Understanding Onboarding, Induction, Training and Development

Introduction

The onboarding, induction and training and development processes are the three prominent processes that a company has to maintain and gives opportunities to growth together the employees and the business organisation. All these three processes are detailed in this assignment with their uses, benefits gaps, necessities and gaps. The assessment is divided into two parts where the first part will be covering the onboarding and induction process descriptions and the second part will suggest the importance and needs of the training and development process among the employees. The brief below will highlight that how the onboarding and induction process is involved in the recruitment and selection process and how the supports the employees on both their professional and personal fronts. There is a discussion also on the considerations of the Continuous Professional Development and their elements which needs to be according to the learning style of the employees to match with their job role responsibilities and how it can uplift their overall performances in the workplace.

LO 1. Understanding the onboarding and induction process

Activity 7.1.1

Describing the methods used to facilitate the onboarding process.

It is said that first impression has a very long lasting effect on people so in the onboarding process is that chance where the old employees can make a good impression on the new joining employees. The methods or ways through which the onboarding process can be facilitated are –

1 The most original and beneficial method is to build a new employee community by introducing all the old employees and the new ones and most importantly the induction presentations are given to the new staffs to give them an outline of the organisational procedures and policies providing all the needed information.

2. It is obvious teat new entrant employees will ask numerous questions frequently so the internal or local induction programs where the managers and company HRs give the new entrants information and knowledge about the rules, regulations, roles and responsibilities of each and every candidate.

3. Rabel and Stefaniak (2018) advised that generally the new hires are very much nervous and intimidated so to reduce and remove their worry they must be navigated towards the live interactions and real time simulations, video engagements such as a virtual tour of the workplace to build a familiarity and provide knowledge and information to them.

4. It is essential that from the beginning the new employees must be provided with the basic functional rundown of their tasks and along with these most essentially the information about the workplace health and safety guidelines, emergency exists, women safety regulations and information about the fire evacuations etc.

Activity 7.1.2

Explaining the importance of effective induction

The primary purpose of the induction process is to integrate all the new hired employees in to the company environment, show them what the systems are, describing them about the work procedures, introducing them to the culture, values of the organisation and the organisation itself. Teece (2018) stated that the induction process eases the new and old relationship of the work environment at that time when many new entrants were hired and all of them at that time after the induction process decide and makes a call that they will stay or leave the organisation, specifically whether they want to work or not. The employee induction process is very much essential in every organisation because it gives time to think. A company when spending both money and time in their recruitment and selection process, then it obviously becomes necessary that the new employees also learn about that company and their business both internally and externally. This induction process gives them time to think and make their own decision to work or not. The induction process benefits in saving the money and also reduces the turnover, so that there could be ensured efficiency in the work by reducing the risks involved in it.

Activity 7.1.3

Describing the phases of induction in an organisation

The induction process in consisted of mainly four phases all of which are carried out with the mixed cooperation of the HR, the line management and the line staff since all these three are the people who knows what particularly the jobs are in terms of the work area.

Phase 1 Preparation of the Contents

A basic formal induction or in other words the orientation programme is consisted of the information about the organisation, all the terms of the employment, employment benefits, working conditions, introductions and the job roles.

Phase 2 Organising Schedule and Venue

In association with the HR manager, the line manager and the supervisor the induction checklist is prepared in low, high or medium terms of the urgency (OGUNDELE et al. 2018). This phase indicates especially what will be the immediate task after the new employees start their job roles.

Phase 3 Documentation

This phase involves the documentations of all the new entrant employees who are willingly ready to work in the organisation. All the necessary documents of them are collected and stored in the company records for further needs and the detailed job roles were defined to them.

Phase 4 Follow up

After starting the work of the new employees, at each stage they will face issues and questions and in this phase the follow up is kept regularly is that all those queries and problems can be resolved for them.

Activity 7.1.4

Describe which legal aspects should be included in an organisation’s induction process.

When initiating any induction programme there are certain legal aspects which are must to be covered in those to restrict from any further issues and problems.

a. Seilerová (2019) suggested that among the new employees maintaining discipline is very essential which is included in the induction legal matter that handles the grievance and disciplinary matters in the organisation.

b. Another legal aspect is maintaining the confidentiality of all the employees and of the organisation also with Data Protection Act to protect the information from theft or hacking or any other kind of misuse of them against the organisation.

c. The legal aspects of an organisation also must cover the matters of the health and safety and emergency measures which include the first aid practices, emergency exits, manual handling ways, fire evacuation methods and apart from these some other legal aspects like the payment terms, expenses, holidays, and absence matters.

d. Maintaining the health and safety in the workplace is equally important as other aspects are and this falls under the legal matters of the organisation to be prepared for any kind of emergency or hazardous situations.

All these legal obligations are must to be updated regularly to avoid any uncertain circumstances in the organisation.

