Well, we’ve got another long holiday on our hands in China. Now, if I know my hard-driving ChinaSolved readers, you probably think that relaxation and down-time are for wimps. But how can you be productive when your staffs and clients are all off in their Deng-Thought Study Groups celebrating the glories of International Workers Day?

This is the perfect time for putting together an Orientation Training plan that will help you get your new hires up to speed a little quicker – and help reinforce your positive Corporate Culture from the first day.

Bosses of the World, Unite!


What is Orientation Training? When a new hire joins your team, they have two types of knowledge and skills to master. The obvious class of skills has to do with executing the mechanics of their jobs. You probably already have a plan for training people about products, services, procedures and processes that they are required to master. But don’t overlook the “softer” skills, such as understanding your company’s mission, attitudes, and group dynamics. That’s were Orientation Training comes in.

Vague – but Vital
Many SMEs ignore Orientation Training, because in the west we tend to be very informal about it. When we join a new team in the US or Europe, we usually look to an experienced colleague or department head to set the tone and fill in the blanks. This can include formal procedures, such as payroll data and company paperwork, or it can be fuzzier concepts, such as company culture or attitudes toward clients. That may work fine with established organizations with long histories and mono-cultural teams. But in China, your Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is probably very different from the norm for most of your staff. It’s important that you take the time to teach them about your expectations, goals and standards. If you don’t teach them about these basic, big-picture concepts, then you are forcing them to guess, rely on their own preconceived notions, or pick up the story piecemeal from their colleagues (who may not share your ideas and values)

Orientation Training Basics
Orientation can be thought of as teaching new staffers about your WHOLE business - not just the procedures or products. In its simplest form, an orientation training plan should cover these three general topics:

Philosophy and mission of the business
Why was this business started? What do you stand for? What are the values and priorities of the founders? Don’t laugh this part off – this is precisely the kind of big-picture issue that so often causes “disconnects” in Chinese business. If you’ve ever seen a Chinese salesperson drive away an important client in an effort to squeeze another 1.5 rmb out of the deal, it was caused by this class of misunderstanding.

Expectations and attitudes
What do you expect from your employees? What should their attitudes be towards quality, customer service, colleagues, honesty and rules? If you think that these things are so basic that you don’t need to discuss them, then think again. You feel your people should stay with you for at least 2 years, right? Do they know this? Do they know what is required to be successful or to get a promotion? When it comes to China HR, you are best off with the mantra: ASSUME NOTHING.

Chain of command and SOP
What is the organization chart and standard operating procedure at your firm? Again, you have your assumptions about what “everyone knows”, but they are not universal. Chinese teams are famous for developing a “shadow leader” who tends to act as an informal mentor for young employees. If this is the department supervisor or HR manager, then that is great. But if it’s the pissed-off salesman who has been passed over for a promotion, then you have a real problem on your hands. Make sure you have a clear organizational structure – and that everyone is clear about it.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that this sort of soft knowledge will sort itself out naturally. It will – but not the way you want it to. Likewise, beware of delegating this to HR or department heads and forgetting about it forever. There is no autopilot in China business. It’s ok to task the HR manager with orientation training, but this is one area where senior people should play a large & consistent role. If your new hires don’t know why they are showing up for work in the morning, they can’t be blames for getting the wrong idea about what they are supposed to be doing.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 30th, 2007 at 11:30 am and is filed under Training & Development, Sales Management, Managing in China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.