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Category Archives: company induction training

Three Tips to reduce the time to Induct New Starters (Part 3)

Written on September 12, 2011 by Marie-Claire Ross in company induction training, reducing induction training time, reducing staff induction training, reducing the time to train staff, using demonstrations during training
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If you’ve read the previous two articles in this series, you will know that to reduce induction time you need to use more visuals in your training and reduce the amount of words that you use.

The third and final tip in this series, is to include a demonstration in your induction training.

Research has found that trainees learn better when they are shown what to do.  Where possible, they are also given a go and are coached on how to improve.

As Kris Cole mentions in her book, “Crystal Clear Communication” you need to do show and tell, twice.  Once so people can  see what they need to do.  And the second time to help people to see exactly what happens or precisely how something works to determine exactly what is to be done.

For most companies, long inductions include a lot of reading from lengthy induction documents.  People are told what to, but are not shown.  This means people are being trained with abstract concepts which are often difficult to understand.  The key is to turn abstract concepts into concrete examples.

The majority of companies use abstract concepts because they don’t realise that showing what they want the person to do is the best way to educate.  This can easily be done with traditional safety induction content which might include information on wearing the right Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), traffic management, emergency response etc.

Let’s face it this type of content can be difficult to demonstrate during a training session (and time-consuming).  But trainer’s will vastly improve understanding of the content if shown how these safety topics are done, rather than just being told about them.

This is why using training videos are so effective.  By showing (visuals) and telling (narrator), the viewer instantly knows what to do.  Both visuals and audio when combined together during training, has been found to increase recall from 10% (from reading alone) to 50% for both seeing and hearing.

The benefit with this is three-fold: it is highly visual (see tip 1), by using more visuals you can easily reduce your word count (see tip 2) and it includes a demonstration which can be missing from most induction training (tip 3).  A training video can quickly and easily show the right PPE to wear.

The above video excerpt is a an example of how a procedural based instruction such as “Arriving at the Designated Dock” can be made much easier to understand by using visuals to explain.  This example was recently produced for Bulla Dairy Foods and is being used to train truck contractors arriving on site.  If you imagine it in written form, it would be difficult to grasp.  But this short highly visual video quickly educates.

You can see another excerpt from an induction training video we have done for Conundrum Holding which shows how we were able to visually demonstrate how to undertake their tasks.  This type of induction training reduced induction training time down from 47 minutes to 14.  This not only saved time and money, but it also made the quarry managers happy as they are now doing more of what they want to do (managing the quarry rather than inducting).

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Training Members of the ARBV – An Interview with the Registrar, Alison Ivey

Written on June 13, 2011 by Marie-Claire Ross in company induction training, Training assessment, training association members, training members, workplace training materials
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Architects Registration Board of Victoria (ARBV) is a self-funding statutory authority which is responsible for the registration of architects, the approval of architectural companies/partnerships, the investigation of complaints against architects and the provision of  of a tribunal inquiry into professional conduct and accreditation of architecture courses.

There are around 1600 members of the ARBV.  And unlike member associations where members join voluntarily, architects must register with the ARBV in order to be a practising architect.

Alison Ivey is the Registrar at the Architects Registration Board of Victoria (ARBV).  Having previously worked as a secondary school teacher, Alison brings an interesting perspective to training adult staff.  We chat to Alison to find out some of the challenges that the ARBV needs to consider when training a large group of professional architects.

1.      What are the challenges when running a registration board?  What are the implications of those challenges?

Alison: For the ARBV, even though registration is mandatory, we do try to keep architects informed of things that they need to know, and act as quickly and professionally as we can in response to enquiries, aiming to make all of our processes easy and efficient. In other words, we aim to be less bureaucratic and more customer relations focused.

A voluntary association always has to address the issue of whether members continue to find the benefits of membership outweigh the cost and time involved. Ensuring this requires vigilance and good customer management systems.

2.      What are the challenges when training members?

Alison: Training for adults is usually tied to incentives and motivation. A culture of valuing learning and up skilling is of vital importance both within an association and in the workplaces of members which is set and modelled by managers.  If managers don’t want to learn, no one else will want to either.

