In this essay I would like to compare and contrast orientation, socialization and onboarding programs. Sufficient security enterprises need human resources, their rational use, personnel high productivity is essential to increase production and improve production efficiency. In particular, the provision of timely replenishment training promising young employees, their effectiveness will depend on the amount and timeliness of all work, efficiency of use of equipment, machinery, tools, and as a result of the volume of production, its cost, profit and other economic indicators. From a practical point of view of young professionals are major resource of the companies, effective implementation of which requires special solutions, depending on the characteristics of specific production problems.
As a rule, once a company completed the recruitment of employees and decided to enroll them, they become a full member of the organization with all the attendant rights and responsibilities. However, almost always, employees do not know their colleagues habits, inclinations, biases, and very often their behavior leads to negative emotions among new colleagues. In addition, employees are faced with a specific corporate culture, which is unknown to them. Nevertheless, new employee has no choice but to find “ common ground” with team members, in which he has to work hard and learn new skills if he wants to work effectively in this organization. As a fact, supervisor and the HR manager should help him adapt to the new environment, as described in Building a better orientation program.
To begin with I would like to consider orientation programs. As a fact, term orientation is closely related with term adaptation. Adaptation – is the process of familiarization with the new employee’s organization and changes its behavior in accordance with the requirements and regulations of the organizational culture of the new organization. On the other hand, orientation programs act as a process of adaptation to the organization of young employees. It is important to see the mutuality of human adaptation and the environment with which he communicates in the process of working and living conditions. It can be said that transition to a new job – is a psychologically difficult time for everyone. If a person does not feel support from management and staff of the organization, there are doubts about the choice of a new job, an error occurs in the working process, the causes of which lie in the psychologically uncomfortable, uncertain, in this case work efficiency reduces significantly. Action to implement orientation programs is designed to improve the institutional context of new employees for a quick re-entry into the production process, as well as help to avoid reducing the efficiency of the entire enterprise. The main goals of orientation programs are:
Reducing start-up costs. As a rule, new employee is not always familiar with the process of the assigned work. Low efficiency of his operation compared with experienced staff members requires higher costs of the organization. Successful orientation program gives the new employee an opportunity to learn quickly established work standards.
Reduce anxiety and uncertainty of a new employee. These factors are associated with a fear of failure and lack of orientation in the work situation. Psychological assistance provided by the employee, helps him to successfully overcome self-doubt.
Reduce staff turnover. The process of employee turnover is inevitable, but there are misconceptions that if the turnover of senior and middle management is lower than the turnover of employees, – this is not a severe production problem and no major staffing difficulties. Obviously, quantitative indicators in this case are not decisive. The complexity and versatility of functions performed by managers, longer-term adaptation experts arrived push fixing the problem managers at the company. Therefore, the process of adaptation middle managers and senior managers should pay particular attention, as stated in About Employee Orientation Programs.
Orientation program, which promotes the formation of an employee of a positive attitude toward the organization, is a prerequisite for high professional performance. As a rule, by doing a job, a person already has his own ideas about how and what should happen when joining the team and the development of working space. However, the organization is a current community of people with their goals, objectives, values and ways of building relationships. It should be noted that orientation programs must have a set of recommendations for a new employee. As a rule, it is major components includes following:
ways and possibilities of human exploration of new volumes of work;
response to the inevitable stress, which is a consequence of the transition to a new place of work;
ways of establishing contacts and employee relations to a new team;
expectations of performance appraisal.
Moreover, every orientation program should have set procedures with the purpose to accelerate the development of novice work and helping to establish contacts with others. These procedures allow a person to feel that colleagues have waited for him and have prepared to his arrival. These simple things allow avoiding many mistakes caused by poor knowledge in the early stages of organization, its features, to reduce the psychological fear of failure and thereby reduce the likelihood of frustration and withdrawal, as described in Building a better orientation program.
In this part of the essay I would like to concentrate on socialization programs. First of all I would like to consider what socialization is. Socialization – is process of gaining by the person certain system of values, social norms and behavior patterns, which is necessary for the formation of personality, social position (status) in a society. Socializing covers all processes initiation of culture, communication, whereby a person acquires the ability to participate in social life. Socialization begins in childhood, the family, which is the first socializing agent of human life and is characterized by the greatest intensity of emotional ties. An adult man in the face of rapid social and technological changes in production and patterns of behavior that are acceptable before, should be changed under the influence of new knowledge and skills in accordance with the changed circumstances, for example new job in new field of activity. In the process of socialization through the formation of his own “ I” shows the uniqueness of the individual as a person.
According to Effective socialization of employees: socialization content perspective, socialization programs facilitate the entry of new employees in the organization. In the most general form socialization program – is the process of adaptation to the conditions of the employee internal and external environment. The main principal purposes of the staff socialization programs are:
Start costs reduction as long as the new employee knows his job bad, he works less efficiently and require additional costs;
Reduction concerns and uncertainty in new employees;
Reduction of labor turnover, because if newcomers feel uncomfortable in his new job and unnecessary, they can respond to this dismissal;
Develop a positive attitude towards work, job satisfaction.
Moreover, by integrating new employees into practice, organizations can significantly enhance the creative potential of existing staff and strengthen their involvement in the corporate culture of the organization. Thus, the socialization programs in the organization – is the process of adaptation newcomers to external and internal environment of the organization. Also during the socialization program is developing a positive attitude to work, job satisfaction. As a fact, there are following types of socialization programs in the organization:
Professional socialization is the process of mastering the basic methods of work;
Psycho-physiological socialization is the process of adaptation of the employees to work;
Social-psychological socialization is the process of joining the team;
Economic socialization – is the process of making major employee levels and ways to generate revenue;
Organizational and administrative socialization – is the process of employee’s familiarization with the history of the organization and its structure, as well as with the department in which he will work.
