What Is The Difference Between Orientation And Training

Starting a new job can be exciting, intimidating and challenging. Forward-thinking employers use a variety of strategies and programs to help new employees adjust. These are aimed at making new employees more comfortable, introducing them to company culture, and providing them with the knowledge and skills to succeed at their jobs. Orientation programs tend to be aimed at getting employees familiar with the company, alerting them to relevant policies and setting them at ease. Training programs tend to focus on the specifics of performing the tasks that make up a particular employee's job.

Every employee who is hired into the organization or into another division needs to be given a brief introduction on the policies, principles, and working conditions. Further in-depth understanding on his/her role and work area must be provided in order for the employee to carry out the work allocated at his/her best ability.

Orientation:

Once an employee is taken into the organization he/she needs to be provided with an introduction. Orientation refers to this initial introduction every employee receives. This serves as an important part of recruitment and retention process. Orientation helps to develop job expectations and positive attitude about the job role for the employee on the initial day. Also, proper orientation enables to reduce anxiety of the employee caused by entering into an unknown environment. Further, it provides an introduction/awareness to the employee on all the departments, the activities, location, policies, rules and regulations, etc of the company.

Training:

Training is a process of gaining knowledge, skills and competence. Be it either a new employee to the department, or an existing employee in the company being transferred to a new role, he/she needs to be provided with training to an extent to understand the work area and the tasks to be carried out. This training provides the employee an in-depth understanding on the work to be carried out. It provides the knowledge and skills to perform the job. Therefore, it can be mentioned as training improves one’s capability and performance. As employees are being trained continuously the company achieves competitive advantage over its rivals. Training provides motivation for the employees, as they are kept informed / taught about the work area. This also helps employees to become more efficient. Various training methods have been introduced, which can be broadly classified under ‘on the job training’ and ‘off the job training’.

What is the difference between Orientation and Training:

Duration of orientation is normally for a short period of time, whereas training is carried out for a longer period of time and with intervals between its sessions, if necessary.

Orientation is an introduction, whereas training is the detail on the subject.

Contents of an orientation would brief the common topics all employees need to know, whereas training would contain specific information relating to the area the employee is from.

Training can be outsourced to specialist trainers depending on the requirement, whereas orientation can only be done in-house by the company trainers.

Orientation happens first before training.