Don't spoil company's first impression
Donald Clark on Business AM
Donald Clark of Epic.
"INDUCTION: The word itself exposes the problem. It suggests
a 'sheep-dip' event where the new starter receives a single, large
dose of knowledge about the organisation. To see this first learning
intervention as a process, rather than an event, is a good starting
point.
People join organisations in dribs and drabs, making the timetabling
of courses difficult. The very concept of a timetabled course is
the problem here. Waiting until a batch of new starters is large
enough to run a course will mean that people can learn lots of bad
habits before the course is run. Personal gripes and negative values
will be passed down to the very people that are being hired to change
the organisation.
The challenge then becomes how they are going to unlearn bad knowledge
and habits. Even when an attempt is made at induction, it is often
the quick chat with a manager, lunch with the boss or an informal
briefing by a colleague; or, even worse, a sit-down with the company
brochure.
For a new starter to be ignored to this degree during the initial
period of staring work is highly counterproductive. First impressions
matter. If the organisation doesn't show that it cares on day one,
why should they care? Induction should cover everyone, but different
starters have different needs. A fixed 'one size fits all' approach
cannot hope to satisfy this diversity.
The problems surrounding induction, as currently practised, can
be defined as: an event and not a process; difficult to timetable;
inconsistent; out-of-date; negative first experiences; lack of flexibility;
expensive.
Most induction programmes put the organisation centre-stage. The
new starter is overwhelmed with organisational structures, values,
rules, regulations and information. Hardly any of this will be remembered:
it will quickly drain from short-term memory. An alternative is
to put the learner at the centre of the experience, not the organisation.
Induction needs to encourage intrinsic motivation, to instil self-belief
and to set personal goals.
Access to e-learning is 24/7, a particular benefit in induction,
as immediate access allows the right people to receive the right
content at the right time in the right place. Electronic access
frees managers and new starters from the tyranny of training course
timetables. And it will be consistent, countering any weaknesses
or negative influences that creep in through informal human induction.
It can also be kept up-to-date across the organisation. It can be
tailored to the individual and can be used to provide refresher
courses or as part of a structured programme to effect the push
from short to long-term memory.
The time to excite people about their new job, and the organisation
that they are about to join, is before they arrive. Why not get
to them before they start by giving them password access to the
e-learning course prior through your company website - or send it
out on CD-ROM, video or paper? There is no other point in a learner's
career when they will be more curious and receptive to learning.
To squander this opportunity by providing a dump of corporate information
is to show how much you value the organisation as opposed to the
learner."
Extracted from Induction and e-learning by Donald Clark.
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