Dear Manager,
The orientation day is the most critical day of work for the entire semester. If you provide a helpful training day, you will solve problems that could otherwise become chronic. This is your one chance to teach the employees what they need to know to be successful, and you only have 4 hours to accomplish it.
The orientation day is held immediately after an employee is selected. The orientation will be the employees first shift, which is generally the first Monday and Tuesday of the semester
The orientation day is an organized process. New employees will be instructed to submit their tax and other documents after you walk them step-by-step through the process of writing their first post. To ensure there is enough time to finish everything, don’t delay getting started. If a team member is missing, just get started at least within 5 minutes of the beginning of the shift.
Please follow the process for the orientation precisely without skipping steps. Keep the group together and working on the same things at the same time. Show all videos on the TV screen and bring everyone together to watch them, and then let them go back to their computers to work on each part of the post.
You should watch and be extremely familiar with each part of the training before showing it to the other employees so you can answer questions and provide feedback.
Nathan, Ricky, and Jim
Step 1 – Prepare Before Orientation
- It will be a good idea to look through this information before the shift so you can be organized.
- Assign a simple 1,000 word, 2 hour post from the hit list for the first website for each Creator who will be here for the orientation. These articles WILL be published after the orientation. The topics should be fairly simple since this is their first try. Prepare the assigned articles to pass out at orientation. (Note: We have added articles to your. spreadsheets, so check there to find the articles for your writers to write. They will all write a real article, there should not be two people who choose the same article topic.
- Prepare sign-on information so each Creator will be able to sign on to the website to write their first post. (This information is also in the spreadsheet.) Make sure the user/pass will be available to each Creator. (Once you give them their username and passwords, prompt them to save them somewhere so they don’t forget them)
- Prepare a contact sheet for all of the creators so they can text each other if they need to find a sub for a workday. Gather all of their phone numbers and email addresses and enter them into the spreadsheet
- Prepare a schedule for the entire semester so everyone knows when they are scheduled to work.
- Make sure copies of the post recipe template are available for Creators to review during the training. (Nathan sent the post recipe to your slack, so go into the office and connect your computer to the printer and print off 7-10 copies before the start of the shift.)
Step 2 – Welcome Creators and Collect Information
Arrive at the office a little before your shift starts. (Usually 15-20 minutes early will be enough)
As the Creators come into the studio for their orientation, be personable and meet each of them. Remember their names for the orientation.
- Collect the i9 form and accompanying documents (ID’s). They should have received and filled out the i9 before work. The other documents (W-4 and code of conduct) should be filled out online in the first week of employment. There probably will be time after they finish their post to fill out any missing documents.
Step 3 – Bring the Team Together
Start the orientation on time as you have a lot to get through in 4 hours.
After everyone is seated, welcome them, introduce yourself and tell them a bit about you. Take 10 minutes and go around the circle and have each person introduce themselves, share something about themselves, and why they chose this job. Make everyone feel like they are part of a team.
Step 4 – Introduce the Work
The Creators have only had a short introduction to what we do at Income School. Tell them what Income School is about and what we’re trying to accomplish. Income School creates helpful websites on a wide variety of topics that help people find reliable information online. We then monetize the traffic to those sites with ads and other means.
Tell the Creators what website topics they’ll be working on throughout the semester. Have some fun with this and get them excited about the topics. Don’t take more than 5-10 minutes.
Eli – Your team will start with the Concrete website
Cade – Your team will start with the Cooking website
Step 5 – Begin the Training
Now for the most important part of the shift, which is the writers working through their first post. All of the videos contain some training and then an action for the writers to take. Under each video, we have added brief instructions above and below each video to guide you through the process and to outline things like time limits for each step. Follow the time limits strictly, even if some of the writers haven’t quite finished yet. Don’t ever give more than 2 extra minutes per step, or you wont get the training finished in time.
Step 6 – Gather I-9 and Tax Forms
After you work through all of the writing videos, you can move on to the last few lessons. For the next steps, the writers will need to log into their accounts on incomeschoolcreators.com. (They were instructed to create the account before the first day).
If they forgot to create the account, you can have them register here: https://incomeschoolcreators.com/creator-registration/income-school-creator/
If some of the writers didn’t have their forms ready at the beginning of the shift, there is a training lesson that contains the links to the documents, that they can go to and print the documents off to give to you.
Step 7 – Ensure they Know the Schedule
Confirm with each Creator as they leave what their schedule will be going forward. It should be the same each week of the semester. If they have completed all of the steps of the first day of training, the writers can leave early, even if it hasn’t been four hours. Just have them check out with you so you can enter their hours worked into your spreadsheet.
Explain to them that they need to find a sub if they will not make it to their shift, but that they need to make it to their shifts. You will want to be easy on them, but let them know how important it is for them to be at their shifts.
Step 8 – Close up
After every one has finished their documents and articles, they can leave. As they leave, make sure you record their hours in the spreadsheet. This is important because we don’t have any other way to track their hours.
After everyone has left, you can walk through the whole office, make sure no one is left in the building, make sure its generally clean and then check all of the doors to make sure they are locked. After you lock all of the doors and turn off all of the lights, you can go. Generally you should be out of there within15 minutes of the end of the shift.