Risk Management – Employee Induction

employee induction

Published by Andrew Thomson

Andrew is an experienced and trusted food safety consultant, and a highly regarded learning and development advisor. He has advised government agencies in Australia and overseas on food safety matters.

News

27 October 2020

Have you thought about the effectiveness of how you induct new employees into your business operation?

When was the last time you reviewed your employee induction program?

What happens to your business if you cannot recruit suitably trained employees?

These are examples of risks associated with managing employee induction.

In previous years, the induction of a new employee was an essential role of the frontline leader. New employee attitudes and expectations are shaped in the first few days in a new job. If induction is poorly developed and managed, new employees will leave the job within the first three months.

Many frontline leaders have either paid insufficient attention to induction or ignored the systemic steps that are required to ensure that new employees are properly inducted into the business. Often it was too hard to arrange the time to plan an induction program or the excuse of I am too busy this week.

The introduction of online employee induction programs has been viewed as a silver bullet in many quarters of business and government but in fact it adds another layer of risk – they tend to be an information dumping ground rather than designed to meet the needs of the new employee. The importance of communication to the new employee is often overlooked because most existing employees take their workplace surroundings for granted and fail to view the bigger picture.

In a post COVID environment, a business operation will need to review and improve employee induction systems and controls. 

Ignoring the risks which are associated with your business induction processes could negatively impact on:

  • recruitment costs
  • motivating new employees
  • learning new ways of working
  • the quality of employee training programs and this influences the decision making of employees to continue to learn and develop themselves

A proactive approach to managing these risks will help in:

  • improving business decision making process by ensuring the strategies you adopt effectively cover all contingencies and are tied into appropriate risk reduction actions
  • developing a tailored approach to suit your business and in assisting in creating value

Want further information and assistance contact Andrew Thomson on 0422285720 or info@thinkstsolutions.com.au

Think ST Solutions helps protect and grow new and established foodservice business through innovation and risk reduction strategies.