On the day you start a new job, you walk in with an open mind as to the norms, the rules, the methods of working and the expectations for yourself and the company you have just joined. You are usually not immediately judgmental, nor do you come into the job with the intention of working against your employer; you are gathering information to make these decisions later. This information gathering is made during the orientation period for the new job. It takes six weeks and can be purposefully done by the company or not, it still happens. It occupies the “Orientation” box in the process flow diagram of building a great company and great career. 

The job 

A company exists as a shared belief among its employees and customers, it is meaningless without them. Consequently, a company will find, evaluate and court people to join its ranks as employees. The company’s authority to act is granted by a history of successful accomplishments and/or an anticipation of successful accomplishments to come. 

On the other hand, a person actually does exist as a human being, having a bundle of experiences, education, passion, desires, and basic needs. To fulfil these desires and needs, a person who wants to be an employee will find, evaluate and court the company in order to be employed. The person’s authority to act is granted by a history of successful accomplishments and the expectation of successful accomplishments to come. 

The end of the courtship is the job offer and acceptance. In a great company, you as an employee enter a process to contribute to the company’s growth and establish and develop your career. The company’s responsibility is to present opportunities, assignments and training. The employee’s responsibility is to exploit these opportunities. At the same time a great company will orient the employee (remember the opening paragraph) and exploit his potential. Simultaneously, the employee will prepare himself and grow for the next position. A shared responsibility is held between the employee to compare what the company needs to what the individual wants to do and needs for development and to determine the next assignment. And then the company moves the employee to the next level and the process repeats. It is a simple work, the learn grow cycle. 

The downward cycle

As you work you become emotionally connected to the job and the company, however, you may experience career dissatisfaction, company dissatisfaction, personal factors which degrade your relationship with the company and can also be recruited from the outside. If you pile up too many of these factors, you will emotionally disconnect from the company. This emotional connection is the only reason why most of us are working. If you emotionally disconnect, you will get into a mediocrity spiral or go find a different job. 

The factors leading to this emotional disconnection are: 

· Lack of opportunity 

· Lack of challenge 

· Lack of reward 

· Lack of recognition 

· Lack of a feeling of impact 

· Lack of a feeling that the company has your best interest at heart 

              · Lack of confidence in the leadership 

              · Damage inflicted upon you by the company 

              · Personal factors 

              · Overworked or underworked

              · Recruited from the outside. 

Reversing the cycle

A great company understands that these factors exist and addresses them before they lead to the emotional disconnection of the employee. A great employee understands that these factors exist and addresses them before they lead to an emotional disconnection. Although addressing the factors may not prevent the disconnection and lead to the loss of the employee anyway, if the company cannot offer what he needs, nonetheless addressing these issues minimizes the cost of the employee leaving and makes a better future. They may come back, remember, we are all customers. 

The principle accountability in this process is to have exemplary performance, both by the individual and the company. The critical knowledge needed by the employee is an understanding of individual goals, values and talents. The critical knowledge needed by the company is understanding of vision and direction, including core competencies and values. You cannot have a successful discovery, evaluation and courtship process unless you have this information. It is the reason you define your mission, vision and values. 

Preventive actions needed in the process are being true to yourself, benchmarking and internal and external equity checks, but be aware the equity checks can be dissatisfiers if you let them. For the company fair dealing with employees, benchmarking and external equity checks are a must. 

This process is simple but takes discipline and support from the top to implement. As stated earlier, both the company and the individual have to know their mission and vision. The individual usually writes a document that is a resume, plus a statement of what they would like to do in the short and long term. The direct manager of the employee is given that document and critically assesses the employee’s ambitions against the current needs of the company and against what they see as the employee’s ability. Then the two parties meet and discuss the manager’s opinion in regard to the employee desires, and they both create an action plan. There are three possibilities to be uncovered in this meeting. One is that the employee is overly ambitious given the talents he has displayed. The second is that the employee is realistic and on track. The most common, however, is that the employee has no idea how good they could be. In a large organization many of the opportunities can be found within that company. In a small organization the best route may be in another company. The goodwill of this employee will pay dividends to the manager in the future, and they may come back with valuable outside experience at a much higher level. This is better than stunting the individual. 

The chart below shows the growth of knowledge and probably the accompanying performance versus time. The typical growth curve is very rapid at first, reaching a peak at about three years and then a slight decline and a plateau where one can cruise for a long time. The best performers can feel the rate of growth and as soon as it starts to slow they find a new job. I worked for one large employer for 30 years and did this 13 times, usually upward but on occasions laterally to get more experience.

Window of opportunity

Now let’s get back to the importance of orientation. A poll by Gallup showed that worldwide, about 19% of the employees are delivering almost all of the economic value to the company, 64% are doing something, but not delivering much, but the most interesting group is the remaining 17% who are actively working against their employer. So, we as managers will spend a lot of time trying to move the bottom 17% to the middle. This is of no use. However, if you focus on moving 1/3 of the middle group to the top one, you will double the economic output of your company, with the employees you already have. Therefore, the orientation period is critical to put the new employee in the right direction; yet it is commonly ignored.

In short, if you do not orient the employee, the bottom 17% will, and you know the rest of the story. 

This works. I have lived it and I have seen it. These companies are fantastic places to work and thrive. Where would you like your company to be?