From our first dates to our job interviews, the adage “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” rings true. Yet so often our companies struggle to bring our best selves forward on an employee’s first day. The urge to communicate “critical” information overwhelms us and we proceed to walk our new hires through the details of lengthy powerpoint decks, reviewing each slide in detail to ensure our new hires are “taught” this critical information. Sound Familiar?

The research is compelling: Effective orientation and onboarding creates positive first impressions and actually influences how long our new hires will stay with us.

To us, the answer became clear. In order to make a great and lasting first impression, we had to realize that less is actually more.

If this is true – If first impressions are that important and less is more – where do you begin? Is it really worth it? As we considered the idea of overhauling our New Employee Orientation in the midst of significant organizational change, we began to wrestle with:

⭐ Is Orientation worth evolving? Or is it a pill that we just need to swallow?

⭐ Take an honest look in the mirror: What do Employees Experience in Orientation?

⭐ How is Culture experienced in Orientation?

⭐ What do we want our New Hires to remember?

⭐ How will we know this is working?

Lessons Learned:

• Less is More: Picking 3-4 "Moments that Matter"
• Intentionally engage their heads and their hearts
• Experiment: Be willing to play
• Give up Control: Facilitation trumps presentation
• Measure
• Don’t hide your work! Get Feedback