Do you make these mistakes in your induction training?

Over the years, I have had the pleasure of revising company induction manuals and what I have found is that just about every company makes the same mistakes in its training materials.

Given that the quality of your induction training can actually determine whether a new starter will want to stay or not, it’s imperative to have the best training materials you can. So which of these common mistakes do you have in your induction training:

1. Provide text based training - This is when training is from training manuals or PowerPoint presentations that contain mostly text. Studies by educational researchers have found that 83% of human learning occurs visually. You can actually help people keep their brain active and alert to new information by providing visual information relevant to the training. Use lots of colours, photos, diagrams and video content to better explain training concepts.

2. Talk in corporate speak - Avoid formal corporate language in your training manuals. Workers at different site locations will know if corporate has written the training materials and they weren’t consulted. This can make the training manuals seem less credible. Make sure it is friendly and conversational – and welcoming! Keep sentences short (17 words or less), use short words (5 characters or less) and avoid jargon. And in this day and age of Twitter, keep it short and tweet!

3. Use negative language - Remove rules that focus on “don’t, can’t, forbidden”. Remember induction training is you most teachable moment with a new staff member/contractor, so use language that is friendly and warm. Let people know what they can do, rather than tell them about behaviour that you do not want.

4. Forget the How - This is when staff are told what to do but no explanation is given as to why. Company processes are perpetuated without people ever questioning why they do something. Over time, staff are taught processes that solve problems that no longer exist.

In order to boost retention rates and improve productivity levels, inducting right is important to any company who wants to improve the bottom line.

By making your induction training visually appealing and easy to learn, you will be able to improve your staff productivity and safety quite remarkably.

Start adding colour, video and pictures to your induction training materials and keep sentences short. Where can you convert processes into more visually appealing training videos that will get the messages across better than just boring text?

By fixing these common induction mistakes, you will have people commenting positively on the quality of your induction training.