People
Management - Helping your people work for you!
Inductions
and Orientations
In our last
article, we discussed the first of the four part People Management Planning and
Delivery strategy. This article moves us on to the socializing the new
employees we have attracted and recruited into our firm.
Induction or as the
Americans, and increasingly the Ghanaian, call it Orientation has the purpose
of socialising the new employee into the firm, moving them into peak performance
quickly and contribute to the provision of safe working environment.
How does it support
the socialising of employees into the firm? An appropriate induction programme
should provide new employees with detail information on the organisations
culture and style. How can this be done? Traditionally, organisations put new
employees in a class and tell them about the organisations history, triumphs,
failures, organogram, strategic plans and general sense of directions. In some
firms, managers will ‘teach’ new employees the carefully written culture that
management is trying hard to instill. This is approach is used by culture
expert as a way of embedding new organisational cultures. I think they are less
successful because people need their learning to be re-enforced and as the
actual culture is usually different, people ignore what they have been thought.
I think a much more
useful approach is a mix of lectures by senior leadership team on strategic
direction and the firm’s history talking about some of its triumphs and
failures. The organogram should be by provision of the structure and small
information on a document for reading by each new employee. The values, mission
and culture should be a discussed so that these could be impressed on the minds
of new employees of their practical application and impact. Of course, other
important but detail information such as HR policies may be discussed and left
for employees to read on an ongoing basis.
In socialising new
employees, what I have found useful is buddy system. Firms can train some
employees to act buddies for new employees who come to their areas of work.
These employees are trained to support the new colleagues in areas of organisational
structures, how things work, share their network with them and provide
information on where to find general information, items such as stationery and
support.
Another objective
of an effective induction will be to move the new employee to peak performance quickly.
How do you do this? As part of the induction, the employee should be given
information on their role that clarifies the purpose, the expectations, success
measures, detail and mechanism for ongoing support.
The probation
period, if there is one, is an essential part of the induction. In this period,
there should be an explanation of the role requirement, management/monitoring
style, and all that will make the role clear. If any learning needs were
identified during the recruitment, these should be addressed. I cannot over
emphasise the benefit for managers if they are clear on their expectations,
provide detail understanding of the strategic directions and share their
network of people who are able to help their new team members with new employees.
Managers must
ensure that all the tools and equipment needed by the new employees to
effectively achieve the agreed expectation of the role are provided and are
available even before the employee starts. This is an essential consideration as
managers cannot expect performance from employees who are working with inappropriate
tools. Effective induction will provide a checklist for managers that guide
their activities from end of recruitment to the end of probation of a new
employee.
Another purpose of
an induction is to support the firm’s legal obligation of providing a safe
working place. Depending on your sector and country, certain training
programmes are mandatory before a new team member can work for you. This is
particularly evident in the mining and other industries. However, in all work
places you can use your induction to ensure that your employees have the basics
such as where to assemble in case of fire, how to evacuate, how to protect
themselves and colleagues. The important thing here is that the induction is
tailored to your industry.
A short plan may
look like this:
Part
one
– lectures on strategic plans, history,
Regularising
the recruitment through HR admin processes – contract of employment, provision
of copies of policies and other information
Part
two
– a workshop on culture, values,
missions and others
Part three
– Line Manager discussion of the job
purpose, support and expectations.
Provision
of all the necessary tools and equipment for doing the job even before employee
arrives.
Buddy
who will help on general access to information, Q&A
These are the basic
and generic objectives of every induction; just the fundamentals. Further
considerations are required that take into consideration the firms strategic
considerations.
Designing your
induction is much more than achieving the above for your firm. Your strategic
objective affects your options in achieving the above. Like we described in our
Attraction and Recruitment Plan, how we intend to achieve our competitive
advantage influences that approach to socialising new employees.
The induction
process has a cost: the venue, the materials, and the amount of time it takes. The
items covered and by whom also have to be consistent with our corporate
strategic objectives, culture and values.
As a result, the
induction for supermarket cashiers may be about a day long whilst that for
programme managers at engineering firm may be more than a week. This is actually
the case in two local examples. Shoprite supermarket has a one day induction
for their shop floor staff whilst Cummins GH Ltd has a five-day induction
programme for its programme managers.
Generally, all
employees need to efficiently have their employment regularised through the HR
and payroll administrative processes.
However, knowledge workers will need more time and detail information on
the strategic mission, vision, and managers need to spend more time with these
employees to ensure that the expectations are clear of both sides.
For manual workers,
employees at factories or in firms where the job is fairly monotonous and well
directed, they may be able to achieve the objective with shorter induction.
