by J. Henry Stewart

Created on: December 06, 2008   Last Updated: April 08, 2010

Janet opened her brand new glossy folder that the human resources manager had given her when she first walked into the new employee orientation seminar. The folder had the employee orientation schedule attached to the inside cover. Janet had suffered through a long and difficult recruiting process, and she was excited to finally have her first day of work at this top fortune 500 company.

Angela, the director of human resources walked to the front of the room at promptly 8:30 AM. She smiled as she saw all of the eager new faces. Thank goodness that our company does such a good job with the orientation process, she thought. Angela knew that by having a great employee orientation as discussed below, the energy and excitement of the new employees would quickly and effectively be put to use.

Administrative Details Matter

One of the most important parts of the orientation had started a few weeks prior when the human resource managers had worked together to prepare the syllabus, materials, and all the other seemingly small details for the new employees. As director, Angela knew better than to leave the details to chance. She understood that first impressions are incredibly important to set the tone for the employees, and she had emphasized perfection in preparing for the new workers.

Angela asked her subordinate human resource managers to stand at the ready on the first day of orientation - including posting a young man at the front door of the facility to prevent any new hires from getting lost in the sprawling complex.

A First Look at the Values of the Company

The company valued teamwork, creativity and hard work, and Angela took her job seriously to begin to transmit these values to the new workers immediately. The orientation lasted three days, and these days were full of activities, almost always done with teams.

Many of the new workers were surprised when they left the building at 8:00PM the first day, for Angela had filled the time with many activities, and she did not want to give the impression that people were lazy at her company.

Introduction to the Team

After the first hour, Angela led the new employees to the room where they had their picture taken for their badges. She always arranged for the badges to be ready just after lunch, so the employees could wander the halls during their free time, and have access to everything in the company that a long-time employee enjoyed.

Even with first day packed with activities from early morning until late evening, Janet had a great time at the company sponsored dinner following the almost twelve hour work day. For this dinner, no other company personal attended. This was unorthodox yet effective. The thirty new people instantly created a life-long bond talking about their exciting team events that had taken place earlier in the day - they did not have to worry about impressing future bosses or making a social misstep in front of the CEO.

At 8:30 AM the next day, everyone was back in the orientation room with big smiles on their faces and the freshly printed badges around their necks. They were ready for another creative day of productive work.

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