Induction is overwhelming and boring

These are the words that new employees used to describe their induction experience… surely we can do better?

Recently I designed an induction program for my client. It was an opportunity to learn from my generous People and Culture network (thank you!) and establish how intentions of welcoming induction experiences often turn into “overwhelming“, “content rich“, “protective“, “boring“ and “unprepared“ realities. The Society for Human Resources Management state that a new employee’s chance of success can be decided as early as their first two weeks. We invest so heavily in finding the ‘right’ person, why would we risk poor integration, engagement and compromise their ability to perform? Because operational P&C is always hectic, with over 15 years of P&C experience I truly understand. I hope the following insights help you shape outstanding induction experiences:

1. Place employee experience and culture at the core of induction. Consider what you want new employees to experience, think and feel. Remember the experience commences upon job application rather than their first day.
2. Remove or stage disengaging content by establishing ‘need to know’, ‘want to know’ and ‘nice to know’ information. Hours of compliance training is not engaging, so stage these tasks.   
3. Managers have the most significant impact on employee success and engagement during induction. Provide managers with simple tools, instructions and advice and then leave them to it. 
4. Effective on boarding systems enable consistent and professional experiences (great for your employment brand) and large productivity gains for P&C departments through automation. 
5. We all learn differently. Design your program to be whole-brain and engaging for ‘fact driven’, ‘process driven’, ‘relationship driven’ and ‘big-picture’ thinkers.    

Below is the employee experience designed to my clients specific culture and induction objectives. We are now commencing implementation and I can't wait to see the results!