HR Hound Induction

Bringing on a new member of staff is always to make the business run better and assist the existing owner or team with a workload increase or to replace a departing member of staff. The smaller the business the less time and energy there is to ensure a full induction process is used and many smaller businesses use a couple of days to ease someone into their new role and then expect them to be up to speed and doing the job in full that they are hired for. The more senior the role and the experienced the person the shorter the induction period and the higher the expectation is, that this new employee will be ‘ hitting the ground running’ and be doing the job fully within hours of sitting at their new desk.

Life and people just do not work this way. So, a good induction process is essential when you want to keep the new employee and get the best out of them.

A good induction process will contain the following elements:

• A current Business chart listing the current roles, employees’ names, their phone extensions and email addresses – ideally with photographs to make recognition easier and where they are all located in the building
• A fresh copy, even if online, of the Staff handbook
• A copy of their own job description
• Copies of marketing material, brochures and product or service details so they can really get to know your business and what it does
• A health and safety induction including evacuation procedures, manual handling and the health and safety policy
• A list of jobs they are expected to carry out in each day of their first few weeks, with timings and written guidance – yes even for very experienced people, so they know what is expected of them and have a guidance on how to spend their time, who to take work to for checking and don’t have to ask you every time there is a question. You can x reference the induction material with different employees so there is a chance for the new recruit to get to know everyone in their first few weeks, in larger organisations this can be reduced to those members of their team they will be working with the most.
• Reading requirements and time for this to be done
• Some form of presentation requirement in a get to know you session with other members of their team

HR Hound can prepare induction packs for you, create induction videos or come into your site and assist your team with the whole process and documentation. Just contact us for more information.