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Member You - It Pays to Help New Staff Start Right
Anybody who rides a commuter train or a bus today, or who visits an airport, can easily see the impact of office technologies on the current workforce. People are wired to go. There are the ones wearing the headset with the wide band at the base of the skull, removed from hearing you by huge round earphones. There are the ones smartly attired with the "Blue Tooth" gracefully curving along the cheekbone into the ear. There are those who sit fixated, rapidly weaving their thumbs across the dashboard of the Blackberry style Personal Digital Assistant. Others are using laptops in a variety of sizes with a variety of screens. Some are entertaining themselves, watching contemporary films on tiny screens or aggressively playing computerized games. Some are hypnotized by the Excel spreadsheets with which they are working as they hunch over laptops like ancient gnomes. Still others are tapping away at text, giving and receiving instructions or creating documents that may be read a half a world away.This is not your grandfather’s office. If your grandfather had an office….No. This is the world of connectivity---the world where workers can be questioned in the shower; can talk to their home office as they raft down the Colorado River; can order supplies from Chicago for delivery to their remote location in Australia; can purchase Canadian wines for their restaurant in Brazil, next day delivery.But how efficient is all this stuff anyway? The
This novel approach creates new staff who understand the realities and are ready to work – and work hard – to help their company succeed.
7. Gain full participation.
Give everyone a role to play in new employee orientation. Involve peers and colleagues in your mentor programs and buddy teams; engage top managers in talks and panel discussions; give junior staff a stake as hosts and guides in cross-department visits.
Invite the new staff’s family members to a special ‘Meet the Company Day’ and take photographs at the event. Later, send the best photos back to their homes with a copy of your company’s newsletter – and a handwritten note from you to the entire family.
Most important of all, gain full participation from the new employees themselves. Resist the temptation to project all the information in a one-way stream from the company to the new staff. Have your newcomers explore the company, research the competition, meet the customers – and then generate their own good questions for you and your colleagues to answer.
Finally, get your new employees involved in welcoming the next batch of incoming staff. This ensures that your orientation program stays fresh and relevant. It can become a watershed event, making your new staff feel like company veterans: experienced, involved and useful.
Key Learning Point
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The time, money and human resources you dedicate to new employee orientation can be one of your best long-term corporate investments. Make sure your program is thoughtfully designed, carefully delivered, continuously upgraded and improved.
Action Steps
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gather a cross-functional team of recent hires, seasoned employees and key managers. Do a complete review of every aspect of your existing new staff orientation program.
How does your current program measure up? What is being done well? What is engaging, motivating and effective? Is anything boring, tedious or out-of-date? What else could be included? What should be taken out?
Revise your program and conduct
“Innumerable Web sites and charts and graphs used in business are just mush to me,” said Jim Doane. Font colors and background colors make the reading impossible for Doane. He is one of the two in one hundred males (and rare females) who is severely affected by color vision deficiency (CVD) or colorblindness. He, like most people so affected, does see blue and yellow, so he is not “blind” to color.Web developer Ed Nolan keeps people like Doane in mind. He has an unusual occupation, especially for someone with CVD. Nolan is one of the 1:12 males affected (1:200 females are affected) by CVD. Although not as severely affected as Doane, for instance, Nolan can tell red from green; however, he remembers coloring a picture of a boy green when he was in elementary school. “It looked tan to me,” he said. As a Web developer, Nolan works with colors every day, which he does numerically. “What might look the same or very similar to me may be worlds apart numerically,” he said.An engineer, Doane said his secretary marks colorful charts and grafts with the name of the color. “Then I know what people are talking about before I went to a meeting,” he said.Doane said he had a map in front of him, “I’m working on a project to integrate the water projects of two towns and the whole darn thing is color coded. I had to have somebody go thru it and mark all the lines with their color names. What I found, though, is that even people with good color
Staff members who are properly trained and welcomed at the beginning of their careers will feel good about their choice of employer, fit in more quickly with peers and colleagues and readily contribute new ideas.