If training programs are mandatory, implying that the organization regards them as essential, attention should be paid to how well the programs are delivered and the retention rates of the information or skill taught. Follow up surveys and tests provide good information, and also reinforce the importance of the training to the association in the members’ minds.

If the training is voluntary, but recommended, the managers of the association should make it as easy as possible to do, ensure it is interesting, worthwhile, and well delivered, and above all is seen as value for money/time taken.

All of this is common sense. The most important step in adult learning to my mind though is the pretest, and this is often overlooked entirely.

A pretest establishes what is already known, enabling the trainer to determine where the learning is most needed. In addition, the pretest has the huge benefit of engaging the learner from the outset, and increasing the understanding and retention of the material covered.

3.      What training projects have you found to be the most successful in reaching out to members?  What worked/what didn’t?

Alison: People will always want to learn useful, relevant things. Changes in technology, best practice, regulations, and legal decisions will attract good interest as long as the delivery is thought through.  Is on-line delivery appropriate and engaging? Is face to face better?   If so, date, day and time are crucial issues.

What projects get the best recognition from employers/the public/colleagues? What projects coincide with current developments and demand? What projects will sell the service the best and improve profitability?

4.      What tips would you recommend to other associations when it comes to engaging members with training?

Alison: Employ trainers with a sense of humor, who are polished and entertaining presenters.  There is nothing worse than being bored, in fact, boredom is counterproductive to learning. Adults get very resentful of time wasting, can become entrenched in a cynical approach to work place training, and can even develop learning “sulks” where their minds are completely closed to new material as a result of previous, negative experiences.  School students manage this in many different ways, but adults are out of the school habit.  Trainers cannot take their audience’s interest for granted.

Learning is a human activity usually reliant on a relationship. The fastest way of establishing a rapport with an audience is to make them laugh.

5. What is an example of some training that has worked well for the ARBV?

We needed to explain Compulsory Professional Development to our members, as we have been considering introducing it.  A CPD video was created to simplify quite complex information and present it in a clear and logical way.  It’s a short video, but very comprehensive. Architects are visual learners and, like most of us, tend not to be good at reading large chunks of text.  We introduced the concept of CPD in an innovative video format that no other jurisdiction in Australia had done before.  It resulted in our members more easily accepting the proposed CPD concept and ensured that the meetings were pleasant and ran smoothly.

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How a great induction process makes a great company

Written on October 18, 2010 by Marie-Claire Ross in company induction training, Happy staff, staff induction videos, staff training videos, workplace performance
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Getting the right people into your company and training them properly is crucial for the success of any company.

There are so many reasons why inducting is so important.  Reasons include:

  • 25% of new starters make the decision to stay in a company in their first week
  • 47% of employee turnover occurs within the first 90 days of employment (with 60% of respondents citing induction as a priority area of improvement within the company, Recruitment Solutions 2007).
  • The quicker that new hires are trained the quicker the return to your bottom line (let’s not forget the expense of hiring a newbie, training them and waiting for them to get productive).  Companies that do this right get a 60% reduction to their “time to productivity rates”.

So what’s a great induction process?

  1. Be friendly and welcoming.
  2. Have training materials that treat the new starter like a valuable friend.  Use lots and lots of visuals to train people better.
  3. Have senior management explaining the values of the company, what the company goals are, what the safety goals are, and how the new starter fits into the scheme of things.  Tell stories to make your values memorable.
  4. Have face to face training, but also use training videos to further explain processes that will convey much more information than just words and pictures alone.
  5. Test the newcomer on their knowledge.
  6. Be friendly and welcoming and do include a meet and greet early in the process (I know I’ve mentioned this twice, but it is really important).
  7. Make it fun!

By improving your induction process, you will not only reduce your recruitment and training costs, but improve the duration people will stay at your company.  Oh, and they will also want to work at your company and tell all their friends how wonderful you are.

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Inducting people from a training perspective

Written on October 11, 2010 by Paul Slezak in company induction training, induction videos, staff induction videos, workplace performance
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Image courtesty of: Jusben/MorgueFile

When it comes to inducting people from a training perspective into any organisation, as important as this process is, unfortunately far too often not enough thought or preparation goes into it.

