quick wins

Start as you mean to go on....

How do you introduce people into your organisation? We've experienced everything from 9 week inductions to people being thrown in at the deep end and we've seen good and bad in both of those approaches.

It's tempting to assume that a structured induction plan is the best option but we've seen very thorough and well intentioned plans backfire.

By taking control of a new employee's learning and providing everything you think they might need to know, you may be hampering their future ability to be a self directed learner in your organisation.

So is the sink or swim approach any better? No guidance at all can leave all but the most confident people floundering and with a negative first impression that is hard to get over.

People today will join with a wide range of previous experience and so a 'one size fits all' approach to induction is becoming less and less appropriate. What we need to do instead is let people have an experience of their new job and then let them shape their own learning.

Now it will take more than 90 seconds to change your organisation's approach to induction, but it will only take a short while to ask new starters these questions.

• How are you getting on?

• What else do you need to know/be able to do to be more effective?

• Who is best placed to help you with that?