So your company has finally decided to systemise your safety induction training and you’re in charge of sorting it all out.

Before we go into the actual safety training content, make sure that when designing your induction training you:

• include a face to face component (eg: site tour, meet and greet),
• have friendly, welcoming training (if you want to keep the new starter for a while, treat them really well),
• include visually appealing training material to increase engagement.

For more information on how to design your training content, refer to some of the article links posted at the bottom of the post.

When designing your safety induction training program, there are some content items that you need to include.  Here is a brief checklist to help you get started.

1. Introduction - it goes without saying, but surprisingly there are companies that launch straight into their induction training without providing adequate information to the new starter on what the company actually does.  Remember, staff and contractors are walking, talking billboards for your company.  Anytime they are at a family BBQ on the weekends, they should be out there telling people what your organisation does.  Make sure they know what you do, why, how, where and when. (A little story – about 10 years ago we produced a marketing video for an engineering company.  While the marketing video helped the company to educate and sell more of it’s complicated shipping products, the video also helped educate staff about what the company did.  Amazingly, as most of the shipping equipment was so complicated around one third of the staff didn’t really know what the company made!)

2. Core Values (optional) – This section is really for  induction training that is not safety related.  If you are doing safety training, refer to ‘Your Safety Values’ below.  Great companies spend a lot of time indoctrinating new staff into the company values and culture.  Make sure you also explain what your company is about and your core values (read How to Engage Staff with your Core Values).

3. Your Safety Values – Senior leaders drive the safety culture of a company.  This is where you really need to include senior members to talk about the importance of safety at your company.  This needs to come from the heart.  Make it friendly and personal.  Remember, first impressions count!

4. Duty of Care – This is more of a legal nature, but always important to include with any safety training.

5. Site Safety Rules – Explain the main safety rules that you have.  Make sure they are written in positive, friendly language.  Refer to the  safety principles example from CSR Viridian (above).

6. Personal Protective Clothing – Show people the different types of safety clothes that they need to wear and explain the reasons why.

7. Other specific safety information – Depending upon your site, go through specific information about emergency evacuation, incident and injury notification, traffic management, hazardous materials and so on.  If you do not know the specific safety requirements, contact your local safety advisor or Government body.  Remember, it’s important to demonstrate as many different aspects of safety information to help learners remember the information.

8. Summary – End your training in a friendly manner.  Summarise your core message.

Further reading:

10 Ways to Improve your Induction Training

Why Induction Training Programs are so important to Company Success

How to Improve the Effectiveness of Health and Safety Training

8 Essential Induction Tips for New Recruits

How Using Quizzes in Induction Training Improves New Starter Learning

How to get Senior Leaders more involved in Company Communication

How Corporate Story-telling improves Company Performance

Story-Telling: An Effective way to improve Food Safety Training

How to make your Training Materials More Positive

How a Great Induction Process makes a Great Company

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Inductions represent the most teachable moment companies have with new starters.  They are an ideal time to align staff and contractors with what your company stands for and how you like to do business.

Companies that fail to impress newbies risk losing them pretty quickly with research pointing to 25% of new starters deciding to leave their new company within the first week. This increases to 47% deciding to leave after three months with a poor induction process being blamed for those wishing to leave early.

First impressions aren’t easy to erase.  So to harness the power of induction training, here are ten tips to consider including:

1. Use lots of visuals - avoid heavy text based training.    Educational researchers have found that 83% of human learning occurs visually.  Our right brain prefers visual information and can process pictures hundreds of times faster than the left brain can process words.  Use video, photos, diagrams and colour.
2. Tell stories - Stories and metaphors provide an emotional connection to information and can be an ideal when trying to get people to remember numbers.
3. Be Positive - Use positive language.  Tell people what they can do, rather than what they can’t.
4. Involve senior management – Senior leaders drive the culture of the company.  They need to be seen and involved with induction training as a way of welcoming new starters.
5. Answer why questions – Too often companies teach staff how to do something but not why.  Company processes get perpetuated without people ever questioning why they need to do something.
6. Participative learning methods – Ensure training is active rather than passive.  Give demonstrations and get workers to have a go and coach them.     Ask learners questions that get them to relate to the training in terms of their own experiences.  Think of ways to involve all of the senses during training.   Avoid a lecturer telling people what to do.
7. Test - Using quizzes in induction training improves message recall and retention.
8. Communicate your Core Values – Great companies have staff that clearly know what the company does and does not do.  Spend a lot of time indoctrinating staff on your core values and culture.
9. The importance of safety - Poor inductions undervalue the importance of safety.  It’s crucial to let new starters know from the outset how important safety is to the company.  Without this, a poor safety culture gets tolerated which ends up being difficult to change.  Make sure you inform new starters at inductions how important safety is to the company and why.
10. Standardize training – Induction training must be structured.  This ensures consistent, standardized training throughout the company.  Only if you have standardized training can you have a buddy system.  Otherwise, workers teach new starters bad habits and wildly different standards of training.