Organisations can become obsessed with running induction/orientation programs (with these terms often misinterpreted as being one and the same) on a new employee’s first day. Now I am certainly not saying that being given an OH&S overview or understanding the organisation’s mission statement isn’t important. But what about a true induction – and I am not referring to systems or database training, being allocated a new e-mail account, shown where the biscuits are, or being added to the kitchen roster.

These days it is not uncommon for people to move not only from one job to another, but also from one industry to another. And these people need to experience an in-depth induction, which can often go for an entire week.  But for someone new to both the organisation and the industry, when is the best time for them to be inducted?

From my own experience as a manager and having often hired people from outside my sector, I am a firm believer in having them sit within the business for at least 3 – 4 weeks observing the other staff, shadowing the experts, and getting an insight into the true goings on of the business.

After about a month, I think this is then the best time for them to be formally inducted (either by a facilitator from the within the business or an external expert). However the key word here is formally. Not just sitting at a desk, but being in a classroom environment – experiencing industry-specific training as well as performance support, role-plays and true simulations.

By waiting the month, new staff will have become more familiar with industry lingo, they will have watched their more experienced colleagues in action, and that way what is covered in the formal induction will actually make far more sense and be less likely to result in information overload.

Paul Slezak is our guest author this week who is the Director and Head of Learning and Development for Recruitment Academy – www.recruitmentacademy.com.au, one of Australia’s leading providers of induction, training, and consulting solutions to the recruitment industry.

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How Standardizing your Safety Communication improves Workplace Consistency

Written on September 20, 2010 by Marie-Claire Ross in communicating OHS messages, company induction training, health and safety messages, how to communicate workplace safety messages, improving consistency in workplace, OHS safety messages, safety communications in workplace safety, safety messages, standardizing your safety message, workplace safety communication, workplace safety messages
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When it comes to training staff on safety or procedures, one of the biggest problems many of our clients talk about is the difficulty of training staff consistently across numerous sites.

Often, staff are taught different information from one site to the next. And when you have hundreds or thousands of staff, this can be problematic.

It often results in different levels of productivity and a wild variation in safety records across the board.

Unless companies have a standardized approach to their training,  variations in the training message will create a workforce that is not aligned and working together to reach the same goals.

Buddies – Friends or Foe?

One area where this can be quite problematic is the buddy system form of training.

According to Wikipedia, the buddy system is a procedure in which two people, the buddies, operate together as a single unit so that they are able to monitor and help each other.  In training or the induction of newcomers to an organization, the less experienced buddy learns more quickly from close and frequent contact with the experienced buddy than when operating alone.

The buddy system is a good system that research has found provides optimal induction training.  However, the buddy system is only as good as the buddy doing the training.  What can sometimes happen is that companies assume that workers will train new staff the right way.  But what can happen if staff have had inconsistent training, is that they perpetuate more inconsistent training.  So new staff end up being taught different processes and safety information, which over time, can result in disastrous consequences.

The solution is to provide everyone with consistent training and the same stardardized messages.  Only then does the buddy system work effectively.  In fact, it will work extremely well and further reinforce messages and understanding.

Systemizing your Messages

The key to getting your workforce all understanding your safety and training messages in unison is the simple reinforcement of facts.  Repeatability and standardization of message are key.

And one proven way is to develop training videos for your company.  Even better if you can create other communication types that convey your core messages that hit all of the senses (see it, touch it, hear it etc).  Only then will you get message standardization.  And as a training video automates the messaging, it is a cost effective way to get consistent message understood by your workers no matter where they are located.

Helping Senior Leaders Lead

One further benefit is that when the CEO needs to visit different sites across the country, he or she will do a far better job communicating to all the workers who are all aware of the company stance on safety, the company vision and goals.  Rather than spend time writing different speeches to cater for the differing levels of safety awareness, the CEO can go and out communicate and engage knowing that everyone is on the same page.