Properly oriented employees will also speak well about your organization to their family and friends. They will represent you more confidently with customers, business partners and suppliers.
But poor orientation of new employees can cost you dearly.
Those who don’t start right don’t tend to stay long, either. High staff turnover means you must recruit, hire, orient and train new staff all over again.
Staff turnover also takes a high toll on the morale of those who remain behind. When people leave your organization, those who remain inevitably wonder if they should seek new employment, too.
While many managers agree that orientation is important, very few invest the time and attention necessary to make sure it’s done right and consistently. Now is a good time to review your staff orientation program to be sure your new staff ‘start right’.
Here are some guidelines to doing it right:
Think long-term.
Effective orientation is a gradual process and does not end after the second day on the job. The initial induction of employees during the first few days is important. But it is even more important to make sure new employees fit in and feel comfortable over the long term. This can mean six weeks for a factory worker, or up to six months for new members of a senior management team.
A time for everything, everything in it’s time.
New employees arrive with basic questions that must be answered quickly: ‘What is the dress code? Where are the tools for my job? How does the telephone system work? When do people eat, meet and get paid?’
After the initial induction period, your employee’s questions will change and mature: ‘How am I being appraised? Why is the system set up this way? How can I (safely) suggest changes? Who can I see for guidance, approval and support?’
Don’t try to answer all possible questions in the least possible time. Stretch out the process to cover the first weeks or months on the job. This lets new staff understand essential information more gradually – and thus more completely.
An extended orientation program also reassures new employees. Newcomers are under great pressure to perform and adapt. Your extended program shows you understand their situation, you care about their adjustment and you will continue to show interest and support over time.
Involve everyone in the process.
New employees are not the only ones affected by the design and quality of your orientation program. Other groups are influenced during this important period as well: peers, bosses, junior staff, senior managers, customers, suppliers and even the new hire’s family back home.
Each group has different questions and concerns about the new employee. You can address their concerns by giving these groups an active role in the overall orientation program. Buddy systems, lunch meetings, panel discussions, site visits, family days – these methods and other activities can involve diverse groups of individuals in the overall orientation process.
The reputation of your human resources and training departments are also at stake. If orientation is well planned and conducted, these departments will be seen by new employees as a valuable resource for addressing their future concerns. On the other hand, poor staff orientation sends an early message that these ‘people departments’ are ineffective or out-of-touch.
A well-designed orientation program should accomplish seven major objectives:
1. Create comfort and rapport.
Newcomers want to feel a sense of acceptance and belonging inside their new organization. You can accelerate this process by creating abundant opportunities for new hires to interact with peers, managers, direct reports, colleagues from other departments, customers and suppliers.
Diversify the time and nature of these meetings. Coffee breaks, meal times and after-hours get-togethers are all good choices for informal conversations. Include new hires in formal gatherings as well: customer visits, focus groups and even department or management meetings.
Send your new employees on short assignments to visit other divisions and departments. Spending a week, a day or even an afternoon in a different part of the business will do wonders to build rapport and understanding for the new hires throughout your organization.
2. Introduce the company culture.
New staff usually want to fit in with accepted norms and values. ‘How do things really work around here? What importance do people attach to style, dress, presentation? Is punctuality important? Do meetings start on time? Are long hours the exception or expected?’
Understanding the company culture only comes over time, through formal presentations, informal dialogue and a lot of personal experience. What gets said ‘officially’ is compared with what gets said ‘confidentially’ during lunch, after hours and between colleagues in the washroom.
Extend your positive influence beyond the formal presentations. Create a buddy system or mentor program to match your most successful and enthusiastic staff with your incoming employees.
But don’t expect your enthusiastic staff to stay that way if their mentor role becomes a burden. Give the mentor relationship real support: pay for lunches, allow time in the work schedule for mentoring conversations, include mentoring in your annual staff appraisal and show genuine appreciation to your chosen mentors with tokens of reward, recognition and respect.
