What is the most important part of your new hire orientation?

Author’s Note:  I thought that the Switch to Digital TV series would be more interesting and fun to write – but it wasn’t.  So I’m ditching it and moving on.

What part of your new hire orientation do you think is the most important
?  Is it the tour?  The computer training? The story of how the company was founded?

Here is what I have found to be  important:

1.  Greeting.  The reception that your new employees receive the minute that they walk in on their first day. This includes being greeted by receptionists.  Give your receptionists a list of who is to be starting that day and have them greet each person by name and give a warm welcome.

2.  Supplies.  I would provide each new hire with a small pad of paper, two pens, and a highlighter.  They thought this was the greatest thing since sliced bread.  They would tell me that other places NEVER did this. Ummm, you’re going to be training these people – how are they supposed to write and take notes?

3.  Namecards.  I did tents with their names printed on both the front and back of the card.  This was so that I could keep track of their names and so could their fellow new hires.  And, the reason for putting it on both sides was that so people sitting behind other people would remember the names as well.

4.  Mug or cup.  Your new hires will need a mug or a cup – they may not have the money to use the vending machine (in this economy, this is a reality).

While they are in Orientation, your new employees are guests of the company.  Paid guests, but guests, nonetheless.

Personality Colors are a tool, NOT a crutch

I love to introduce people to the personality colors concept and watch their reactions:  they nod as they recognize themselves.  Then, I can see the wheels in their heads turning, as they think about their teammates, supervisor, even their family members, and try to place them into a color category.

The personality colors are a great introduction to seeing things from another person’s perspective.  It’s a great way to verbalize characteristics of your own personality (which you may not have been able to do before) and to recognize the differences between your thought process and that of others.

However, I have heard of people using their personality color as a crutch.  This is NOT the intended use of the personality color.  It is not there for you to use it to attempt to explain away improper behavior.

For example, you may be the very essence of a Green (logical, loner, independent), but this does not give you the right to be rude to anyone.  The point of the personality color exercise is to realize how OTHERS want to be treated, not just how you like to be approached.

Just because you are a Red (decisive, impulsive, risky), you don’t have the right to roll over everyone else in the group and not allow others to share their ideas because you spoke up first.  Reds must learn to curb their impulse to control the group and wait for others to contribute.

Yellows (dutiful, introvert, flighter), you must learn to speak up for yourselves.  You have a lot of value in a group, as you are a natural team player.  But you cannot allow reds and greens to steamroll over you when you know you’re right.

And finally, Blues (empathetic, flexible, idealistic), when the rest of the group doesn’t agree with you and can’t see the emotional pull you’re feeling toward a decision, you must back up and try to see the logic of the others’ positions.    You will be the one to sell the idea to the rest of the world – therefore you must find harmony in the decision.

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HRM Today

HRM Today is a social networking group for HR professionals.  I have been reading their contributors for sometime and am proud to announce that this blog is now a part of their network.

It’s free to sign-up for HRM Today and it’s a great way to do some networking and collaboration.  They also have groups on Facebook and on LinkedIn.  Enjoy!

Practice what you preach

The government taught us a big lesson this week:  Practice what you preach, no matter who you are.   If it’s the law for all of us to pay taxes, then the enforcers of the policy must follow suit as well.

I have been part of companies where this has not been the case.  People with power get ideas in their heads, ideas that because they make the rules they don’t have to follow them or that they can be tailored to each employee’s unique (read:  preferred) situation.  But how can you expect your employees to follow policy if you do not?

Sure, certain luxuries are afforded to management:  more flexibility on schedules, longer lunches, etc.  But, as previously discussed, your employees look to you for guidance on how they should behave.  In many ways, it’s the way a child mimics the actions and behaviors of his or her parents.

A particularly dangerous situation arises when discipline is not doled out evenly.  This is not to say that if only one out of your 10 employees is having issues that you should punish the whole group.  That would only bring down morale and create rifts on your team.

However, be prepared:  Your chosen form of discipline must be echoed across the group.  If you have given a verbal warning to one employee over one mistake, then you can’t let another employee with multiple mistakes just slide.   Otherwise you are leaving yourself and your company open to trouble.