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How to Develop a Workplace Safety Messages Campaign (Part 2)

Written on August 30, 2010 by Marie-Claire Ross in communicating OHS messages, company induction training, corporate videos, customer training videos, health and safety messages, how to communicate workplace safety messages, OHS safety messages, OHS videos, safety communications in workplace safety, safety messages, workplace performance, workplace safety communication, workplace safety messages
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As mentioned in ” How to Develop a Workplace Safety Messages  Campaign” Part 1, marketing is the key to getting your safety messages heard and understood.

But how does the ordinary safety professional instigate a marketing campaign to educate staff about safety initiatives?

Let’s do some Marketing 101 lessons, to look at the steps you need to undertake to deliver your marketing (oops, safety) strategy.

  1. Who is your audience? You need to work out who your target audience is and their demographics.  Are they mainly males 35 – 55 years?  Or a combination of both males and females, but aged 15 – 25 years?  By working out exactly who your audience is, you can better work out the types of communication they are more likely to watch, read and hear.
  2. What are your objectives? What are you trying to achieve?  How can you measure the success of the communication program?  What data can you measure both before and after the launch of the new safety campaign?
  3. What is your message? What is it that you want to say?  If it is to raise awareness about safe forklift driving, why do you need to let people know about this.  Ensure that you let people  know what the safety initiative is and why it is important.  How can you ensure all departments have the same consistent message?
  4. What communication methods can you use? Ideally, use multiple types of communication and deliver it multiple times.  Put together a strategy as to how you can communicate the same safety messages daily, weekly or monthly.

Let’s take a look at an example.

Gypsum Board Manufacturers of Australasia (GBMA) needed a manual handling training program to train 3,000 workers from five different companies on how to handle plasterboard safely.  In the plasterboard industry, manual handling injuries are the most common of injuries.

The training program was treated as a marketing exercise.  An iconic plasterboard man was designed who featured on all of the communication.  A slogan was also created “Move it – The GBMA Way”.  Both the iconic man and the slogan were a way of reminding workers on a daily basis about the training they had received.  Training centred around a 20 minute training video that also included medical animations to show how the back works.  A trainer’s manual, PowerPoint Slides and employee handbook were used for training.  The employee handbook was A6 size to encourage workers to keep in pockets or lockers for easy reference.  Posters were also designed with the same theme as a daily reminder.

Callout Title
“The training material components were key in engaging roles such as Team Leaders to deliver the training to their teams effectively.   One of the keys to getting engagement with the safety messages on a daily basis has been the handbooks and posters to prompt training information.”.  Gerard Crosswell, GIB NZ
Effective safety communication needs to be very specific to your organisation and tailored to your workplace demographics and culture.

It must integrate with a company’s day to day activities and be of value to the workers watching it.  Slick communication materials are not the answer.
Care needs to be taken so that communication materials are credible and easy to understand.
But more importantly, any safety communication needs to provide daily reminders to staff while they work, for the best results.
How can you best communicate your new safety initiatives?
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Announcing New Training Video Best Practice Guide

Written on August 26, 2010 by Marie-Claire Ross in company induction training, health and safety messages, how to communicate workplace safety messages, induction videos, OHS safety messages, OHS videos, safety communications in workplace safety, safety messages, staff induction videos, staff training videos, training videos, workplace safety communication, workplace safety messages
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It’s smart for companies to be worried about staff training videos and how to tackle them correctly.  There are so many choices.  Quite frequently, training videos are produced that just don’t get used.  Now, working out what components to include in your training video just got easier.

Melbourne, Australia (August 26, 2010) – Digicast Productions, a training video production house, today released the “Best Practice Guide: How to Produce Staff Training Videos that get Results”.   Developing the right training video for your company isn’t easy.   This guide is a useful resource for anyone involved in the challenging and complex task of producing a company training video that performs.
In this 4 page guide, discover:

  • The key components required for the best induction training program
  • The causes of a poor performing training video
  • Issues to avoid during the production of a training video

This guide is suitable for anyone wishing to produce a company training video that will be used for many years.  It is a companion guide for the Training Video Buyer’s Kit.

For a complete copy of the kit, visit http://info.digicast.com.au/best-practice-guide-to-training-videos

About Digicast Productions

Established in 1991, Digicast is an Australian vendor of customised safety and induction training videos.  Thousands of people each year worldwide are trained with Digicast training videos. For more information, visit Digicast at www.digicast.com.au or The Workplace Improver blog for training tips.

