment of the employee’s personal values and behaviors with those desired by and characteristic of the College’s;
  
  
• Saves time; supervisors and co-workers will have to spend less time later on in training and “covering for” a person who is not fully capable of performing the essential functions of his or her job responsibilities;
  
  
• Gains employee commitment and longer-term loyalty;
  
  
• Fosters a trusting, positive relationship with the immediate supervisor that will aid in later communication and feedback situations, organizational change, and developmental coaching of the employee.

Common orientation mistakes

• Lack of planning.
  
  
• Inadequate communication among all involved parties.
  
  
• Employee is expected to perform job without clear expectations, knowledge of resources, and authority.
  
  
• The new employee does not feel welcome or appreciated by the supervisor/other team members.
  
  
• A too-compressed orientation that tries to accomplish too much too quickly and overwhelms the new employee with facts, figures, names, and faces.
  
• The orientation focuses on the “check-offs” and not on the needs, concerns, and learning curve of the new employee.
  
  
• The orientation is de-personalized to the point that it is shallow, trivialized, and boring.
  
  
• The process of orientation fails to prepare the new employee for:
• The job;
• The team;
• The work requirements and expectations;
• The culture and values;
• Accessing necessary resources;
• “Fitting into” the system (including phone and computer access).

Guiding principles

• The primary responsibility for coordinating the new employee orientation process will be Human Resources (to include system paperwork requirements, compliance, and tracking, among other program maintenance requirements).  Human Resources should have available a variety of orientation templates to accommodate the full range of new hires, returns, and transfers and be flexible enough to address an ever-changing array of employees hired and timing issues.

• The primary responsibility for the ongoing evaluation of the new employee orientation process will be Human Resources.

• The primary responsibility for making sure that all orientation requirements have been met in a structured, meaningful manner is the new employee’s immediate supervisor. It will be the supervisor who determines the readiness of the employee to assume full function responsibilities and appropriate authority to act.

• The individual ultimately responsible for a successful orientation to Zane State is the employee.

• The orientation process is part of a planned, comprehensive, and ongoing process of interactions, development, and increased responsibility that takes place over the course of the employee’s first year of employment.

• The successful orientation of an employee is not a one-shot “program” but a series of planned actions and interactions throughout the employee’s first year, delivered by a variety of individuals.