So what are some ways that you can walk the walk as well as talk the talk?

1.  Ask yourself:  Am I creating the image that I want my employees to reflect?

2.  Keep track of what coaching you have done for your team members.  Follow up on trouble spots and try to nip them in the bud.

3.  Set benchmarks for employee improvement plans. e.g. on performance reviews if they receive a certain score on a category, they must come up with a plan to raise that score.

4.  Before you initiate any type of disciplinary action toward an employee, ask yourself, did I do absolutely everything I could to point the employee in the right direction?

Policies are in place for a reason.  Following all with some employees and ignoring some with others is like playing Russian roulette:  Eventually, someone gets hurt.

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What are you doing today to reach your goals?

I’ve taught classes on Personal Career Development and it never ceases to amaze me how people think that things happen to them only, not that they can create their own destinies.  It’s as though people believe that the career they’ve always wanted will one day knock on their door and say, hey, I’m here.

You are control of your own life.  We like to think that we are at the universe’s whim; but the truth is, we play a huge part in our own successes.

For example, my position at my company was eliminated.  I could simply take a vacation while I search for a job, but instead, I am continuing to learn.   What am I doing to continue to grow while I’m not on the clock?

1.  I’m doing a great deal of research.  I’m reading blogs, books, anything I can get my hands on to keep immersing myself in my career.

2.  I’m networking.   No, networking is NOT a dirty word.  It is a must in today’s workforce.  And my field is incredibly collaborative, so I enjoy meeting new peers and discussing the challenges of our chosen paths.

3.  I’m creating.  Just because I don’t have a specific task assigned to me by an employer, I’m still working on my instructional design.  I’m still creating classes.

My dreams include being a Chief Learning Officer of a corporation one day.  If I want to make that happen – and let that sink in, I’m saying make that happen – then I have to prepare for that role by working on my craft.   And as I have an extra 50-60 hours per week right now, I can focus on that and I’ll be even more marketable when I find that new opportunity.

So tell me:  What are YOU doing today to reach your goals?

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Interviewing for a trainer

You’re a growing company and you’ve decided that you should employ a trainer to assist with the development of your staff.  Great call!  But how do you fill the position?

A learning professional should not be interviewed as though they are your new receptionist or an accounts receivable specialist.   Your new trainer is not a number-cruncher (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Facilitators by nature are people, um, people.  They are usually blues in their personality-types.  They’re collaborators and will become your company cheerleader.

Sure, some standard interview question apply to every position for which you’re hiring.  But trainers have special skills and talents that won’t fit into your personality tests or your usual questionnaire.  Take time to research training and trainers through websites such as ASTD.

If you’re going to use an outside recruiter, make sure that s/he has hired for training positions before.  Again, this is not your standard job applicant – and the approach should be different from regular positions.

If you do your homework, you’ll find the perfect trainer for your position.

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The teach-back

Let’s say I give you some building blocks and I show you that there are letters on them as well as how you can make words with them.  Then, I ask you to make as many words as you can in a minute.  This would tell me that you understood:

1.  What the letters meant.

2.  How they can be put together to make words.

Thus, you have the teach-back, and it’s one of the more effective ways that you can make your training more substantive.   Why is this important?

Training should involve critical thinking.  Training is not just an information dump; it should be interactive so that you can make sure that the information disseminated was understood correctly.  And the teach-back provides this interactive portion for you.

As a trainer, you present information.  But how do you know that your class participants have understood the materials?  Sure, you might ask one or two of them pertinent questions and they may be able to answer them.  However, the only way to be sure that the information was correctly received by your audience is to have them break into groups and do a teach-back.

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Why training *should* be fun

In my last post, I spoke about how training can be fun and substantive.  I’m going to discuss the fun part today.

First off, when I say that training should be fun, I want to remind you that we’re discussing the training of adults.  Adults do NOT want to do anything that might make them look stupid in front of their co-workers.  This is something you must keep in mind when you are designing your “fun” elements.

