As a manager, you probably remember at least one orientation program during your career where you were just literally overwhelmed with information--so much so that you simply couldn't assimilate it.

Furthermore, since you were so new to the company or department, much of it did not even make any sense because you had nothing to relate it to.

"If people have 'one gallon' heads, you can't ask them to assimilate 'five gallons' of information during an orientation session," observed George Huyler, vice president, Human Resources, for Management Adjustment Bureau, Inc. (Buffalo, N.Y.).

For this reason, he arranges to have new collectors "revisit" their orientation program approximately 90 days after being hired.

They do not go through the whole weeklong program again. That would be far more of a revisit than they need. What they get is one-day training sessions over a short period of time to review specific training modules.

As you might expect, these sessions tend to be intensively interactive as the new collectors--fresh from their first experiences in actual collecting--compare what they have been taught with what they have encountered.

"They have a lot of questions, based on their experience," says Huyler. "They also have a lot of renewed interest in the topics, as well as much better retention, since they've had the opportunity to put some of the training into practice."

Whether it's for collectors, or anyone else you need to train, we think this strategy makes great sense.