What can you do today to start improving your company induction training?

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Getting Safety Training Messages to stick can be Tricky.  Find out Seven Key Factors behind Successful Workplace Communication and how to implement them.

Melbourne, Australia (9 March, 2011) – Digicast Productions, a safety and induction training video package production house, today announced that their popular seminar “Seven communication tips for workplace safety managers” will be available to all trade show visitors of Safety in Action in Melbourne during the 5 – 7 April 2011.

In this short, free 30 minute seminar, participants will learn:

• The most important components to include in induction training
• Seven communication tips for success
• How to be the industry leader in workplace communication.

Located at the Demonstration Stage seminar session times are:

• Tuesday 5 April– 2pm
• Wednesday 6 April– 1pm
• Thursday 7 April– 1pm

All participants will receive a free copy of the popular white paper “Seven Communication Tips for Workplace Safety Messages”.

For a complete copy of the whitepaper, visit http://info.digicast.com.au/workplace-safety-messages/

Digicast Productions will present the Seven Communication Tips seminar at Safety In Action, which runs from April 5 to 7 at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. For more information, visit www.safetyinaction.net.au, email safetyvisitor@aec.net.au or phone Australian Exhibitions & Conferences Pty Ltd on 03 9654 7773.

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.  Digicast will also be located at stand S14.

Contact Marie-Claire Ross
Digicast Productions
+ 61 3 9696-4400
mc@digicast.com.au

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Companies often tell us that they are frustrated by how hard it is to engage staff with training.

After a bit of digging, we usually find out that training consists of:

1. A trainer talking a lot,
2. Some trainer made PowerPoint slides (learn how to improve your training presentations here) that generally consists of lots of words, or
3. A black and white manual that staff are expected to read.

What research has found is that is that passive/low engagement training is ineffective compared to active/high engagement training.   Passive training is when you get a trainer or lecturer telling lots of information or when lots of reading is involved.

So any training that is designed around a trainer reading through slides is not enough to create engagement.  Nor is producing a training manual and expecting workers to read it.

The Most Effective Training Materials

Educational researchers have found that 83% of human learning occurs visually.  The right brain prefers visuals and can process pictures hundreds of times faster than words.

When it comes to producing training materials, it’s a good idea to use as many visuals as you can.  And to really increase engagement, try and get trainees to touch, see and hear (obviously, taste and smell aren’t suitable to all industries, but they work especially well in food).  Use as many of the senses as you can during training.

And while having a trainer talking at students is passive training including lots of “Show and Tell” or demonstrations takes the training to a new level.  This is where the trainer demonstrates a process and gets the trainee to have a go.  This is integral to an active learning style.  Coaching is then given to improve.  Which brings us to assessment, which is also really important with learning.  It is important that trainees get face to face feedback on how to improve rather than information from a computer.

A Checklist for Creating Effective Training Materials

Several research studies have found that learners more easily understand and recall new material presented in video that allow participants to both hear and see the information.

This dual-encoding process reinforces information in multiple brain areas, thereby increasing the chances that the material will be stored in long-term memory.

To make use of this powerful memory booster, training materials need to be centred around a visually appealing training video.  By getting learners to see, listen and read important information you start getting higher levels of recall than just reading alone.  After all,  we remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear and 30% of what we see, so by addressing these three areas, recall is increased to 60% v 10% for reading alone.

But just having a training video is not enough.  Another important addition to your training kit is the Trainer’s Manual.  This guide needs to help the trainer know the best method to teach the material.  It needs to include a trainer’s session schedule that has advice on what segments of the training video to play, what questions to discuss, when to do a demonstration, when to get trainees to have a go, when to pass around relevant items and the questions and answers for the quiz (and how to test respondents and discuss the answers).

