Formal orientation is a chance to introduce new hires to your company’s mission, vision, and values. A well-made orientation can help ensure consistency and compliance. As the first impression of your organization’s culture, it is an important way to engage and excite new hires about working at your business. Unsurprisingly, formal orientations are more common at fast-growth companies. 

Do New Hires Go Through Formal Orientation to Learn the Company’s Mission, Vision, and Values? 

Offering formal orientation can help you standardize your employment practices and prepare for future growth. This may be why formal orientation is more common at fast-growth companies than at zero-growth organizations. Among companies with under 25 employees, this distinction is even more notable. 

Recently, Asure finished a survey of over 1,000 small businesses. After asking 40 questions about onboarding, benefits, post-employment, and other topics, we asked what the company’s growth was like during the previous year. Then, we looked at how the answers compared between fast-growth and zero-growth companies. 

During the survey, we looked at whether companies offered a formal orientation during onboarding.

• 71% of zero-growth firms said they used a formal orientation process to teach the organization’s mission, vision, and values. 
• 75% of fast-growth firms used formal orientation to explain the organization’s mission, vision, and values. 

While this wasn’t the largest spread in our survey, it is still a notable difference. The spread is larger among firms with less than 25 people.

• 64% of zero-growth firms with under 25 people used formal orientation to convey their values, vision, and mission.
• 76% of fast-growth firms with under 25 people had a formal orientation for illustrating the organization’s values, mission, and vision. 

In general, this reflects the fact that fast-growth companies are more likely to be in compliance with the law. They are more likely to follow HR best practices, which leads to a better quality of workers, higher retention rates, fewer lawsuits, and better profitability. All of these factors combined are the reason why these organizations have a higher likelihood of growth.

What Happens During Formal Orientation in Onboarding? 

While each small business has different requirements, there are a few common things that occur during formal orientation. By adopting some of these measures, you can help your organization transform into a fast-growth company.

Cover the Organization’s Structure 

During formal orientation, it’s important to introduce workers to the organization’s overall structure. This helps them understand where they fit in the organization, who to turn to for help, and the different departments. 

Discuss Mission, Vision, and Values 

Your organization’s mission, vision, and values are the reason it exists and what it strives to achieve each day. To feel integrated into the organization, new hires must understand what your organization is all about. 

On a deeper level, these qualities provide direction to workers and help them understand their expectations. When a moral quandary appears, your organization’s values will help to guide how the employee responds. 

Review the Employee Handbook

Your formal orientation is a good chance for you to review your employee handbook. Ideally, a printed or digital copy should be given to each worker as a part of their new-hire packet. 

Within the employee handbook, employees can learn about important rules, anti-harassment policies, reporting requirements, and day-to-day procedures. This handbook can help them see the process involved in reporting and managing a dispute. 

Because of how important this information is, employees should have ongoing access to the employee handbook. Since workers are unlikely to remember every policy detail, they must be able to refer to the handbook whenever they need to. 

It’s also important to cover any benefits that are listed in the employee handbook. Many workers have benefits-related questions when they start a new job. Besides answering an employee’s questions, discussing benefits helps to get employees more enthusiastic about their new roles.

After you have reviewed the employee handbook, get the employee to sign off that they saw and reviewed it. This gives you legal protection if there is a lawsuit or termination dispute in the future. By getting the worker to sign off, you can prove that they were aware of all the policies and were adequately trained on them.

Check Out Administrative Procedures and Digital Access 

Next, you need to set employees up with their company email, hardware access, and software logins. This is a good opportunity to explain any administrative procedures, software, or other tools that the employee will need to use. Additionally, review any safety, health, or security policies.

Finish New-Hire Paperwork 

In a formal orientation, there should be time for the new hire to complete their employment paperwork. The new-hire paperwork likely includes the employment offer, I-9, emergency contact forms, direct deposit forms, tax documents, and similar paperwork. Many of these documents, like Form I-9, are legally required from all workers, so it is important to ensure that they all get completed. 

Introduce the Worker to Their Job, Co-Workers, and Managers

During her recent Mission to Grow podcast interview on “Employee Onboarding,” Asure’s VP of HR compliance, learning, and development, Mary Simmons, discussed the importance of good onboarding practices. She said, “There’s a compliance side and a culture side. If you’re not hitting both of those C’s, then you’re missing the boat and it’s not being done correctly.” 

As a part of the cultural introduction to your company, you should introduce workers to their jobs, co-workers, and managers. This helps to ease first-day worries by helping employees immediately meet new people and get a feel for the company culture. 

More importantly, it also helps them know which people to turn to if they have a question and need help. The employee handbook should also have a section on who to report discrimination, harassment, and other issues to. 

Provide a Company Tour 

Your formal orientation is a chance for employers to learn more about your organization. A company tour helps them become familiar with locations, people, and how your organization works. Ideally, you should conduct the company tour within the employee’s first few hours at your organization.

Be Consistent

No matter what you do during your employee orientation, it’s important to be consistent. Consistency ensures a fair workplace, and it also protects your business from discrimination complaints. If you make copies of one employee’s I-9 or give one worker a tour of your company, you should do the same activities with every worker.

Improve Your Employee Onboarding Process With a Formal Orientation

A formal orientation helps new hires integrate into your organization. This integration can improve employee engagement, retention rates, and employee satisfaction. Fast-growth companies know that formal orientations can help them succeed, which is one of the reasons why they incorporate them into their onboarding process. 

If you are trying to improve your onboarding process, our small business HR experts can help. Reach out to our small business HR and payroll experts today to learn more about what it takes to become a fast-growth company.