Sep 26, 2016
Everyone has a story, right?
You do. Your friends do. Your coworkers do.
So does your company brand.
And there’s no better way to make your employees fall in love with your company than by turning your New Employee Orientation program into a lively, interactive storytelling experience.
Why New Employee Orientation is the important first chapter in your company’s success
Storytelling can help build loyalty, trust, and excitement among workers, which in turn improves productivity and can positively impact your company’s bottom line. That leads to a happy ending for everyone. To ensure your coworkers are engaged, happy and productive there is no better first place to start than in New Employee Orientation.
According to a new Gallup survey, unhappy workers are costing U.S. companies over $500 billion (mostly through being unproductive or leaving a job to soon after you have invested money in training them right.) It’s not always a lack of motivation in the employees, either. People often do as they see—and that means seeing positive actions in leaders can go a long way toward their own performance.
Looking to make your New Employee Orientation livelier? Want to increase pride in being part of your team? Want to build your brand in inventive and memorable new ways? Simple. Use storytelling.
Tell your company’s story
Sharing a compelling story is a great way to help new employees understand your company’s culture in a more relatable, “human” ways. Often starting with the founder(s) of your company, you can create a rag to riches story of how the company has grown from the start. Bring people into the picture. Share the history—good and bad—and show how the company’s growth over time has benefitted the founder, the workers, and the public are large. Make it a positive, inspiring story that all employees will want to be a part of.
Often the leaders of the company can come in and tell a personal story about how the company has helped them succeed. Not just in a “testimonial” fashion, but in real terms that bring the benefits of working at your company to life. Through New Employee Orientation you can really share steps for success. Everyone loves a story about a janitor who became a Vice President, right? If that happened in your company, it’s a great tale to tell.
You can spell corporate benefits in story form too. Don’t just talk about the gym reimbursement policy. Talk about how “Bob” used it to lose 80 pounds and find his fiancé. Don’t just talk about free lunches. Explain how lunch is catered by a local mom-and-pop restaurant that has been serving your company for more than a decade.
You get the idea. Stories make things more engaging, livelier and more fun.
Let new employees tell their own stories too
You shouldn’t make your New Employee Orientation program all about you. Allow your new hires to express themselves, too. Here are some ideas for opening up storytelling in your program:
- Have new employees explain their names. You’ll get some great family stories out of that—and you build trust too
- Share their “war wounds” from other jobs. You don’t want to focus on the negative, but on how people overcame their hardships or difficult situations.
- Give them a starting point—their birth, graduation etc.—and let them finish the story for you. It’s a great way to learn people’s character.
These are just a few ideas for your program. But you’ll soon see. Storytelling at the start create many happy stories in the long run.