Contact Marie-Claire Ross

Digicast Productions
+ 61 3 9696-4400
mc@digicast.com.au

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How to Develop a Workplace Safety Messages Campaign (Part 1)

Written on August 23, 2010 by Marie-Claire Ross in communicating OHS messages, company induction training, health and safety messages, how to communicate workplace safety messages, improving safety standards, OHS safety messages, OHS videos, safety communications in workplace safety, safety messages, safety videos, staff induction videos, staff training videos, training videos, workplace safety communication, workplace safety messages
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The main objective of any safety communication is to change behaviour.

But how does a safety or human resources professional change attitudes towards safety or improve the way people undertake procedures?

How can the safety manager deliver a message that motivates employees, supervisors and administrators to think and act safely?

Advertise your message

The secret – marketing. You need to advertise your messages.

According to Wikipedia, advertising is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience  to purchase or take some action upon products, ideals, or services.  Advertising can change the values, attitudes, and actions of those who see or hear the message.

Think television commercials.  Advertising is a billion dollar industry focused on changing consumers’ habits and beliefs.   And while it is true that television might not be as effective as it used to be, this is only because fewer people are watching it now.  Nevertheless, Government organisations like WorkSafe and VicRoads have used television commercials to successfully change our behaviours and attitudes towards workplace safety and road safety respectively.

Advertising informs and reinforces the need for safe practices.  But advertisers know that you just can’t say your product is the best.  Likewise with safety, you can’t say your company believes in safety and leave it at that.

Cutting through the Clutter

Through the course of a day, people are constantly bombarded with marketing messages.  Estimates vary from around 150 – 5,000 messages per day (personally, I believe it is realistically around 1,000).

Successful ad campaigns have to compete with many other goods and service to grab the attention of people.  In advertising speak, it’s important to “cut through the clutter” and get what is known as “top of mind” awareness.  If you think soft drink and your first thought is Coca Cola, then Coca Cola is top of mind for you when it comes to soft drink.

Your safety messages also need to cut through the clutter and be top of mind.  As a safety professional, your communication messages compete with messages from the production manager pushing for better productivity and co-workers fooling around.   And then there are messages from home that you have to compete with such as family issues, money problems, Facebook and other advertising .

In order to market safety messages, it’s time that safety professionals started to think like marketers.  And this might be hard, as let’s face it, they are a strange group to more linear thinkers like engineers.  However, let’s put on our marketing caps and find out how they try to get into our brain.

Key advertising tactics to consider for marketing safety are:

  • Consistent, clear messaging (includes branding) – Always promote the same standarized safety message and ensure that all departments are aligned with the message and do not send out conflicting information (eg: safety officer tells people to work safely and cautiously, but production manager pushes for speed).
  • Consequences of poor safety – One of they key messages is to get employees really understand that poor safety behaviour puts their health and safety at risk, but also other employees, contractors and customers.  Let them know what effect this will have on the personal life and how it will effect their family.
  • Multiple message placement – This means you have a consistent safety message or theme and you repeat it in multiple places.  It is like the glue that holds these tactics together and is essential in successful advertising.  In advertising campaigns, it is believed that people need to be exposed to a television ad six times before they will absorb the message.  This is why frequency of message equals success in the advertising campaign.

Most safety training programs fall short when it comes to frequency of message. Yet, there are many simple and cost effective ways to do this.

By getting workers to engage in your safety message in different ways (watching it, hearing it, reading it), supervisors can better ensure that more workers receive it.  Different communication methods include a training video that is supplemented with matching posters, email newsletter campaigns, key rings, employee handbooks and toolbox talks.

But how do you develop workplace safety communication?  Read How to Develop a Workplace Safety Messages Campaign (Part 2)

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How Using Quizzes in Induction Training Improves New Starter Learning

Written on August 16, 2010 by Marie-Claire Ross in company induction training, customer training videos, improving safety standards, Induction quiz, Induction test, safety videos, staff induction videos, staff training videos, Training assessment, Training test, training videos, workplace health, workplace performance
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Induction training is absolutely vital for new employees.   It is also the time when new starters are thirsty to know more about their new workplace and want to quickly integrate into their new team.   However, it can be difficult to know how well a new starter or contractor has absorbed training information.