3. Showcase the ‘Big Picture’.
You must help new staff find honest answers to all of the following questions:
‘Where has this company been? Where is it today? Where are we heading tomorrow? Who are our customers? What do they say about us? Who are our major competitors? What is our market position?
‘What is our current focus? Are we expanding operations, going regional and launching new technologies? Or are we trimming costs, stabilizing product lines and streamlining operations?’
You can orient new staff to these ‘big picture’ issues with a well-designed presentation. Using multi-media, highlight your history and present status, future targets, goals and directions. Share humble beginnings, detail greatest achievements.
Show excitement for future direction, but be candid about company weaknesses, too. Talk openly about difficulties and challenges in the market. Keep your ‘big picture’ presentation lively and up-to-date.
In large organizations, very senior managers are often the best authorities to share insights on the future of the business. But these same managers may frequently be out of town or involved in handling current situations. They are not always available when you want them to participate in a new staff orientation session.
You can solve this problem by capturing them on video as they discuss the opportunities and challenges facing your organization. Then use the video in your program and bring the managers back ‘live’ at a later date for panel discussions, question-and-answer sessions or informal ‘meet the manager’ conversations.
4. Explain job responsibilities and rewards.
Clearly define your expectations from the beginning. Ensure new staff are well versed in their responsibilities and corresponding levels of authority.
Demonstrate and thoroughly explain your approach to staff appraisal. Show new staff the actual appraisal system and illustrate how good performance will be measured, assessed and rewarded.
Point to the career paths of those who have come before to illustrate advancement possibilities and potential.
5. Handle administrative matters.
There will always be detailed procedures to follow and paperwork or online procedures to complete: employment agreements, insurance policies, benefits packages, charitable contribution forms, locker allocation, issuing passwords, uniform distribution – the list goes on and on.
While these are important, resist the temptation to ‘get it all over with’ in one long (and very boring) session.
Instead, spread those administrative tasks over several short sessions in the first few weeks. Hours spent filling out forms on the first day at work is not the way to inspire enthusiasm about the dynamic nature of your organization!
6. Provide reality checks.
Make sure your orientation program is not a fantasy tour of what you wish the company would be.
If your program shows only the bright side of the business and the happy side of daily work, don’t be surprised if new employees are shell-shocked after two or three weeks on the job.
Be open and candid about the pressures and realities of your company, your team, your customers, your industry and your competition.
One large regional firm developed an extensive orientation program along the following theme: ‘You will know more about the problems of this organization than the people who have worked here for years!’
This novel approach creates new staff who understand the realities and are ready to work – and work hard – to help their company succeed.
7. Gain full participation.
Give everyone a role to play in new employee orientation. Involve peers and colleagues in your mentor programs and buddy teams; engage top managers in talks and panel discussions; give junior staff a stake as hosts and guides in cross-department visits.
Invite the new staff’s family members to a special ‘Meet the Company Day’ and take photographs at the event. Later, send the best photos back to their homes with a copy of your company’s newsletter – and a handwritten note from you to the entire family.
Most important of all, gain full participation from the new employees themselves. Resist the temptation to project all the information in a one-way stream from the company to the new staff. Have your newcomers explore the company, research the competition, meet the customers – and then generate their own good questions for you and your colleagues to answer.
Finally, get your new employees involved in welcoming the next batch of incoming staff. This ensures that your orientation program stays fresh and relevant. It can become a watershed event, making your new staff feel like company veterans: experienced, involved and useful.
Key Learning Point
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The time, money and human resources you dedicate to new employee orientation can be one of your best long-term corporate investments. Make sure your program is thoughtfully designed, carefully delivered, continuously upgraded and improved.
Action Steps
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gather a cross-functional team of recent hires, seasoned employees and key managers. Do a complete review of every aspect of your existing new staff orientation program.
How does your current program measure up? What is being done well? What is engaging, motivating and effective? Is anything boring, tedious or out-of-date? What else could be included? What should be taken out?
