Staff orientation and training

I'd planned to jump into some thoughts on what makes software good, but I've had several requests for information on orientation and training, so let me take that on for a day or two, then come back to the idea of "good" software.

Several years back, the Perimeter IT department "forced" a situation (it wasn't very hard).  We made the simple statement: nobody gets their password until they've read through our policy document AND participated in a brief technical handoff.  As mentioned in my earlier post on Perimeter's IT successes, this handoff process has been one of our great wins.  This small investment of time has pre-empted so many little problems and sets up a positive relationship between the new staff member and the IT department.  It also helps reinforce some of our training values and sets up a good time to remind the new staff member of their required training classes that take place during the first few weeks of being on staff. But I'm getting ahead of myself -- let me back up a bit.

Long before that orientation process, there's a hiring process.  Usually that's NOT a fast process.  A job need is determined, a job description is created, a search is performed (within the congregation, first), interviews are conducted, and various selection processes take place.  Two parts of that selection are particularly IT oriented.  First, a part of the interaction with our HR people is done by email.  For many of our positions, we expect staff to already be comfortable with email communication.  Of course, for some positions, that's not a requirement -- we have a few two-finger (or even one-finger!) typists, but we find that out during the interview process and then make the decision -- it's not a surprise on the first day of employment.  The second piece of the IT pre-qualification is a fairly simple "computer test."  That sounds much more sophisticated than it really is.  The test is simply a Word document with some questions which we email to the candidate and ask them to answer and return to us.  When we get great answers back, by return email, then we have someone who excites us in the IT department.  (Obviously, that's not the total hiring decision!)  Sometimes we get handwritten answers back.  That tells us a lot, too.

Once a hiring decision is made, a whole lot of other processes kick in.  Every department or person who has anything to do with the new staff start-up process gets an early notification.  That sets the steps in place to be sure the new person will have a desk, and a chair, and a mailbox, appropriate keys, and other physical things.  It also starts the IT process of acquiring a computer and setting up an account, and planning for that handoff process.  We place a very high value on ensuring that the account and computer are ready the same day the new staff member starts -- we want them to have a great first day experience.  One of the amazingly hard things to do is make sure that we have the proper spelling for both first and last name of the new person!  There's also a bit of homework for the new staff member before their first day -- they have to read the IT Policy manual before their handoff.

Next time I'll talk about that first day for the new staff member...