I always start my training sessions with some sort of ice breaker.   A great one for a class on presentation skills is to have each person give an impromptu 60 second presentation on an animal (you provide the name of one to them right before they go up), using everything but the name of the animal.  Then the other participants have to guess what the animal is.

The debrief to this is about how you think on your feet and that when you were in the audience, how did you feel?  Most people learned that their audiences were rooting for them to do well – after all, who wants to listen to a boring presentation?  Who wants to watch someone stumble through something?  Don’t we all die with embarrassment with them?

The rule of thumb for teaching adults is that you should have about a third of the class be you presenting the materials and the other two-thirds should be application of what the group is learning.  You can choose a myriad of ways for people to participate – it’s just important that there be a good combination of learning along with a bit of play.

In my subject-specific classes, I present some material, then the participants do an activity to reinforce the learning of the material.  I then present again, and do another activity. In a new hire orientation session, where I’m basically doing an information dump, I throw in a lot of activities, but some are total brain breaks:  where the activity seemingly has nothing to do with the material.  However, I am always able to show that it contributes to the big picture.

One of my favorite types of brain breaks is the survival challenge.  I have several that I keep on hand, such as Lost at Sea, Arctic Expedition, Stranded in the Himalayas, or Adventure in the Amazon.  These are great fun for the group as well as a great example of team-building.  The participants work through the simulation individually first and then as a group.  It’s interesting to watch who takes charge in the groups and how they have to work together to reach a consensus.

On Friday, we’ll discuss some ways to make your training more substantive.

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All show, no substance

I love being around other trainers.  We “get” each other in ways that no one else does.  The energy is phenomenal and no matter what, I always walk away feeling renewed about my profession.

That being said, I don’t always walk away feeling fulfilled about the material I’ve just seen presented.  I often think of the scene from the movie, Chicago, where Richard Gere sings about how being a lawyer in a courtroom is much like being an entertainer.

It’s much the same being a trainer:  great trainers are polished performers who get their audiences excited about their programs.  However, putting too much fluff into your program in order to try and engage your learners may leave little time for, well, the learning.

It’s important to balance your program so that your learners understand what information they should take away from your session.  Tomorrow, next week, next month, when they think about the time with you in the training room, will they remember the show that you put on or the substance they took away?

The continuation of any learning program relies on the word-of-mouth from your former students.  When I started my last position, the previous corporate trainer’s name was synonymous with the word showman.   He was great at getting people excited about training; but the verdict was in that he did not actually do any training.

Because of this, any training program that was put together after his tenure was greeted with levels of distrust varying from stony silence to bitter rehashing of his mistakes as a trainer.  In short, we had to win back the hearts of the employees and prove that training programs can be fun AND substantive.

On Wednesday, we’ll discuss ways to do this.

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Be proactive rather than reactive

Have you ever been part of an HR team who waits for problems to come and knock on their office doors, rather than engaging with their staff and employees to search out any pitfalls?  I have, and it doesn’t work, does it?

Any member of the leadership team in a company (and HR and Training are important parts of that team) owes it to the company to engage with their staff and employees and ferret out the issues before they are escalated.  Isn’t that the purpose of HR and of Training?

Rather than putting out fires after they’ve already started, it makes more sense to be aware of the state of affairs on the company floor.  I know it’s comfy in your private HR area (if your company is like most, your HR offices are tucked away in their own special area.)  However, that is not where the employees need for you to be.  They need for you to be involved in their world.

Suggestions for how to be involved:

1.  Have town hall meetings.  Ask what is on the employees’ minds.  No, you won’t be able to fix everything – but if the employees feel that you’re at least listening, that will solve about half of your problems right there.

2.  Partner with your Training group.  Stop being territorial.  The Training team has more one-on-one time with the employees than you ever will.  Find out what is going on through them.  Sit in on their classes and listen to the employees’ feedback.

3.  Meet with all levels of management, NOT just the one who will get you ahead personally.   Your middle managers need you more than anyone out there.  They are getting pushback from all sides.

4.  Setup an e-learning program that goes over the company policies with every employee once per year.  Yes, you discuss the policies with the employees on their first day of employment – how much do you think sticks when they are getting hit with everything else at the same time?  Not much.

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