Revise your program and conduct
If you are immersed in the world of internet marketing, you have probably heard many times the advice: don’t re-invent the wheel, follow someone successful. But simply copying a business idea is sloppy and might not get you the results you are dreaming about, just because it has been done already in that way. So how can you add a zesty twist to your business idea?Many people use the excellent technique of brainstorming. You simply write down, without editing, all the business ideas you can think of. Remember, you shouldn’t judge any idea at this point.The best place to start, of course, is to think of business ideas relating to your interests and passions, things you know quite a lot about or are passionate about learning more about. Anything can work: pet care, model airplanes, car accessories, home decorating, knitting…But identifying your passions and interests is only the very first step toward a great business idea. Let’s face it, many people have cats, for example and learn about the best food for their cat or all about the best product for eliminating tics. So how can you come up with original business ideas on such a popular topic?For your first business idea, try to stick with things you have experienced. Do you have a special tip to share with people? Something you learned while trying something new? Is there a life experience you can describe in detail and through it help others who are going through the same ex
An extended orientation program also reassures new employees. Newcomers are under great pressure to perform and adapt. Your extended program shows you understand their situation, you care about their adjustment and you will continue to show interest and support over time.
Involve everyone in the process.
New employees are not the only ones affected by the design and quality of your orientation program. Other groups are influenced during this important period as well: peers, bosses, junior staff, senior managers, customers, suppliers and even the new hire’s family back home.
Each group has different questions and concerns about the new employee. You can address their concerns by giving these groups an active role in the overall orientation program. Buddy systems, lunch meetings, panel discussions, site visits, family days – these methods and other activities can involve diverse groups of individuals in the overall orientation process.
The reputation of your human resources and training departments are also at stake. If orientation is well planned and conducted, these departments will be seen by new employees as a valuable resource for addressing their future concerns. On the other hand, poor staff orientation sends an early message that these ‘people departments’ are ineffective or out-of-touch.
A well-designed orientation program should accomplish seven major objectives:
1. Create comfort and rapport.
Newcomers want to feel a sense of acceptance and belonging inside their new organization. You can accelerate this process by creating abundant opportunities for new hires to interact with peers, managers, direct reports, colleagues from other departments, customers and suppliers.
Diversify the time and nature of these meetings. Coffee breaks, meal times and after-hours get-togethers are all good choices for informal conversations. Include new hires in formal gatherings as well: customer visits, focus groups and even department or management meetings.
Send your new employees on short assignments to visit other divisions and departments. Spending a week, a day or even an afternoon in a different part of the business will do wonders to build rapport and understanding for the new hires throughout your organization.
2. Introduce the company culture.
New staff usually want to fit in with accepted norms and values. ‘How do things really work around here? What importance do people attach to style, dress, presentation? Is punctuality important? Do meetings start on time? Are long hours the exception or expected?’
Understanding the company culture only comes over time, through formal presentations, informal dialogue and a lot of personal experience. What gets said ‘officially’ is compared with what gets said ‘confidentially’ during lunch, after hours and between colleagues in the washroom.
Extend your positive influence beyond the formal presentations. Create a buddy system or mentor program to match your most successful and enthusiastic staff with your incoming employees.
But don’t expect your enthusiastic staff to stay that way if their mentor role becomes a burden. Give the mentor relationship real support: pay for lunches, allow time in the work schedule for mentoring conversations, include mentoring in your annual staff appraisal and show genuine appreciation to your chosen mentors with tokens of reward, recognition and respect.
3. Showcase the ‘Big Picture’.
You must help new staff find honest answers to all of the following questions:
‘Where has this company been? Where is it today? Where are we heading tomorrow? Who are our customers? What do they say about us? Who are our major competitors? What is our market position?
‘What is our current focus? Are we expanding operations, going regional and launching new technologies? Or are we trimming costs, stabilizing product lines and streamlining operations?’
You can orient new staff to these ‘big picture’ issues with a well-designed presentation. Using multi-media, highlight your history and present status, future targets, goals and directions. Share humble beginnings, detail greatest achievements.
Show excitement for future direction, but be candid about company weaknesses, too. Talk openly about difficulties and challenges in the market. Keep your ‘big picture’ presentation lively and up-to-date.