Establish an induction training evaluation system

According to Joe Huang from Wondershare, makers of the Quiz Creator, as with any type of training, it is important to review and seek feedback before, after and during induction training.  The evaluation of induction training can be divided into three stages:

  1. Evaluating new employees’ learning and academic performance. Before new employees start with you, you can quiz them on their knowledge.  This can be determined through examinations: paper-based tests are usually the most common way, but for the sake of time-saving and cost-effective, computer-based tests are the best choice.
  2. Evaluating the appropriateness of the training course content.  For companies who are not sure about the content in their training and how new employees feel about it, you can quiz new starters to find out how they found the training and what they liked/disliked.  This is a great way to update your training in a meaningful way.
  3. Evaluating the work performance of trainees.  After the newbie has started, you can quiz  supervisors on certain learning outcomes, to find out what they think of the performance of the new starter, so  you can know how the new employees took their training into practice.  This is also important information when reviewing your induction training and what areas need further improvement.

How quizzes can be used with induction training video for optimal results

Research has found that viewers of a training video score better on message retention and recall levels when they are told that they will be tested.
To use quizzes properly with a training video:

  1. Quiz your learners before producing the training video. By finding out what information current staff have difficulty with, you will be more knowledgeable about the type of information to put into your training video.
  2. Quiz your learners after (or during) the video training. This makes sure they have absorbed the information.
  3. Use a quiz as a review tool. This is a great way to refresh staff.  Even if they only watch a small segment of an induction training video (for example: warm up exercises, by undertaking a small quiz on this topic, you know that they have learnt the information).

Now, while it is all well and good to test people during induction training, we hear from many companies that this sort of e-learning approach can be flawed.  All it takes is for a dodgy supervisor to hand people the answers and everyone passes through the quiz in flying colours.

That’s why it is important when testing people that if they get it wrong, they have to go back to that section and watch the video again.  Or alternatively, the questions are randomly displayed so that it makes cheating much harder.

According to Joe Huang, it is important to choose a quiz creating software that has anti-cheating features.  This includes a time limit (so that there is no time to research answers), randomization (questions occur in different order), access control (password only access to change the test) and a concealed XML file (this stops the answers from being viewed).

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Announcing New Training Video Buyer’s Kit

Written on August 11, 2010 by Marie-Claire Ross in company induction training, customer training videos, improving safety standards, induction videos, OHS videos, safety videos, staff induction videos, staff training videos, training videos, workplace performance
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It’s smart for companies to be worried about staff and customer training videos and how to tackle them correctly.  There are so many choices.  Quite frequently, training videos are produced that just don’t get watched.  Now making the right decision has just got easier.

Melbourne, Australia (August 11, 2010) – Digicast Productions, a training video production house, today released the “Training Video Buyer’s Kit”.   Developing the right training video for your company isn’t easy.  Nor is choosing the right company to help you.  This kit is a useful resource for anyone involved in the challenging and complex task of deciding upon producing a staff or customer training video and then how to go about it.

Using a four step process the buyer kit includes:

  • A list of questions to decide whether or not a training video is right for an organisation.
  • The critical questions to determine what the training video needs to achieve, in order to write the brief and how to best manage the project internally.
  • A valuable checklist to evaluate the suitability of a video production house.
  • An additional checklist to measure the effectiveness of training videos already produced by production houses.

For a complete copy of the kit, visit http://info.digicast.com.au/things-you-need-to-know-before-buying-a-customised-training-video
About Digicast Productions

Established in 1991, Digicast is an Australian vendor of customised safety and induction training videos. Thousands of people each year worldwide are trained with Digicast training videos. For more information, visit Digicast at www.digicast.com.au or The Workplace Improver blog for training tips, www.digicast.com.au/blog.

Contact Marie-Claire Ross

Digicast Productions
+ 61 3 9696-4400
mc@digicast.com.au

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