I believe Leo has covered most of the details well. You may want to look at the following too.
What happens without an effective induction programme?
New employees get off to a bad start and never really understand the organization itself or their role in it. This may lead to:
- poor integration into the team
- low morale, particularly for the new employee
- loss of productivity
- failure to work to their highest potential.
In extreme cases, the new employee leaves, either through resignation or dismissal; the results of our most recent recruitment and retention survey showed that 13% of leavers had less than six months' service. Early leaving results in:
- additional cost for recruiting a replacement
- wasted time for the inductor
- lowering of morale for the remaining staff
- detriment to the leaver's employment record
- having to repeat the unproductive learning curve of the leaver
- damage to the company's reputation.
The basics of an induction process
The structure of an induction course depends not only on the size and nature of an organization but also on the type of recruit. The process begins at the recruitment stage and continues into employment. New recruits need to know the organization, the culture, the people, and their role. Ideally, all new employees should receive an individual induction program that reflects their specific needs. For a large company, this program would be a combination of one-to-one discussions and more formal group presentations, which may be given within an induction course.
What to avoid
- Providing too much, too soon; the inductee must not be overwhelmed by a mass of information on the first day.
- Pitching presentations at an inappropriate level - either too high or too low.
- HR rather than local personnel providing all the information.
- Creating an induction program that generates unreasonable expectations by being more interesting and more exciting than the job itself.
- Demanding that inductees stop interesting and useful work to go to a dull presentation. This hinders integration and devalues the induction process and, possibly, the HR group.
Example of an induction checklist
Regardless of whether there is a formal induction program coordinated by HR or a less formal program run by managers, it is important to keep a checklist of the areas of induction training received, ideally countersigned by the individual. This helps ensure all employees receive all the information they need. This checklist can be a vital source of reference later in employment - for example, to check an employee has been briefed on policies or to produce evidence of training in the event of a health and safety inspection.
- Pre-employment joining instructions
- Conditions of employment
- Company literature
Health and safety
- Emergency exits
- Evacuation procedures
- First aid facilities
- Health and safety policy
- Accident reporting
- Protective clothing
- Specific hazards
- Policy on smoking
Organization
- Site map (canteen, first aid post, etc.)
- Telephone system
- Computer system
- Organization chart (global)
- Organization chart (departmental)
- Company products and services
- Security pass
- Car park pass
- Security procedures
- Official Secrets Act
- Data Protection Act/ Freedom of Information Act
Terms and conditions
- Absence/sickness procedure
- Working time, including hours, flexi-time, etc.
- Arrangements for breaks
- Holidays/special leave
- Probation period
- Performance management system
- Discipline procedure
- Grievance procedure
- Internet and email policy
Financial
- Pay (payment date and method)
- Tax and NI
- Benefits
- Pension/stakeholder pensions
- Expenses and expense claims
Training
- Agree training plan
- Training opportunities and in-house courses
- Career management
Culture and values
- Background
- Mission statement
- Quality systems
- Customer care policy
Trends in induction
Changing content
- Fewer 'chalk and talk' sessions and more multi-media presentations or active learning tasks (e.g., giving inductees a questionnaire where completion involves talking to people outside the normal scope).
- Moving away from being purely about the practicalities of an organization to discussing culture and values.
- For example, an online induction and e-learning program has been developed to introduce the culture for new HR staff in the NHS, and Tesco also uses e-learning for its annual 40,000 new recruits in the UK.
- Involving a wide range of personnel in the program development to ensure the content continues to match the organization profile; out-of-date or badly produced material is depressing.
- More awareness of socialization issues and using induction sessions for cross-functional team building, for example, at the NHS University.
Evaluation
- Holding post-induction reviews, either formally or informally.
- Using statistics (e.g., on early leavers) to monitor the effectiveness of the induction process.