In large organizations, very senior managers are often the best authorities to share insights on the future of the business. But these same managers may frequently be out of town or involved in handling current situations. They are not always available when you want them to participate in a new staff orientation session.
You can solve this problem by capturing them on video as they discuss the opportunities and challenges facing your organization. Then use the video in your program and bring the managers back ‘live’ at a later date for panel discussions, question-and-answer sessions or informal ‘meet the manager’ conversations.
4. Explain job responsibilities and rewards.
Clearly define your expectations from the beginning. Ensure new staff are well versed in their responsibilities and corresponding levels of authority.
Demonstrate and thoroughly explain your approach to staff appraisal. Show new staff the actual appraisal system and illustrate how good performance will be measured, assessed and rewarded.
Point to the career paths of those who have come before to illustrate advancement possibilities and potential.
5. Handle administrative matters.
There will always be detailed procedures to follow and paperwork or online procedures to complete: employment agreements, insurance policies, benefits packages, charitable contribution forms, locker allocation, issuing passwords, uniform distribution – the list goes on and on.
While these are important, resist the temptation to ‘get it all over with’ in one long (and very boring) session.
Instead, spread those administrative tasks over several short sessions in the first few weeks. Hours spent filling out forms on the first day at work is not the way to inspire enthusiasm about the dynamic nature of your organization!
6. Provide reality checks.
Make sure your orientation program is not a fantasy tour of what you wish the company would be.
If your program shows only the bright side of the business and the happy side of daily work, don’t be surprised if new employees are shell-shocked after two or three weeks on the job.
Be open and candid about the pressures and realities of your company, your team, your customers, your industry and your competition.
One large regional firm developed an extensive orientation program along the following theme: ‘You will know more about the problems of this organization than the people who have worked here for years!’
This novel approach creates new staff who understand the realities and are ready to work – and work hard – to help their company succeed.
7. Gain full participation.
Give everyone a role to play in new employee orientation. Involve peers and colleagues in your mentor programs and buddy teams; engage top managers in talks and panel discussions; give junior staff a stake as hosts and guides in cross-department visits.
Invite the new staff’s family members to a special ‘Meet the Company Day’ and take photographs at the event. Later, send the best photos back to their homes with a copy of your company’s newsletter – and a handwritten note from you to the entire family.
Most important of all, gain full participation from the new employees themselves. Resist the temptation to project all the information in a one-way stream from the company to the new staff. Have your newcomers explore the company, research the competition, meet the customers – and then generate their own good questions for you and your colleagues to answer.
Finally, get your new employees involved in welcoming the next batch of incoming staff. This ensures that your orientation program stays fresh and relevant. It can become a watershed event, making your new staff feel like company veterans: experienced, involved and useful.
Key Learning Point
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The time, money and human resources you dedicate to new employee orientation can be one of your best long-term corporate investments. Make sure your program is thoughtfully designed, carefully delivered, continuously upgraded and improved.
Action Steps
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gather a cross-functional team of recent hires, seasoned employees and key managers. Do a complete review of every aspect of your existing new staff orientation program.
How does your current program measure up? What is being done well? What is engaging, motivating and effective? Is anything boring, tedious or out-of-date? What else could be included? What should be taken out?
Revise your program and conduct
There are many benefits to Incorporating in Florida. For one, there is an able work force, reflected by the fact that Florida’s unemployment rate is consistently lower than the national rate. Florida is the center of more than a few thriving industries, such as aerospace, and the state enjoys strong state support for business development, reflected in its pro-business stance on taxes.Florida is well-known for its outstanding academic and research achievement in aviation, aerospace, biotechnology, microelectronics, optics, photonics, and – of course – real estate development. As such, Florida is also an attractive spot for venture capital. Despite the devastation of having four hurricanes hit in a short six-week span in late November 2004, venture capitalists are interested in investing in Florida. In fact, according to the 2005 PricewaterhouseCooper NVCA MoneyTree Survey, Venture Capital Investment in Florida Companies in the first quarter of 2005 is 99.3 million.Florida’s economic and business resilience after the hurricanes was due in large part to the state government’s pro-business agenda. Indeed, the fact that Florida has one of the lowest tax rates in the US helps to explain this quick rebound, as businesses were eager to invest in the state’s redevelopment. Along with its support of low taxes, the government has supported specific agendas and organizations to encourage business growth, such as Enterprise Florida, Inc. (EFI).