Activity 7.1.5

Explaining how to evaluate an induction process

As explained earlier that the induction process is an activity to settle all the new employees into the organisation by making them understand all the rules, laws and regulations of the organisation. This process takes a certain period of time to complete and during this time it is equally important that the effectiveness must be regularly evaluated. This process identifies all the rising issues so that they can be addressed as soon as possible to help in improving the overall process of recruitment and selection for the new employees (Sharpbet al. 2020). There are certain ways through which the induction process can be evaluated such as –

a. All the required data and information about the new employees who eaves with a period of 12 months are needed to be collected an d stored. And further those feedbacks which were collected from them via the exit interview forms are stored separately for future use.

b. During the performance reviews and appraisals, feedbacks can be obtained and further studied in the review meetings to acknowledge the responses.

c. A well-structured feedback and evaluation form is must to be followed in the individual’s induction programs.

d. Periodic survey about staff and employee attitudes regarding the company, culture, vales, environment and much more is another way to evaluate the induction process.

e. Essential information about the staff and employee productivity can be reported.

LO 2. Understanding that how to support the training and development process of Individuals

Activity 7.2.1

Describing the training techniques that can be applied in the workplace

In many business organisations, training is just going on a full course but instead it is a reluctant process to do since it could be expensive and it is also possible that the company will lose a number of employees and staffs during the training programs (Smajic et al. 2020). In practical, there are different techniques or forms of training that can be considered –

Formal courses with qualification – There are different types of cursed training programs which are given to the employees so that depending upon that they can be promoted to higher designations. These courses are accredited by various nationally recognised institutions whose certifications are nationally accepted and awarded.

Work-based training or coaching – These techniques are usually given according to the job-based or skills based requirements to upgrade the competencies of the employees for better performances.

Company seminars – This technique is applicable where the training needed to be given to the mass employees on any specific skill or specific topic. Seminars can be provided by either the internal management or can be given by any outside trainer or mentor.

In-house mentoring – These kind of trainings are given by the immediate superiors of the employees or by the management to a specific department or team for developing their performance as the needed are identified in that team or department. These are tailored according to only the significant needs of that particular bunch of employees.

Activity 7.2.2

Comparing the advantages and disadvantages of training and development interventions and methods

Like every other process, implementing the training and development methods and interventions also has some advantages and disadvantages in it.

Advantages

1. It benefits by increasing the job satisfaction of the employees and improves the employee engagement within their job roles with full dedication and efficiency.

2. It motivates the employees to perform better than their own previous performance and also motivates them to touch the standards and create new records.

3. It increases the employees retention rates, where it has been found by many researchers that nearly about 41 per cent of the staffs is lost by the companies in every three years of work duration, trainings reduces this amount to some extent (Lacerenza et al. 2018).

4. Most importantly it increases the knowledge which ultimately improves the sales and profits of the company.

Disadvantages

1. Training interventions are somehow very high in cost which can be daunting to many medium and small organisations. These expenses are like, training facility expenses, travelling costs, in-house training and equipment prices and so on.

2. One disadvantage is that it requires lot of time separate from the working hours which might be quite not possible for all the employees to manage and invest some non-working hours.

3. Sometimes training interventions and methods go wrong with poor quality and no or less positive results which are bad since lot of time and money are spent on that.

Activity 7.2.3

Explaining the organisational training and development policies and resource availability

The training and development policies of the business organisations have many other names like Staff training and development policies or Employee development policies. These include points like the company objectives, targets and aims of the organisation in a straight aligned manner so that all the employees must learn about the development methods of the company. The development guidelines also should include in itself the detailed outline of managerial roles and responsibilities, the priority tasks of the organisation, the training process. The legal restrictions & obligations of the health and safety policies help in assuring about employees’ own safety environment in the workplace. The training & development policies are meant to be there to give both the old and new employees about the internal functioning and processing details and the targets and goals of the organisation.

The resource availability is a process which critically drives the overall success of the organisations. Tulung (2017) stated that the resource availability mainly ensures that all the service resources must be available for all the employees to perform any task without any obligations. The resource availability can be said materialistic things like work related information documents that will be necessary, manual guidance, the machinery and equipment documents, financial & the physical resources, employees’ rights, working guidance notes and many more. These resources plays very helpful role for the working people to understand about the working style of the organisation by owning them and what the company expects from the workforce which ultimately creates a bond between the employees and the organisation.

Activity 7.2.4

Explaining the importance of reviewing individuals’ training and development needs at regular intervals

Reviewing the individual’s training and development needs and performance are needed be checked on a regular basis because as it has been said by the researchers that regular interval reviews puts a good check on the performance growth of the employee. Not only that, but also the regular interval checking of training and development performances increases the employee’s engagement in their work more prominently. Regular checking facilitates the individual with lots of opportunities to be on the promotion list. It creates a consistency in the work quality of the employees by the regular interval reviewing because it sets a level of work of that specific employee and they get used to with that. A regular review also has another importance which is reducing the mistakes as it is possible to have mistakes while getting trained and developed which gets omitted by the reviewing. It reveals that whether the individual will requires further more trainings or not and makes the employee learn the importance of establishing a good, healthy, peaceful and loyal relationship in the workplace. This will ultimately decrease the retention rates of the employees in workplaces which are good things to strengthen the work place environment and also it removes unnecessary conflicts between the employees (Saeed et al. 2019). When performances of the training and development are reviewed on a fixed or variant interval periods, good praises works as boost for performance growth like rewarding the hard work, listening to the complaints, concerning about the employee’s professional and personal matter giving a positive impact on the work culture.

