The forgotten challenge of inductions |
|
|
| Technology - Features | |
| Written by Matt Pierce, Training Manager, TechSmith | |
| Tuesday, 18 March 2008 | |
|
Matt Pierce explores how technology can help achieve the balance between ‘hitting the ground running’ and ‘crashing and burning’. Staff induction has long been a quiet challenge for small companies. Sometimes it takes place so quietly that it goes unnoticed as a bottleneck in productivity. This has not really been a big issue in the past, but as company efficiencies come under increasing pressure from competition, productivity drops become unacceptable in almost any circumstance. It is now that technology can really step in to help the process. Induction programmes are vital in every way. They give new employees a sense of belonging, enthusiasm and loyalty to the job they have just started and the company they are joining. They are a new employee’s first real experience of the company they are joining, and everyone knows how important first impressions can be. Possibly of even greater importance beyond the ‘soft’ aspects, inductions also ensure that an employee will be fully productive in his or her job sooner, and will help the employer to meet certain legal requirements. HR professionals already understand these things, but how many small businesses have a dedicated HR professional with the time to carry out these induction programmes? The process detracts from the office’s ability to work at full productivity, not just for the new employee, but also for those who have to cover this HR position. Greater strain on employees A small business with four people could be operating at 100 per cent efficiency when a fifth is drafted in to handle expanding business. On the surface this seems great, an influx of business puts a greater strain on employees and the obvious way to relieve this is to employ someone new. Getting the new joiner trained up on company policy and processes can be a challenge. Any specialist in-house applications will need to be explained and demonstrated, as well as the usual health and safety and office orientation. Value-add activity Bridging the gap between induction and production quickly is vital. While the fifth team member is learning the ropes, the efficiency of the business has dropped. Aside from the new member’s limited productivity in the early days, other workers also have to take the time away from value-add activity to give required pointers and tips. A dedicated HR person can handle inductions along with day-to-day office administration. This is ideal but not always possible for small businesses with tight resources and tighter budgets. In these instances, the task often becomes ad-hoc and in the case of technology falls to the recognised tech-savvy individual in the office. The drawback here is how much of these individuals time will be destroyed. Self-tuition Trying to meet a tight deadline can be tricky enough, and stopping every few minutes to demonstrate the navigation of the client database makes it near impossible. The element businesses miss is the distinction between induction activities that need one-on-one tuition and those that can be learnt through self-tuition, with the aid of online demonstrations or video tutorials. Technology training can be dealt with simply by adding a little more technology to the mix. The potential to complicate things further may make this unappealing, but a little time investment could make all the difference to an induction programme. E-learning tools can be used to capitalise on existing in-house knowledge and create a set of training aids tailored to the business. Screen-recording technology can be used to record the process of using complex software and then edit it into a video tutorial. Brought up to speed quickly This kind of screen-recording software does not require specialist knowledge and a short amount of time invested in producing a tutorial can save many hours of face-to-face instruction. The human element of induction can never be fully removed but the addition of tutorials allows new employees to be given ‘how to’ instruction once and then use the videos as a refresher when needed. These can also be used by anyone within the company who suffers a lapse in memory too. As technology becomes increasingly vital to the workplace, small businesses are going to have to introduce more effective and efficient methods of induction and training. Short term time and monetary investment in creating training tools tailored to the business, combined with traditional induction, ensures new recruits are brought up to speed quickly and keeps business productivity on track. Perhaps almost as importantly, new recruits will know that their needs are fully catered for from the moment they walk through the door to the last hour at the end of their first month - an invaluable impression to be able to give. Matt Pierce is training manager at TechSmith. Comments (0)
 Post a comment
|
|
digg 
del.ico.us 
Newsvine 
Reddit 
Furl 
technorati 
Subscribe to this comment's feed
