[Publib] Re: New Employee Orientation

[Sarah Caltvedt]

We struggled for years to find a way to orient new employees in a
relatively small library (130 employees) since there never seemed to be
enough new people to do a monthly orientation, but we hated to wait six
months to give them important information.  Department heads did their
own orientations, but they were generally geared to the specific job.  

What we finally came up with was a packet of information and a "New
Employee Checklist" that supervisors review/discuss with every new
employee during the first few days of employment.   This includes
library policies, staff rules, meeting all department heads and
administrators, filling out a host of forms, etc. The employee and
supervisor sign off on the checklist, and it is put in the employee's
personnel file.  Then every 3-6 months we do a group session which
covers some "big picture" topics - what it means to be a public
employee, intellectual freedom, "safety and security - everyone's
responsibility," and emergency procedures.  At this point, staff have
enough experience to put things in context and to ask meaningful
questions.  Feedback from the new employees has been overwhelmingly
positive.

I'd be happy to e-mail the checklist and a list of packet contents to
anyone who is interested.



Sarah C. Caltvedt
Assistant Director
Elmhurst Public Library
125 S. Prospect
Elmhurst, IL 60126
Phone: 630.279.8696
Fax: 630.516.1364
e-mail: Sarah.Caltvedt at elmhurst.org

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect official Library Policy.