2. Introduce the company culture.
New staff usually want to fit in with accepted norms and values. ‘How do things really work around here? What importance do people attach to style, dress, presentation? Is punctuality important? Do meetings start on time? Are long hours the exception or expected?’
Understanding the company culture only comes over time, through formal presentations, informal dialogue and a lot of personal experience. What gets said ‘officially’ is compared with what gets said ‘confidentially’ during lunch, after hours and between colleagues in the washroom.
Extend your positive influence beyond the formal presentations. Create a buddy system or mentor program to match your most successful and enthusiastic staff with your incoming employees.
But don’t expect your enthusiastic staff to stay that way if their mentor role becomes a burden. Give the mentor relationship real support: pay for lunches, allow time in the work schedule for mentoring conversations, include mentoring in your annual staff appraisal and show genuine appreciation to your chosen mentors with tokens of reward, recognition and respect.
3. Showcase the ‘Big Picture’.
You must help new staff find honest answers to all of the following questions:
‘Where has this company been? Where is it today? Where are we heading tomorrow? Who are our customers? What do they say about us? Who are our major competitors? What is our market position?
‘What is our current focus? Are we expanding operations, going regional and launching new technologies? Or are we trimming costs, stabilizing product lines and streamlining operations?’
You can orient new staff to these ‘big picture’ issues with a well-designed presentation. Using multi-media, highlight your history and present status, future targets, goals and directions. Share humble beginnings, detail greatest achievements.
Show excitement for future direction, but be candid about company weaknesses, too. Talk openly about difficulties and challenges in the market. Keep your ‘big picture’ presentation lively and up-to-date.
In large organizations, very senior managers are often the best authorities to share insights on the future of the business. But these same managers may frequently be out of town or involved in handling current situations. They are not always available when you want them to participate in a new staff orientation session.
You can solve this problem by capturing them on video as they discuss the opportunities and challenges facing your organization. Then use the video in your program and bring the managers back ‘live’ at a later date for panel discussions, question-and-answer sessions or informal ‘meet the manager’ conversations.
4. Explain job responsibilities and rewards.
Clearly define your expectations from the beginning. Ensure new staff are well versed in their responsibilities and corresponding levels of authority.
Demonstrate and thoroughly explain your approach to staff appraisal. Show new staff the actual appraisal system and illustrate how good performance will be measured, assessed and rewarded.
Point to the career paths of those who have come before to illustrate advancement possibilities and potential.
5. Handle administrative matters.
There will always be detailed procedures to follow and paperwork or online procedures to complete: employment agreements, insurance policies, benefits packages, charitable contribution forms, locker allocation, issuing passwords, uniform distribution – the list goes on and on.
While these are important, resist the temptation to ‘get it all over with’ in one long (and very boring) session.
Instead, spread those administrative tasks over several short sessions in the first few weeks. Hours spent filling out forms on the first day at work is not the way to inspire enthusiasm about the dynamic nature of your organization!
6. Provide reality checks.
Make sure your orientation program is not a fantasy tour of what you wish the company would be.
If your program shows only the bright side of the business and the happy side of daily work, don’t be surprised if new employees are shell-shocked after two or three weeks on the job.
Be open and candid about the pressures and realities of your company, your team, your customers, your industry and your competition.
One large regional firm developed an extensive orientation program along the following theme: ‘You will know more about the problems of this organization than the people who have worked here for years!’
This novel approach creates new staff who understand the realities and are ready to work – and work hard – to help their company succeed.