Activity 7.2.5

Describing types of training and development opportunities and interventions that are likely to meet individual and business needs

All types of training and development opportunities and interventions are undoubtedly beneficial in all aspects of working and specially in order to meet all the requirements of the company as well as the individual employee also. There are certain types of trainings are there which are different from each other but also develops the effectiveness of those trainings.

Quality Training

In cases where the focus is on the production based improvements more, the quality raining at that place is extremely essential. Bakker and Leiter (2017) advised that the quality training can be referred to the familiarising the employees with all the detecting, preventing and eliminating measures of the non-quality items especially when it comes to product production in the organisation.

Technical or Technology Training

Training opportunities can also be chosen depending upon the technical or technological requirements or to all the job types for a wholesome growth and development. For instance, training can be given to make the employees learn any new software skill or any CRM skill or any kind of in-house machine handling training.

Skill Training

Skill training includes both the soft skills and the hard skills where the proficiency is needed to perform any specific job role. The soft skill can be the offering of any software skill and the hard skill can be like handling any situation by being physically present at that place like simulating any machine in factories or workshops.

Activity 7.2.6

Explaining the importance of matching the training and development opportunities to an individual’s learning style

It has been established the fact that the professional training and development is must to match the employees’ learning styles since a different perspective of the raining process may lead to towards confusion and lesser interest to perform. If the training is expected t be an effective process then the individual must be aware of the knowledge of that training and development process and for that they must be from the same background in their learning and academic standards and styles. According to An and Carr (2017), VARK theory is the one of the well-known theory which can present the learning style considerations in the professional front. According to the VARK theory, there are four learning style preferences are there for the individuals to match their professional working standards.

Visual – The visual learning style is related with the pictures, visual displays, demonstrations, illustrated textbooks, overhead transparencies, diagrams, videos, hand-outs and flipcharts.

Auditory – This style includes in itself the auditory learning preferences such as verbal lectures, talking things about different matters, discussions, listening to others that what they are saying and understanding them.

Read/Write – This style is related with the reading and writing styles with the present information in the written form where the individual can sider how to write down the assistances.

Kinaesthetic or tactile – This style is purely the learning through the performing of the tasks or hands on things exploring new aspects of the physical world around with the tactile approach.

Activity 7.2.7

Explaining that why CPD should reflect an individual’s training and development objectives.

CPD, briefly known as Continuous Professional Development, is a plan or process of tracking the regular professional developments and growth factors by documenting down the skills, experience, learning and knowledge improvements of the employees and staff members. As suggested by Koukpaki and Adams (2020) the Continuous Professional Development process helps the employees and staffs to manage and measure their own on-going work place developments and growths by recording and reviewing the work progress which will ultimately reflect them that what they have leaned and what skills and competences they have earned in their regular professional journey. Involvement of the CPD reflects the individual’s training and development objectives in many ways because:

It reminds the employees of their achievements of the past and motivates them to move forwards with progress.

It facilitates the uncovering of the loopholes, mistakes and gaps in the work process.

It helps in opening up the further training and development needs.

It provides the employees an understanding of their career development possibility or the chances of career changing options.

The CPD has a major benefit that it directs the employees towards their definite career objectives and helps them in selecting their specific goals.

Conclusion

The assessment above concludes the brief description about the onboarding, induction process related with the employees of any business organisation. The understanding achieved from this assessment also involves the overall process that how the training and development aspect of the workplace facilitates support, improves working skills, develops the work engagement and promotes goals accomplishment in respect of both the employees and the employers. It can be considered that A regular review also has another importance which is reducing the mistakes & reveals that whether the individual will requires further more trainings or not and makes the employee learn the importance of establishing a good, healthy, peaceful and loyal relationship in the workplace. Lastly it can be concluded by the above assessment that the integration of all the new hired employees in to the company environment, show them what the systems are, describing them about the work procedures, introducing them to the culture, values of the organisation and the organisation itself.

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References

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Koukpaki, A.S.F. and Adams, K., 2020. Enhancing professional growth and the learning and development function through reflective practices: an autoethnographic narrative approach. European Journal of Training and Development.

Lacerenza, C.N., Marlow, S.L., Tannenbaum, S.I. and Salas, E., 2018. Team development interventions: Evidence-based approaches for improving teamwork. American Psychologist, 73(4), p.517.

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Sharp, K.G., Mills, K.M., Shirley, L., Garcia, R. and Stewart, K.R., 2020. Impacts of various farrowing induction protocols on attended farrowings. Journal of Animal Science, 98, pp.215-215.

Smajic, H., Stekolschik, A. and Byiringiro, J.B., 2020. Digital Twins for Online Training of Automation Techniques: The International Conference on E-Learning in the Workplace 2020.

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Tulung, J.E., 2017. Resource availability and firm’s international strategy as key determinants of entry mode choice. Jurnal Aplikasi Manajemen, 15(1), pp.160-168.