Recruiting Strategies: Orientation

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'Do I Know You?'

Maybe you're not importing programmers from Asia. You still face the challenge of introducing newbies to your company's culture. But with the steady influx of new faces at your average high-growth company, it's often difficult for staff members to meet recent recruits. And fresh-faced employees typically feel kind of dorky when nobody knows who they are. How, then, do you integrate new employees into your staff?

For Persistence Software (#440), in San Mateo, Calif., bagels and bran muffins are the answer. On mornings when someone new joins the 110-person company, a tray of breakfast food is placed strategically near his or her desk. An E-mail invites everyone to come nosh and meet the new colleague. Explains CEO Christopher Keene: "If you just send out an E-mail announcing a new hire, it doesn't help the new person meet anybody, and that's really the tough part." Whereas bagels draw coworkers to the new hire's desk. "Everybody troops by," Keene says. "And they're guilted into introducing themselves."

MetaSolv Software (#35) employs a similar technique. "It's impossible to keep up with all the people who are coming in the door," says CEO Jim Janicki. "I've seen people from other fast-growth companies actually exchange business cards at meetings, only to realize they work together." To avert such embarrassment, Janicki's 350-person company rolls in a keg of beer (usually Shinerbock or Bud Light) to its Plano, Tex., offices for happy hour every Friday. New employees are asked to work the tap. "They don't get to meet everyone, but we generally have a fairly good turnout," the CEO says. "And it's part of our culture to go up to the new guy at the tap and say hello."

Other Inc. 500 companies, feeling that merely meeting everyone is not enough, choose more systematized methods of indoctrinating new employees. Akili Systems Group (#241), in Dallas, helps workers navigate its "work hard, play hard" culture by issuing mock passports. "It looks like a real passport and has the company logo on the front," says co-CEO Shiek Shah. New recruits need to get 20 different stamps, which they receive for things like attending a company event, drawing an organizational chart, or being able to accurately recount company folklore.

Perhaps the sauciest stamp is earned for management confrontation--basically telling one of the principals to "[insert expletive here] off," Shah says. (The put-down gets a stamp and a rating of from one to 10 for creativity.) "That's to show that founders are real people, too. We're not the mythical 'guys who started the company,' " Shah jokes. "It brings levity to the organization." The passport helps the company quantify and track the orientation process. "We want to get people steeped in our culture very fast," he says. "We don't want them diving into projects and then feeling isolated, like bodies for hire."

Sam Goodner of Catapult Systems Corp. (#77), in Austin, jokingly compares its "boot camp" program to joining the marines. "Boot camp is a really integral part of induction into our culture," says the CEO. The orientation program took shape last year during a particularly intense hiring spurt. Goodner wanted to make sure that new hires didn't start work without first absorbing his business sensibility. So he arranged for them to spend one full day with him and other top execs, during which "company values" could be stressed. The orientation isn't exactly Full Metal Jacket, but it isn't the usual softball HR session, either. "I conduct boot camp personally," Goodner says. "It is really designed to get everyone pulling in the same direction. To lighten the mood, I dress up in full military uniform, with beret and all."

The mood may be light, but the pace is as intense as Goodner's wardrobe. The CEO goes over a variety of topics, including the role of different departments in the company, Catapult's customer-service policies, the new employee's job responsibilities, and more. Throughout the day, Goodner even gives new hires pop quizzes, asking them to name all of the people they've met. "The feedback we get from boot camp is great," he concludes. "Employees get to know me on a personal level." And not only does he leave them with a lasting impression, but he gets a good read on them as well.

Admittedly, the militaristic approach isn't for everybody. Before you go shopping for fatigues, consider the technique used by Fresh Samantha Inc. (#127). The egalitarian Saco, Maine, juice company requires new employees in sales and distribution (more than 70% of Fresh Samantha's nearly 400 staffers) to work in the trenches early in their tenure, delivering juice from trucks to store coolers. "One of our core values is get out there, literally," says HR director Betsy Tuohey. That roll-up-your-sleeves approach is a way for the management to stay connected to the real needs of its route sales reps, as well as the wants and needs of the retail customer. "Otherwise, managers might make plans not based on reality, which obviously is not a good thing." --Mike Hofman

Read other Recruiting Strategies:
Recruiting Strategies: Screening
Recruiting Strategies: Orientation
Recruiting Strategies: Company Profile
Recruiting Strategies: Motivation
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