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All firms provide some form of orientation for new employees. This article discusses how to make such programmesmore effective. Three components of orientation programmes are considered: pre‐orientation activities, orientation to the organisation, and orientation to the job. In each case, basic approaches and content are set forth, followed by the techniques used by successful and/or innovative firms. It is concluded that effective orientation programmes generally last longer than their standard counterparts, provide more substantive content, utilise more vivid presentation techniques and participative learning methods, and require more involvement from management and other staff members. Finally, recommendations for how to go about creating or revamping an orientation programme are made.

During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, employers struggled to develop virtual onboarding (VO) experiences among new employees. Prior research has examined VO processes. This study, by contrast, compares online commentaries in relation to current research findings to determine a functional description of effective VO.

Using a qualitative, inductive thematic analysis, the researchers explored new employees' online, anonymous, public commentary about the employers' VO experiences. Through analyzing 83 posted communications, the researchers sought to not only categorize themes, but to also identify meaning within the employees' commentary. From the thematic analysis, meaningful themes were established and compared to existing literature to identify comprehensive trends in effective VO.

The analysis developed nine themes of discussion question (DQ) prompts and nine themes of discussion responses. The professionals' online discussion about VO in the workplace as well as attributes of each theme was compared to contemporary VO research. In combination with a review of established literature of effective VO and an examination of organizational socialization theory, the study confirms that some virtually onboarded employees are excelling with, and some are challenged by the communication deficiencies of the remote experience. Employee experiences are highlighted to develop a description of contemporary effective VO experiences to support future workplace efficiencies.

Data were gathered via Blind and each response shared on Blind is subject to the viewpoint of the participants. For future research, face-to-face interviews might offer context regarding new hires' VO experiences. Also the generalizability is impacted because not all participants of VO participate via Blind. Participant bias is possible given the perceived dissatisfaction or negative experiences. Future research can perform a national random study of employees. Finally, the data and participants in this study were USA based. Future research should consider other international contexts such as Europe.

The thematic findings of this study yield valuable practical recommendations. New hires that experience VO are seeking improved virtual communication channels between themselves and the managers and colleagues of the hires. As such, corporate managers/trainers can implement a virtual mentoring program to have senior employees prepare and guide new hires into employees' new remote working environment to reduce employees' uncertainty. To improve VO processes in a post-pandemic society, corporate managers/trainers can incorporate social media communication given that employees participate in social media to develop their careers. With social media work groups, new virtual hires can be better socialized through effective peer-to-peer informal internal communications where the hires can freely ask questions and build better work relationships.

In each onboarding experience and evident in each of the five themes, learning is an underlying concept. New employees are describing that it is challenging to development organizational shared values, skills, attitudes, knowledge, abilities, behaviors and relationships in a VO process. As organizational leaders continue to develop VO experiences, a focus on learning as dependent on the virtual learning process and content can be significant in terms of creating a positive employee VO learning experience.

The findings are unique in exploring new hires' self-reported VO experiences. This study offers insight into effective VO practices such as developing virtual trainings that are well planned, engaging and supporting of relationships, collaborations and career goals.

The purpose of this paper is to promote the notion that an orientation plan and socialization to the culture of the organization are crucial components for the retention of library employees.

A review of selected literature was conducted from both within and outside librarianship to determine the relationship orientation and socialization have to retention.

Employee orientation is a multi‐stage process utilizing both formal and informal activities that help assist the employee to become part of the culture of any organization, including the library. A human resources program that includes well‐planned processes for recruitment, selection, orientation, socialization and retention will help a library be more competitive as librarians retire. Paying attention to these processes is increasingly important as we enter the period in which the baby boomer generation is moving toward retirement.

As baby‐boomer librarians retire, libraries should strive to maintain retention by improving current orientation practices and assisting with socialization to the organizational culture. The orientation process and retention can be improved by the use of checklists, the support of the immediate supervisor, and appointing a mentor.

The paper provides considerations that may assist planning approaches for libraries considering future staffing in a shrinking employment market.

In today's digitalized world, platform leadership is a novel leadership style that facilitates employee innovation. However, the impact mechanism of platform leadership on employee innovation passion has not been explored.

In this study, based on the theory of a self-organizing objective system, 591 new-generation employees were surveyed to explore the impact of platform leadership on the harmonious innovation passion of new-generation employees.

The results showed that platform leadership stimulates the harmonious innovation passion of employees by promoting the integration of organizational and employee objectives. This mechanism was found to be weakened by the internal integrated organizational culture and strengthened by the external adaptive organizational culture.

This study explores the mechanism by which platform leadership style influences the harmonious innovation passion of new-generation employees and provides theoretical guidance and practical insight into ways to improve the innovation capability of new-generation employees.

Integrating the resource-based view (RBV) with pay dispersion research, the authors examine how the allocation of resources between hiring new employees and compensating current employees, as well as the allocation of resources among new employees, affects organizational performance.

The authors use panel data on Major League Baseball teams. The authors also use system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimations to control for the impact of past performance on current performance, unobserved individual heterogeneity and omitted variable bias.

