Key to help new staff

Brett Marsh of SpectrumCare says the induction process is pivotal to achieving industry compliance and lowering attrition rates. Picture / Fotopress

A quality induction process is arguably all that stands between a well-trained, confident employee and a disgruntled one who leaves claiming he or she was thrown in at the deep end. Yet few organisations regularly update their induction processes or tailor them to fit individuals.

Why is this? And what are the business benefits of getting induction right?

Russell Drake, director HR and management consulting for business consulting firm Staples Rodway, says most small businesses have no induction processes and larger businesses tend to have a tick-box approach to induction that ensures they meet current legislation but does little to impart the values of the organisation or properly prepare the employee for the job before them.

"Too many companies view induction as something to benefit the organisation and not the individual. Those inductions tend to be very generic and of minimal value," says Russell.

He says most employers find out what is wrong with their induction process when and if they conduct exit interviews.

However this intelligence may come too late - when there is a workplace accident or if an employee is warned or dismissed for breaching organisational rules.

If the employee claims rules or safety procedures were not imparted during the induction process, a grievance or health-and-safety complaint is usually upheld.

"Good induction practice results in the right documentation ending up in the right personnel file and yet a lot of personnel files have so many gaps in them that we see employers getting caught out as a result," says Russell.

However, while creating document trails is an important part of induction best practice, an induction is for the benefit of the employee and should not be solely about protecting the employer.

"The worst thing you can do to a new employee is submit them to a cold, boring, time-consuming and enforced induction that has no real value. A good employer/employee relationship relies so much on each understanding the other's needs, and that goes for their training needs as well," says Russell.

He says providing a variety of learning materials and methods that suit different learning styles is a good way to ensure induction success, as are employee buddy systems that give new employees someone to turn to when later questions arise. Individually tailored inductions may also produce better results than group sessions.

This all sounds fine in theory, but how practicable is it for an organisation that hires many people annually to deliver an induction experience that caters for a range of learning styles and individuals and also meets employer compliance and documentation needs?

Home-based healthcare providers SpectrumCare Trust have discovered delivering exactly this sort of induction process is not only practicable, but beneficial.

SpectrumCare employs 900 full and part-time employees and runs 16 three-week induction courses containing between six and 20 people.

The company has put time and effort into improving its induction processes and is retaining staff for longer as a result.

Brett Marsh, general manager organisational development for SpectrumCare, says the induction process is regularly reviewed and considered pivotal to achieving industry compliance and lowering attrition rates.

"The success of our induction programme has seen staff turnover drop and industry compliance figures shoot up.

"For example, we have contracts that say a certain percentage of our people must be trained in administering medications and the induction process ensures that we meet those contractual requirements from the start," says Marsh.

A recent decision to extend induction from two to three weeks has also helped SpectrumCare achieve its business goals.

"Inducting in one big hit improved our compliance even more substantially and gave us four days to put new employees in houses to give them an expectation of what the work is really like," says Marsh.

He says the challenge of inducting a multi-racial group of people - many who do not have English as a first language - is considerable, and it is the responsibility of SpectrumCare to keep repeating messages or find different ways to deliver them so that people with different learning styles and ethnic backgrounds understand.

"We act out activities, we role model; we have visual, auditory and kinesthetic materials and activities.

"Many of our staff are bilingual, which helps us ensure employees have the numeric and literacy skills to help people in their homes with things like accounts, appointments and medications."

Marsh says a multimedia approach to training materials and a buddy system have both worked well.

"The buddy system gives employees access to a body of people who were with them during induction and that they can turn to for advice and support and to compare notes with, because each situation in each house is quite different.

"We also run off DVDs so that employees have a library of training options available in each house they are working in," says Marsh.

Marsh says many employers forget induction is a main chance to demonstrate organisational values, the future of the business and its mission - and to prove that these concepts do more than hang on a wall.

"We need people who are caring and compassionate and so it's important that when we get people with the right attitude they see us walking the talk. For this reason we don't let the training go stale on us; we reassess the induction process often and treat it as a 'greenfields' project each time," says Marsh.

Considering an aging workforce, low unemployment figures and the global "war for talent", ensuring new employees get off to a good start seems obvious. Spotlighting the induction process is good place to start.