7. Gain full participation.
Give everyone a role to play in new employee orientation. Involve peers and colleagues in your mentor programs and buddy teams; engage top managers in talks and panel discussions; give junior staff a stake as hosts and guides in cross-department visits.
Invite the new staff’s family members to a special ‘Meet the Company Day’ and take photographs at the event. Later, send the best photos back to their homes with a copy of your company’s newsletter – and a handwritten note from you to the entire family.
Most important of all, gain full participation from the new employees themselves. Resist the temptation to project all the information in a one-way stream from the company to the new staff. Have your newcomers explore the company, research the competition, meet the customers – and then generate their own good questions for you and your colleagues to answer.
Finally, get your new employees involved in welcoming the next batch of incoming staff. This ensures that your orientation program stays fresh and relevant. It can become a watershed event, making your new staff feel like company veterans: experienced, involved and useful.
Key Learning Point
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The time, money and human resources you dedicate to new employee orientation can be one of your best long-term corporate investments. Make sure your program is thoughtfully designed, carefully delivered, continuously upgraded and improved.
Action Steps
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gather a cross-functional team of recent hires, seasoned employees and key managers. Do a complete review of every aspect of your existing new staff orientation program.
How does your current program measure up? What is being done well? What is engaging, motivating and effective? Is anything boring, tedious or out-of-date? What else could be included? What should be taken out?
Revise your program and conduct
Youth Groups are almost always in need of funds. Holding fundraisers to finance important trips like tournaments, museums, and musical events are just some of the needs that have to be met through fundraising. Others include the need for uniforms, sports equipment, art supplies, musical instruments, and more.There are a lot of different ways your youth group can raise the funds they need. In this article, I will explore some of those with you and try to help you avoid some of the pitfalls. I will let you benefit from my experience and I will help you avoid some of my mistakes.Let’s start right off with candy. I have tried to use candy as a fundraising tool on more than one occasion for more than one youth group.Pros and Cons of using candy as a youth group fundraiser.Pros: Candy is cheap and can be sold for a great profit for your youth group. Everyone likes candy, so it’s a fairly easy sale, especially if you go with name brand candy. The candy is cheap enough that most people have enough money in their pocket to purchase it.Cons: Candy melts. Trust me on this. Candy melts and when it does, your profits melt with it as you try to clean whatever it melted all over. The members of your youth group eat Candy and when the parents have to pay for all the candy YOU let their child eat, you get phone calls. Trust me on this. You get a lot of phone calls. Candy smells. Trust me on this. Wherever you store the candy will sm
You can solve this problem by capturing them on video as they discuss the opportunities and challenges facing your organization. Then use the video in your program and bring the managers back ‘live’ at a later date for panel discussions, question-and-answer sessions or informal ‘meet the manager’ conversations.
4. Explain job responsibilities and rewards.
Clearly define your expectations from the beginning. Ensure new staff are well versed in their responsibilities and corresponding levels of authority.
Demonstrate and thoroughly explain your approach to staff appraisal. Show new staff the actual appraisal system and illustrate how good performance will be measured, assessed and rewarded.
Point to the career paths of those who have come before to illustrate advancement possibilities and potential.
5. Handle administrative matters.
There will always be detailed procedures to follow and paperwork or online procedures to complete: employment agreements, insurance policies, benefits packages, charitable contribution forms, locker allocation, issuing passwords, uniform distribution – the list goes on and on.
While these are important, resist the temptation to ‘get it all over with’ in one long (and very boring) session.
Instead, spread those administrative tasks over several short sessions in the first few weeks. Hours spent filling out forms on the first day at work is not the way to inspire enthusiasm about the dynamic nature of your organization!
6. Provide reality checks.
Make sure your orientation program is not a fantasy tour of what you wish the company would be.
If your program shows only the bright side of the business and the happy side of daily work, don’t be surprised if new employees are shell-shocked after two or three weeks on the job.
Be open and candid about the pressures and realities of your company, your team, your customers, your industry and your competition.
