The New Training Program I just dont understand it, said Pierre. No one here seems to follow instructions, and no matter how many times Ive told them how to do things, they seem to do them their own way. At present, LearnInMotion.com has no formal onboarding or training policies or procedures. Jennifer believes this is one reason why employees gen- erally ignore the standards that she and Pierre would like them to adopt. Several examples illustrate this problem. One job of the web designer (her name is Maureen) is to take cus- tomer copy for banner ads and adapt it for placement on LearnInMotion.com. She has been told several times not to tinker in any way with a customers logo: Most com- panies put considerable thought and resources into logo design, and as Pierre has said, Whether or not Maureen thinks the logo is perfect, its the customers logo, and shes to leave it as it is. Yet just a week ago, they almost lost a big customer when Maureen, to clarify the cus- tomers logo, modified its design before posting it on LearnInMotion.com. Thats just the tip of the iceberg. As far as Jennifer and Pierre are concerned, it is the sales effort that is completely out of control. For one thing, even after several months on the job, it still seems as if the salespeople dont know what theyre talking about. For example, LearnInMotion. com has several co-brand arrangements with websites like Yahoo! This setup allows users on other sites to easily click through to LearnInMotion.com if they are inter- ested in ordering educational courses or CDs. Jennifer has noticed that, during conversations with customers, the two salespeople have no idea which sites co-brand with LearnInMotion.com, or how to get to the LearnInMotion. com site from the partner website. The salespeople also need to know a lot more about the products themselves. For example, one salesperson was trying to sell someone who produces programs on managing call centres on the idea of listing its products under LearnInMotion.coms communications community. In fact, the communica- tions community is for courses on topics like interper- sonal communications and how to be a better listener; ithas nothing to do with managing the sorts of call cen- tres that, for instance, airlines use for handling customer inquiries. As another example, the web surfer is supposed to get a specific email address with a specific persons name for the salespeople to use; instead he often just comes back with an information email address from a website. The list goes on and on. Jennifer feels the company has had other problems because of the lack of adequate employee training and orientation. For example, a question came up recently when employees found out they werent paid for the Canada Day holiday. They assumed they would be paid, but they were not. Similarly, when a salesperson left after barely a month on the job, there was considerable debate about whether the person should receive severance pay and accumulated vacation pay. Other matters to cover during an orientation, says Jennifer, include company policy regarding lateness and absences; health and hos- pitalization benefits (there are none, other than workers compensation); and matters like maintaining a safe and healthy workplace, personal appearance and cleanliness, personal telephone calls and email, substance abuse, and eating on the job. Jennifer believes that implementing orientation and training programs would help ensure that employees know how to do their jobs. She and Pierre further believe that it is only when employees understand the right way to do their jobs that there is any hope those jobs will in fact be carried out in the way the owners want them to be. Now they want you, their management consultant, to help them. questions . . 1 How would you change LearnInMotion.coms orientation program? Should this company rename this process to an onboarding program instead? 2 Should Pierre and Jennifer be involved in the on- boarding program to emphasize the importance of this process to their staff? 3 Should management of each department assist in the development and subsequent enforcement of the new onboarding program? Why or why not?