What does a new Georgia Tech employee need to know? Departmental goals and expectations are a great place to start. Where to find lunch and how to collect wages are also important subjects to cover. But that’s just the beginning of a successful career.

“To thrive in our community, new hires must be prepared to exercise sound ethical judgment, act with civility in the workplace, and take individual responsibility for the Institute’s policies and legal obligations,” said Travis Waugh, instructional technologist for Human Resources. “These are among the core expectations of all Georgia Tech employees, and they are just as vital to the Institute’s long-term success as any professional skill or competency.”

To ensure these needs are met, last fall, Human Resources introduced a New Hire Learning and Compliance program for all onboarding employees.

This new program merges the Institute’s legal training mandates, employment policies, and timely topics impacting higher education into a single, convenient format that new hires can access and complete online. The full program takes approximately six hours to complete and covers:

• Ethical decision-making.
• Workplace conduct.
• Title IX and anti-harassment.
• Cybersecurity.
• Conflicts of interest.
• The Georgia Tech Policy Library — including the process by which new policies are written, reviewed, and implemented.

All new employees are automatically enrolled within their first week and receive an email with instructions on how to complete the program.

Managers should allocate time for their direct reports to complete the online program within their first 30 days. Managers are also encouraged to engage their new employees in a discussion of the program, underscoring their personal commitment to the policies and principles the program has discussed.

Human Resources revitalized its compliance approach to demonstrate a better way to manage risk and redefine its collective expectations of how genuinely impactful a compliance training program can be. By providing newly hired employees with a solid ethics and compliance foundation, the New Hire Learning and Compliance program is enabling other exciting initiatives at the Institute. For example, Georgia Tech’s annual Integrity and Compliance Campaign, which begins March 7 and ends April 6, will be streamlined this year to focus on real-life opportunities for meaningful employee learning and behavior change.

To learn more about the New Hire Learning and Compliance program, contact Travis Waugh at travis.waugh@ohr.gatech.edu.