One large regional firm developed an extensive orientation program along the following theme: ‘You will know more about the problems of this organization than the people who have worked here for years!’
This novel approach creates new staff who understand the realities and are ready to work – and work hard – to help their company succeed.
7. Gain full participation.
Give everyone a role to play in new employee orientation. Involve peers and colleagues in your mentor programs and buddy teams; engage top managers in talks and panel discussions; give junior staff a stake as hosts and guides in cross-department visits.
Invite the new staff’s family members to a special ‘Meet the Company Day’ and take photographs at the event. Later, send the best photos back to their homes with a copy of your company’s newsletter – and a handwritten note from you to the entire family.
Most important of all, gain full participation from the new employees themselves. Resist the temptation to project all the information in a one-way stream from the company to the new staff. Have your newcomers explore the company, research the competition, meet the customers – and then generate their own good questions for you and your colleagues to answer.
Finally, get your new employees involved in welcoming the next batch of incoming staff. This ensures that your orientation program stays fresh and relevant. It can become a watershed event, making your new staff feel like company veterans: experienced, involved and useful.
Key Learning Point
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The time, money and human resources you dedicate to new employee orientation can be one of your best long-term corporate investments. Make sure your program is thoughtfully designed, carefully delivered, continuously upgraded and improved.
Action Steps
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gather a cross-functional team of recent hires, seasoned employees and key managers. Do a complete review of every aspect of your existing new staff orientation program.
How does your current program measure up? What is being done well? What is engaging, motivating and effective? Is anything boring, tedious or out-of-date? What else could be included? What should be taken out?
Revise your program and conduct
"Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody." Henry Wadsworth LongfellowUnfortunately, perseverance is one of the most difficult character traits to develop, maybe even more so in the Network Marketing arena. It is easy to become discouraged when all of the time and effort put into the business doesn't seem to be yielding any results. However, if you're certain that you're on the right path, then you must overcome the feelings of despair and forge ahead.So, how do you know you're on the right path? I recommend taking a close look at what you're doing and compare it to what the successful Network Marketers are doing. Building a business takes time and effort, and every successful Network Marketer will tell you that the struggle is worth it.None of these people started out at the top. All of them - every single one - paid their dues to get where they are, and are now enjoying great success simply because they stuck to it when the going got tough. You can enjoy the same success if you have the courage to persevere in the face of adversity."I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature." John D. RockefellerThe trick is to learn the lessons offered by your failures - and you will have them - and move on. Don't listen to the
This novel approach creates new staff who understand the realities and are ready to work – and work hard – to help their company succeed.
7. Gain full participation.
Give everyone a role to play in new employee orientation. Involve peers and colleagues in your mentor programs and buddy teams; engage top managers in talks and panel discussions; give junior staff a stake as hosts and guides in cross-department visits.
Invite the new staff’s family members to a special ‘Meet the Company Day’ and take photographs at the event. Later, send the best photos back to their homes with a copy of your company’s newsletter – and a handwritten note from you to the entire family.
Most important of all, gain full participation from the new employees themselves. Resist the temptation to project all the information in a one-way stream from the company to the new staff. Have your newcomers explore the company, research the competition, meet the customers – and then generate their own good questions for you and your colleagues to answer.
Finally, get your new employees involved in welcoming the next batch of incoming staff. This ensures that your orientation program stays fresh and relevant. It can become a watershed event, making your new staff feel like company veterans: experienced, involved and useful.
Key Learning Point
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The time, money and human resources you dedicate to new employee orientation can be one of your best long-term corporate investments. Make sure your program is thoughtfully designed, carefully delivered, continuously upgraded and improved.
Action Steps
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Gather a cross-functional team of recent hires, seasoned employees and key managers. Do a complete review of every aspect of your existing new staff orientation program.
How does your current program measure up? What is being done well? What is engaging, motivating and effective? Is anything boring, tedious or out-of-date? What else could be included? What should be taken out?
Revise your program and conduct a trial run. Ask the participants for suggestions to make your program even better. Keep adapting, keep improving. Keep it up!
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