Think back to your last new employee orientation—not one you gave, one you actually had to sit through as a new employee.  Remember that special blend of bored, overwhelmed, and anxious that you felt while stuffed in that conference room?  Maybe you were alone or with a small group of newbies under the careful attention of a Human Resources representative.  By careful attention, we mean a ton of information throwing—breaks, leave time, employee benefits, dress code, mission statements, org charts—do this, learn that.  You name it, they covered it.  You might have even been subjected to a sexual harassment video wherein someone used the term “hot pants.”  All the while, there you were, praying to the new employee gods that there wouldn’t be a quiz.

But could it be this new employee orientation, despite making your first eight hours feel like your first eighty, was a necessary torture?

When you think about it, the orientation sets your initial impression for how you view the company and your new position, and helps decide whether they’re a good fit for you beyond an on-paper job description.

For starters, you might not have known much about the company when you were hired.  By the end of orientation, you should know all about the company’s mission and its policies (and attitudes) concerning its employees.  If you’re the sort who likes freedom on the job, a company that requires its office workers to use a time clock might not be a good fit for you.  If you prefer structure, an office that allows free working hours might not gel with your working style.  You’ll learn all this during orientation.

The new employee orientation also gives information about employee benefits.  If you were expecting two weeks of paid vacation, you might be dismayed to find the company only offers one week.  You might also be pleasantly surprised to find the company pays for full medical and dental benefits.  Whether it brings pleasant or unpleasant surprises, the new employee orientation is the first chance to learn the details of day-to-day operations, which are rarely included during the interview process.  For some new employees, the company’s policies and politics are what make or break a long-term working relationship.

The orientation session might also offer the chance for you to learn who you’ll be working for and with.  HR may offer basic information about who does what and where—all useful to you, trying to figure out what you do and where you fit into all this—but they may also offer helpful tips about working with those people.  Maybe your manager prefers a hands-off management style, or maybe your manager will time your rest breaks with a stopwatch.  Maybe you’ll be shown photos of key figures in the organization, such as the President/CEO, so you’ll know when to flash an extra smile in the elevator.

So before you think all the information you learned on your first day was useless, consider all you gained from a new employee orientation.  You learned vital information about the company, its policies, your role in the organization, and the role of your supervisors and coworkers.  Through a standardized orientation, you learned all the vitals that your peers learned when they were hired, so you walked on to a level playing field.  Now, if you’ve graduated from the person sitting through the orientations to the person giving them, you might have a new appreciation of their importance.

Orientations are a great way for the HR team to get to know new faces in the company and to collect feedback about the orientation process and company policies.  New employees tend to be more motivated than most to share their suggestions or concerns about company policies and procedures, which could result in valuable feedback for you.  Would they like those 10-minute rest breaks stretched out to 15 minutes?  Does the company not offer enough flexibility for family life?  Based on new employee feedback, you can better gauge the direction the company might need to go to attract and retain key talent.

If you find yourself needing guidance on the orientation process, that’s where we at YES! Your Human Resources Solution come in.  Our professional HR consultants can help you devise an efficient (and dare we say “attention-grabbing”) orientation session that fits your company’s unique needs.  We can also help you apply any feedback you get from those sessions as they relate to salaries and benefits, employee recognition, management style, or any other HR topic you can think of.  We’re pleased to offer a free consultation through our website, so you can see how our team can best complement your team.

At the end of the day, was the new employee orientation long?  Probably.  Was it boring?  Most likely.  Was it necessary?  Most definitely.  But the next time you give one to a room filled with restless, glassy-eyed new hires, remind them that they’re learning critical information to their success on the job (and also, bagels, donuts, and a strong pot of coffee go a long way).