The authors find that the larger the portion of the human resources (HR) budget allocated to hiring new employees, the poorer organizational performance becomes unless the focal organization has already significantly underperformed. The authors also find that pay concentration among new employees has a positive impact on organizational performance unless the focal organization has already significantly overperformed.

This study extends RBV research by examining how resource allocation patterns affect organizational performance, which has rarely been studied. Moreover, by showing the organizational context's significant effect on the outcome of financial allocation for resource acquisition, this study extends both the RBV research and the pay dispersion research.

Given the sharp rise in the adoption of digital onboarding in employment relations and human resource management practices, largely caused by the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, this study explores the impact of digital onboarding on employees' wellbeing, engagement level, performance, and overall outcomes.

This study uses an interpretive qualitative research methodology, undertaking semi-structured interviews with 28 participants working in the UK services industry.

The study finds that digital onboarding has a significant impact on employee outcomes, following the perceptions of “dwindling social connectedness and personal wellbeing”, “meaningful and meaningless work”, and “poor employee relations” among employees and their employers in the workplace.

Due to the increased adoption of digital onboarding, human resources teams must focus on having considerable human interaction with new hires, even if this means adopting a hybrid approach to onboarding. Human resources teams must ensure that they work together with line managers to promote a welcoming culture for new hires and facilitate organisation-driven socialisation tactics and the “quality” information necessary for supporting new employees. For new employees, besides acquiring the digital skills that are essential in the workplace, they must accept the changing digital landscape in order to practice effective communication and align their goals and values with those of their organisation.

Qualitative research on the influence of digital onboarding on employee outcomes is limited, with much of the research yet to substantially consider the impact of digitalisation on the human resources function of onboarding employees as full members of an organisation.

A culture of health within an organization offers benefits such as managing healthcare costs and supporting employees in becoming and staying healthy. This study aims to identify successful organization's strategies utilized to socialize employees into a culture of health.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 19 representatives from organizations recognized for their success in creating a culture of health. Grounded theory analysis of collected data was used to identify themes related to the goals of this study.

New employees are socialized into the culture of health during the recruitment process, at new employee orientation and throughout the early employment period. Existing employees are also continually socialized using a variety of on-going communication strategies. This process is consistent with Jablin's organizational assimilation model, and this study offers the opportunity to use this model to help understand organizational health.

Organizations desiring to create a culture of health can support this culture by incorporating socialization strategies into the recruitment, hiring and new employee on-boarding process.

Though strategies have been shown to be helpful in socializing new employees into organizations, limited research has explored the relationship between socialization and a culture of health. Results from this study offer insight into how organizations that have been recognized for their success in creating a culture of health socialize new and existing employees to create and maintain a culture that supports health and well-being. Also, this study applies socialization theories to health within the workplace, offering new insights both theoretically and practically.

The original legislation which introduced the redundancy payments scheme was the Redundancy Payments Act 1965. This was the first of the substantive statutory individual employment rights given to an employee; other individual employment rights, as for example, the right not to be unfairly dismissed, followed some years later. The Redundancy Payments Act 1965 has been repealed and the provisions on redundancy are now to be found in the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978.

The purpose of this paper is to report and discuss research that sought to explore how the individually purposeful nature of new employee workplace learning might be understood through its conception as epistemological agency, that is, the personally mediated construction of knowledge.

Using a sociocultural constructivist perspective on learning as necessary action‐in‐context, the ethnographic study investigates the working and learning actions of three new employees through the first months of their employment.

This paper proposes that the actions of its participants can be interpreted within a framework that accounts for the major influences on their learning as mediational means. It suggests that these mediations comprise an individualised workplace agenda that is purposefully managed by the new employee. Epistemological agency is defined and presented as a conception of learning that captures the new employees taking charge of the conduct and accomplishments of their actions at work, that is, their self‐management of learning.

The findings are significant because they indicate how the personal agency of the new employee learner can be accounted for within the process and product of workplace learning. In doing so they help illuminate the role of the individual within social conceptions of learning and agency.

This study seeks to examine the association of employee's evaluation of organizational restructuring with the destruction of old social capital, development of new social capital, and the mediating role of perceived organizational support (POS).

Data were used from 419 teachers of Dutch secondary schools using hierarchical regression analyses.

Results show that more positive employees' evaluation of the organizational restructuring are less likely to remain relying on old social capital resources, and score higher on development of new social capital. Moreover, POS mediated the association of employee's evaluation of the organizational restructuring with old and new social capital.

Future research, utilizing longitudinal designs and experiments that better lend it to causal inferences, are needed to examine relationships between organizational restructuring, POS, and social capital.

The results of this study provide a first step toward outlining the importance of organizational restructuring for social capital theory and how employees cope with transition to different work units. In organizations, having a shared language and narratives may allow team members to more easily integrate knowledge and provide better support to one another. Moreover, a common perspective and understanding among team members may allow employees members to anticipate the behavior of other members, thus promoting organizational efficiency and effectiveness.