In addition, to really keep trainees engaged and to help them believe that the training is important, each trainee needs to receive their own copy of an Employee Handbook.  This is the document that they go through in class, it needs to have information on how to undertake tasks, as well as photos that will remind them of the training video that they have seen.  The booklet needs to also contain their quiz with space for them to write in their answers  (also gives them ownership rights).

By using these three main training materials, you end up with a self-contained training package that gives trainers the resources and support that they need to create an interactive and high engagement training session.  It will also ensure that training is taught consistently across numerous locations.

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Judith M.O. Brown, Ph.D.,  has over fourteen years experience as a researcher, analyst, and compliance specialist, identifying the major challenges facing human resources professionals, management, and employees in both the public and private sectors, and developing products and resources to enhance their individual and organizational performance.  Dr. Brown has authored several articles and reports addressing organizational and human resources management issues in industry journals, magazines and HR Web sites.  A graduate of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, she holds a Doctorate Degree in Human Development and a Masters Degree from the University of Maryland, University College.

Given the interest by our readers in her report, Employee Orientation, I interviewed Judith to help give companies further insight into how to improve their induction or orientation process.

1. In your experience, what are some common mistakes companies make in the induction process?

Judith: I have observed some key things companies tend to do incorrectly in acclimating new employees or mishandling the employee’s transition into the company. Companies tend to misunderstand what the “on boarding” or induction processes is all about and vastly underutilize the opportunity to effectively welcome and retain valuable employees. Why? Because it is easy to underestimate just how difficult it is for new employees to adapt to a new job and a new culture and it takes a long time for them to contribute.

When companies take a “Let ‘em sink or swim” attitude, the failure rate is extremely high, particularly for higher-level employees – and the monetary price tag – one to four times the person’s salary – is only part of the cost they pay. Failed hires hurt employee morale. They increase workload. They create stress, and most importantly, repeated miscues will make the management team and human resources appear incompetent.

Some common mistakes that will be guaranteed to turn off the new employee:

1.      Using the orientation time primarily for employees to complete mounds of administrative paperwork.

2.      Not preparing a work space or work area prior to the employee’s arrival.

3.      Escorting the new employee to their work area and neglect to introduce them to co-workers or assign them a mentor.

4.      Leaving the new employee at their work station, to manage on their own, while co-workers pair up and go off to lunch.

5.      Assigning the new employee to a person who is too busy or does not have the communication skills to train the new hire.

6.      Assigning the new employee the most unhappy, negative, company-bashing, team member.

7.       Assigning the employee “busy work” that has nothing to do with their core job description, because you are having a busy week.

8.       Starting the new employee without taking the time to properly orient them to the customs, policies and procedures or the company.

9.      Scheduling the new employee to start work while their supervisor or manager is out on vacation.

2. With a good induction program, what benefits will the company receive?

Judith: A well thought out induction program, whether it lasts only one day or six months, will help not only with retention, but also achievement of early productivity. Companies with well executed induction programs, get their new employees up to speed sooner, and have an improved alignment with the quality of work the employee produces and the work objectives and goals of the company.

Some additional benefits of an effective program include:

-         Lower employee turnover and therefore lower recruitment and on-the-job training costs (both time and money);

-         Improved staff morale and greater loyalty and commitment to the organization;

-         Reduction of new employees’ anxiety; and

-         Early achievement of job proficiency.

The quality of a good induction program says a lot more about the managerial style and company culture than one would think.  It sets the tone of the relationship between the employee and the employer. The saying, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” is so applicable to the induction process.  With some thought and a small amount of prior organization, the relationship can get off to a great start by implementing an effective induction plan.  This will in turn create an engaged, enthusiastic and productive employee.

3. How would you describe a good induction process?  What elements does it need to include?

Judith: If every company considers their new employees as human beings, with all the associated wants and needs, they will do well. No matter how senior that employee is, any new person has concerns about fitting in, or their ability to perform well on the job, worry about getting lost or even looking stupid.

