Because companies can’t survive unless employees do their jobs well, it makes economic sense to train them and develop their skills. This type of support begins when an individual enters the organization and continues as long as he or she stays there.

New-Employee Orientation

Have you ever started your first day at a new job feeling upbeat and optimistic only to walk out at the end of the day thinking that maybe you’ve taken the wrong job? If this happens too often, your employer may need to revise its approach to orientation—the way it introduces new employees to the organization and their jobs. Starting a new job is a little like beginning college; at the outset, you may be experiencing any of the following feelings:

• Somewhat nervous but enthusiastic
• Eager to impress but not wanting to attract too much attention
• Interested in learning but fearful of being overwhelmed with information
• Hoping to fit in and worried about looking new or inexperienced^[1]

The employer who understands these common feelings help newcomers adjust and avoid the pitfalls often associated with new-employee orientation:

• Failing to have a workspace set up for you
• Ignoring you or failing to supervise you
• Neglecting to introduce you to coworkers
• Swamping you with facts about the company^[2]

A good employer will take things slowly, providing you with information about the company and your job on a need-to-know basis while making you feel as comfortable as possible. You’ll get to know the company’s history, traditions, policies, and culture over time. You’ll learn more about salary and benefits and how your performance will be evaluated. Most importantly, you’ll find out how your job fits into overall operations and what’s expected of you.

Training and Development

It would be nice if employees came with all the skills they need to do their jobs. It would also be nice if job requirements stayed the same: once you’ve learned how to do a job, you’d know how to do it forever. In reality, new employees must be trained; moreover, as they grow in their jobs or as their jobs change, they’ll need additional training. Unfortunately, training is costly and time-consuming.

How costly? Training magazine reported that businesses spent over $83 billion in 2019.^[3] At Darden Restaurants, the parent company to restaurants such as Olive Garden and Red Lobster, training focuses on diversity skills.^[4] What’s the payoff? Why are such companies willing to spend so much money on their employees? Darden has been recognized by Fortune magazine as a “Diversity Champion,” ranking it as one of the Top 20 employers on their list of diverse workforces.^[5]At Booz Allen Hamilton, consultants specialize in finding innovative solutions to client problems, and their employer makes sure that they’re up-to-date on all the new technologies by maintaining an Innovation Center to enable great ideas to converge and advance how they build value. They incorporate the community from design thinkers to entrepreneurs to engineers, crafting the insights and technology to solve the toughest problems of today and the future. This and their Ideas Festival and Innovation Hub allow the employees a chance to receive off-the-job training. This approach allows them to focus on learning without the distractions that would occur in the office.^[6]

At Booz Allen Hamilton’s technology “petting zoo,” employees are receiving off-the-job training. This approach allows them to focus on learning without the distractions that would occur in the office. More common, however, is informal on-the-job training, which may be supplemented with formal training programs. This is the method, for example, by which you’d move up from mere coffee maker to a full-fledged “barista” if you worked at Starbucks.^[7] You’d begin by reading a large spiral book (titled Starbucks University) on the responsibilities of the barista, pass a series of tests on the reading, then get hands-on experience in making drinks, mastering one at a time.^[8] Doing more complex jobs in business will likely require even more training than is required to be a barista.