3 Secrets to Building Loyalty through Orientation

By: Shaun Browne

 

There can often be a gap between promises made during a recruitment interview and the reality the new employee experiences on the job. That gap can play havoc with your turnover rate, your organization’s reputation, and your profitability.
In a recent survey the calculated cost of acquisition, the amount of money the HR Department spent to find one new, entry-level production employee, worked out to be $1,835. With a turnover rate in excess of 120%, the annual cost to fill vacant production positions was about $1.15 million dollars.
$1.150,000 taken directly off the bottom line.
Added to that loss, the waste HR was generating. By spending 80% of any given day finding 3.125 credible employees to fill vacant positions, an average of 8 potential employees had to be interviewed. That cost was estimated at $64,000, annually.

New Employee Orientation Programs Build Loyalty

 

The role of the New Employee Orientation Program (NEOP) is to help new employees understand:

• What your company does (Roles),
• What skills, knowledge, and behaviours employees need (Expectations).
• The NEOP play two other important roles:
  
  1. Convincing new employees that your organization is a good place to work, and
  2. They made the right decision.
  
  Each event in the NEOP must reinforce those two roles, ensuring long-term relationships with new employees. 

 Thank Them 
While unemployment levels are still relatively elevated in North America (between 5.4 and 6.8%), and extremely high in the Eurozone (11.3% average, with pockets reaching upwards to 25% in Greece), why thank new employees, when they should be thanking you for offering them a job.

Whether your local unemployment rate is high or low, thanking new employees for choosing your organization sends a strong message of tangible support. “We are glad you chose us to be your new employer,” is more meaningful to new employees, instills a level of gratitude, and goes a long way to guaranteeing the development of long-term relationships.
Considering the previous experiences some employees have had with NEOP at previous companies, just offering a pizza lunch, coffee, doughnuts, and a pen will prove to them that this will be a good place to work.

Build Learning They Can Use
Part of the transition to a new workplace is building a new set of skills, knowledge, and behaviours. New employees may have a serious learning curve to master new competencies and capabilities.

Since few people want to be seen as incompetent, your NEOP should include some generic skills that new employees will need to work safely and effectively.
The NEOP is a perfect time to take care of mandatory training, generic skills training, or safety training. Doing so will help make the best use of time, effort, and resources, and just about guarantee that every new employee receives the training they need to succeed in your organization.
Building early competence is another instiller of loyalty. If competency growth is recognized and rewarded, there are fewer reasons for the new employee to leave.

Celebrate Accomplishments

Some employees you hire may come with few, if any, reasons to celebrate. Another way of encouraging employees to stay could be by having them ‘graduate’ from the orientation program and transition to new workers. Why not have new employees ‘graduate’ by hosting a graduation party where all successful new employees removed the ‘Trainee’ sticker from their hard hats, becoming full-time employees. For those that have not graduated from anything before, yours may be a significant event, one they will remember, and be proud of, for a long time.

After all, graduation is a rite of passage. It marks the transition between school and work, or it can mark the move from a probationary employee to a permanent one. Graduation also marks how much the new employee has accomplished, recognizes how far they’ve come, and acknowledges their new competencies.
That’s worth celebrating.

Summary
New Employee Orientation is an opportunity to prove that your organization is a good place to work. Your NEOP also reinforces the decision the employee made to choose you as their new employer. They can be proud to tell family and friends of the excellent choice they made. Who knows, that may attract others to your organization.

 

Shaun Browne – http://www.onthejobtraining.com

Shaun Browne is President and Founding Partner of Digital Mentor Group Inc. He also volunteers as Vice President – Productivity Mentoring, for Innovation Canada – a country-wide organization focused on fostering innovation, creativity, and excellence.
He can be reached at learning@onthejobtraining.com

How does a Laser Printer work?

I came across these informative videos on how a laser printer works. It really breaks it down for the user and the seller of printers and consummable supplies. Thought I would share them with you:

Here is how the black monochrome laser printer works:

Here is how a colour laser printer works:

These are good training videos to share with your sales staff so that they having a working knowledge of how these products  - actually work.

And what should you recommend to your customer? A Laser or an Inkjet printer? Here is a 2 minute "Coles Notes" version of the pro's and con's of both.

For more information on supplies for laser or inkjet printers, go to: http://www.genuinesupply.ca/home.php

The Next Big Thing in Ink & Toner

There's a revolution brewing in the world of inkjets and it's all about speed.

 HP has begun introducing its next generation of colour inkjet printers and they have the feel of a colour laser. In fact if put side-by-side, you would have a hard time discerning which printer is a laser and which one is the inkjet.

The HP Officejet Pro X range of single and multi-function devices are an affordable and compact inkjet. They print at speeds that rival colour lasers. According to HP even when printing at the lower ‘General Office’ quality level, it can reach a speed of 70 pages per minute (ppm).

In a tradtional inkjet, the page must be stepped through the printer, a little bit at a time while small heads traverse it, spraying ink onto the page. HP’s new range of printers use stationary heads which cover the width of the page, coating the page with ink as it moves without pausing underneath. This is similar to "Memjet’s" revolutionary waterfall heads. Take a look at what a Memjet printer can do - it's ground breaking technology and far ahead of what we think of as an inkjet printer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Z7RqRH3QQ

 

HP has employed its own in-house technology to produce fast, high speed, colour inkjet printers and they are doing so at a price that is affordable to the consumer. HP is aiming to bring to the market an affordable inkjet printer that is high speed and can compete toe-to-toe with the colour Laser competition. These printers have fewer moving parts than an equivalent laser and they are lighter - plus they are comparable in size to a medium size laser printer. They generate little heat and need little ventilation. The printers themselves are controlled by a smartphone-sized colour touchscreen display with a few touch-sensitive buttons, making it easy to use.

For those of us interested in the "supply" end of this business, I have good news for you. Genuine Supply Source has begun carrying some cartridges for these printers - thereby providing the dealer and the consumer an alternative consumable  source for these new-age printers. Currently GSS is stocking Fuzion high speed ink cartridges for the HP970XL and the HP980, with more to come.

So keep an eye out for these printers in the marketplace and as always, provide your customers with alternative, cost-effective supplies from Genuine Supply Source.