Some important elements to consider, no matter what the company size:

• Ensure the program is well planned.  New employees come onboard with different, and very often unique, induction needs.  It is therefore important that the program is planned and implemented to ensure they cater to the variety of people employed.
• Before the first day, be sure to stay in touch with the employee after they have accepted the position, whether through a welcome letter or even a phone call. You are then able to respond to any questions or answer any queries they may have.
• Send an outline of the induction program with a letter so the employee knows what to expect, especially during that first week.
• Provide the new employee with an induction folder with pertinent information.  This is a great way to ensure they have all the information they require to settle into the company.   Depending on your organization you can tailor the induction packet accordingly, but some basic documents you can include:

-         The employee’s job description.

-         Examples of how to complete company forms and descriptions of when these are necessary.

-         A list of frequently asked questions and answers.

-         A contact person/department list including all phone numbers and extensions.

-         An organizational chart so the new employee knows where they fit in the big picture.

• Ensure the supervisor or key staff members are at work before the new employee arrives.
• Have the new employee’s work area ready for their first day at work.
• Every program should ensure new employees are well informed of the values, history and expectations of the company, and aware of who is who within the company.
• Make a special effort to ensure the employee feels welcomed and valued on the first day. Let existing team members know when the new employee is starting and encourage them to be a part of the welcoming process.  If the new employee is left alone at lunch time, it would be a good time to take the employee out to lunch with the rest of their team members. This would be a great way to develop team spirit.
• Assign another team member, mentor or ‘buddy’ to show the employee around, make the introductions, and begin any initial training. Provide the mentor with sufficient notice so they can make preparations.

4. What does a company need to do to improve their induction program?

Judith: The first step in turning around your induction program is to realize that it is not just a formality, or something you do as a goodwill gesture. Poorly executed induction programs not only impact on the present but future recruitment opportunities.  It is critical, especially within the first 24 hours of employment that new employees feel welcome, confident, and engaged in their induction process.

Improving your induction program should be an on-going process. To prevent overload, inductions should be staged and different mediums should be used to provide information including face-to-face exchanges, on-line tools, videos, self-directed work exercises and formal and informal meetings and seminars. Key staff and the supervisor/manager should provide regular check-ins for the new employee to clarify issues and raise matters of concern in a supportive and non-judgmental environment.

The induction period should depend on the job role and organization. Induction should not be considered complete until the new employee has been successfully integrated into the workplace.

The induction processes should be regularly evaluated to enhance the program’s effectiveness.  Evaluation will assist with continuous improvement and ensure the program is relevant to the current work environment.  Asking for feedback is very important.  It allows you to make positive changes and adjustments to the induction program, based on recommendations from those who experienced it.  You can send out an evaluation around two to four weeks after the employee has started with the company. After an employee has been with a company for a few weeks, they are in a better position to identify what they should have known at the time of induction, and can provide recommendations for any improvements.  The evaluation could say something like: “Now that you have been with the company a while did the induction program meet your needs?”

Another important way to improve the program is to not treat it as a blanket process for all your employees.  The process should be tailored to address the particular needs of different groups of employees.  You may add as you deem appropriate, but some examples:

Recent graduates – are likely to be eager to apply the theoretical knowledge gained at university to the work environment. Harness this enthusiasm by including interesting, but achievable projects. Assigning a more senior staff member as a mentor will provide the additional support required during their integration into the new role.

Senior managers – may require general induction information and specific information to address their previous experience and current knowledge gaps. An emphasis on establishing productive relationships with existing managerial staff would be a useful focus.

Internal candidates and existing employees to new roles - run the risk of being overlooked when it comes to inductions. It can be assumed that they are already familiar with the company culture and knowledge; however, any person starting in a new role should be provided with information and support to prepare them for changing duties or more senior responsibilities.

Fixed term employees or independent contractors - should also undergo an induction and orientation process as they may, for example, eventually apply for permanent appointment. Timeframes will vary depending on the length and nature of the appointment or contract.

Regional, interstate and overseas employees - may benefit from information that integrates them not only into their new role, but the community and local services as well. Employers may like to ‘go the distance’ and consider information sources that assist these new employees to seek accommodation, furniture or transport.

Well that certainly is an exhaustive, but thorough account of how to improve the induction process.  As someone who has started several jobs in companies with a truly atrocious induction program, it is enlightening to know just how important orientation is to not only keeping a new staff member, but making them feel welcome.

If you like what Judith has to say, download her Employee Orientation report.

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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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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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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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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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