As a rule, employee during his socialization program in the organization goes through the following major components:
Assessment. Employer evaluates the skills and abilities of the employee;
Orientation. Employee is directly acquainted with their duties;
Effective socialization. Employee is included in the interpersonal relationships within the organization;
Operation. Overcoming by employee all major industrial and interpersonal problems.
On the socialization process in the organization affect two groups of factors-personal and productive. Personal factors influencing the process of socialization include the following elements: Marital status: it has an impact in such a way that between married men and married women socialization process is more successful. Experience: the more experienced people in their professional lives, the more quickly is process of socialization. Social origin: the nature of family influences on the employment orientation of the individual. Education: individuals with higher levels of education have bigger socialization level. Factor of production includes all elements of the working environment (condition of equipment, form of organization etc.), as described in Effective socialization of employees: socialization content perspective.
As a result, socialization programs are divided into general and special. The general program contains information about the organization as a whole. In it employee is explained the issues related to the general understanding of the organization process, his salary in the organization, services and amenities available in this organization, etc. The special socialization program covers issues related specifically to any unit or place of work and carried out both in the form of special interviews with the staff of the unit, which came in the novice and the interviews with the head (direct and higher). It should include questions regarding the functions of departments, duties of employees, different rules and regulations that exist in this organization, etc.
In the last part of the essay I would like to consider onboarding programs and their value to the organizations. First of all I would like to present average timing that needed employees to adapt and work with maximum efficiency: executives: 1 – 1, 5 months; specialists: 1. 5 – 3 months; middle managers: 3 – 6 months; top managers: 8 – 12 months. As a rule, the bigger is the company – the greater is period of occurrence. However, company may reduce this time by providing onboarding program for its newcomers. According to Creating an Effective Onboarding Program, typical onboarding program includes orientation of new staff in the company, usually in two major components: orientation section and special section. An example of the orientation major components of onboarding program, below, includes a whole range of provisions that should be made aware the new employee:
General presentation of the company: welcoming speech; activities framework; growth trends; objectives; priorities; concerns; traditions, norms and standards; specific functions of the company; products/service and its customers; stage of bringing products (services) to the consumer; organization, structure and communications of the company;
data on the main guide; internal relations, expectations, activities.
Key policies and review procedures: principles of personnel policy; principle of human resources recruitment; areas of training and skills development; policy that is directed against discrimination of employees; company policy against using official position for sexual purposes; the ratio of the firm to use drugs and alcohol, carriers of the AIDS virus; assist employees in case of bringing them to justice; rules for using your phone inside the enterprise; rules for the use of different modes of working time; rules protecting trade secrets and technical documentation.
Payment issues: rates of payment and their rankings; pay off; overtime; form of money payment; methods of containment; forms of sales; growth of payment; loans in the bank; reimbursement.
Additional benefits: insurance; dental services; temporary disability benefits; work experience; severance pay, sickness, disease, violence, maternity benefits; plans for retirement; learning opportunities at work; the presence of the dining room, buffet; wellness centers; other services to companies for their employees.
Health protection and safety: warning about possible dangers in the workplace;
fire safety and control; rules of the accident and the procedure for notifying about them.
Special section. After getting acquainted with the general orientation program employee may be offered a special program that includes the following topics:
Function unit: goals and priorities; organization and structure; activities; relationships with other entities; relationships between different activities within the unit.
Work duties and responsibilities: detailed description of current work and expected results; explain the importance and value of specific work to other departments and enterprises in general; discuss common problems and their solutions; standards of quality performance and ways to evaluate its performance; working time and its structure; overtime;
additional purpose (e. g. replacement of absent employee performing other duties).
Procedures, rules, regulations: rules for doing certain kind of work; behavior in case of accidents; safety; reporting of accidents and the danger; hygiene standards; organization of protection and the problems associated with theft; relationships with employees, not belonging to the branch; rules of eating, smoking etc. at the workplace; order removal of items from the unit; monitoring violations; filling statements; smoke breaks, the negotiations; lunch break; telephone conversations of a personal nature during working hours; use of equipment; monitoring and evaluation of performance.
Introduction of personnel department: feedback mechanism from supervisor novice with staff management services personnel (if any) and first person of the company, as described in Creating an Effective Onboarding Program.
Also very important in onboarding program is determining rigorous criteria and clear results over a period of probation and tutorship (assigning someone from leading experts for rookie of the company).
To sum it up I would like to express that all these programs (orientation, socialization and onboarding) aimed to make an initial period less stressful for employees and of course help them quickly adapt and effectively perform their duties. Selection and recruitment is a fairly lengthy and costly process – from the first day of new employee company already spends on him a lot of money. Therefore, company is interested in recruits that would not quit after a few months. The main reasons for leaving – is discrepancy between expectations and reality with the complexity of integrating into a new organization. How to help employees successfully integrate into a new organization – is the most important task of the top management and specialists in human resources.
As a conclusion, I would like to note that every program has its advantages and disadvantages. I think the most concise and less expensive is onboarding program. It helps employee to study main process of the company, to meet the company objectives, fields of activity, to understand his responsibility. After it goes orientation program, which helps to improve the institutional context of new employees for a quick re-entry into the production process, as well as help to avoid reducing the efficiency of the entire enterprise. But I am convinced that the biggest support and the most effectiveness of newcomers provides socialization program. As a rule, socialization programs integrating new employees into practice, organizations can significantly enhance the creative potential of existing staff and strengthen their involvement in the corporate culture of the organization. Thus, the socialization programs in the organization – is the process of adaptation newcomers to external and internal environment of the organization. I strongly believe that all these programs are necessary for both employee and employer, after all, human resources is the key factor of every organization’s success.
