Orientation

Orientation or socialization is designed to provide a new employee with the information he or she needs in order to function comfortably and effectively.

Socialization gives three types of information:

•    general information about daily work routines;
•    a review of the organization's history, purpose, operations and products and services;
•    detailed presentation of the organization's policies, work rules and employee benefits. When new employees enter an organization they may feel anxious and worry about how well they will fit into the system, how well they will relate with the more experienced employees and therefore orientation should be aimed at reducing the anxiety of new employees.

Generally orientation is therefore concerned with placement and induction.

The levels of induction in an organization include overall level of induction, department induction, sectional induction, job level induction and induction by other appropiate groups for example, the safety committee, professional groups like economists, social/recreational groups, trade unions and co-operative societies. Information supplied to the employee during induction must cover history and nature of organization, policies, goals and objectives of the firm, structure and functional differentiation, code of conduct, regulations terms, and conditions of service, specific departmental responsibilities, the organizations policies and any significant environmental factors.

Placement mainly involves assessing the employees, supplying employees with job descriptions and briefing on the job requirements.