A Questionnaire On New Employee Induction

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A Questionnaire on Organisations’ Newcomer Induction Thank you for taking part in this survey. What follows is a questionnaire that seeks to find out more about the induction processes conducted by organisations to integrate new employees and newcomers to a role. Part 1 is a brief analysis of your role and your current organisation. Part 2 analyses what your current or most recent organisation’s procedures are, along with their strengths and any possible weaknesses. Part 3 reviews a hypothetical scenario and looks at how you would, using all your skills and experience in recruitment / HR, handle the particular issues described.

Part 1 Current Job Title

Time in current role Time with the current organisation Business Sector of current organisation Year of establishment of organisation (if known, or best approximation) Organisation Name (optional) Your total time in the field of Recruitment / Human Resources

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Part 2 An organisation’s induction/orientation is of benefit in a number of ways. Through your experience of taking part in, conducting or receiving results from your organisation’s inductions, please review the objectives below and answer the following question. [Just to re-emphasise, this is not an assessment as to what you think should constitute the ideal induction, rather, it is an assessment of your how well you think your organisation’s induction achieves the specified objectives.] For your organisation’s induction process, please tell us how much you agree or disagree with the statements:

For the Job

For the Company

For online respondents, please use the bold, colour or highlight facilities to underscore your answer.

Objective of Induction My organisation’s induction provides an understanding of the company: its culture, structure, products and clients

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Undecid ed

Agree

Strongly Agree

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Undecid ed

Agree

Strongly Agree

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Undecid ed

Agree

Strongly Agree

Enable the newcomer to meet colleagues with whom they will be working

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Undecid ed

Agree

Strongly Agree

To provide appropriate training to enable the post holder to carry out their duties

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Undecid ed

Agree

Strongly Agree

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Undecid ed

Agree

Strongly Agree

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Undecid ed

Agree

Strongly Agree

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Undecid ed

Agree

Strongly Agree

To provide a good impression of the organisation

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Undecid ed

Agree

Strongly Agree

Our induction integrates the newcomer quickly and effectively

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Undecid ed

Agree

Strongly Agree

Our induction provides the newcomer with skills and knowledge to do their duties well

Strongly disagree

Disagree

Undecid ed

Agree

Strongly Agree

Part of the induction involves imparting and collecting information on policies and procedures: health & safety, performance management, discipline & grievance, pay, holidays, etc. The induction includes setting out work objectives: department and company goals

To enable the post holder to understand their job descriptions and how they fit within the framework of the organisation To provide a warm and sincere welcome

For the Newcomer

Rating

To put the newcomer at ease

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From your answers so far and indeed from anything not mentioned thus far, please let us know the following: What aspects do you think your organisation handles particularly well in its induction?

Can you identify and elucidate on any apparent weaknesses in your organisation’s induction process?

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Part 3 In this final part we look at the following hypothetical scenario. (Further information available in the Appendix). An organisation (AP), in the consumer electronics industry is taken over (by TUPE transfer of business) by a larger competitor in the same industry. Both organisations have their own unique and very different HR and recruitment procedures and consequently different induction schemes. For a period of time during the consultation process, to ensure continuity of business the decision is made to carry out both organisations’ inductions for all new employees at this time.

From your experience of dealing with inductions and knowledge used for this questionnaire, please state your opinions on what would be the biggest problems in this scenario encountered by: Both organisations

HR Staff that carry out the inductions for AP

New employees during this interim period

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What in your opinion are possible ways to handle any of the problems you have highlighted? Possible solutions for either organisation

Possible solutions for HR Staff at AP

Possible solutions to assist new employees during this interim period

That completes the questionnaire. Many thanks for taking part. Please send your completed questionnaire to [email protected] A summary of the results will be published on www.pdfcoke.com in Mid-September 2009.

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Appendix Further details of the scenario described in Part 3 Company AP is a well-established brand name in the mail order UK consumer electronics industry. It has a head office near central London, a satellite office in the suburbs and a despatch depot in the Midlands. Although most of the staff are call centre agents (inbound and outbound telesales and customer service), the company recruits for a myriad of roles, including marketing, finance, IT, telecoms, logistics, PAs, receptionists and administrators. They have a small but well instructed HR and recruitment team that has carried out all the day-to-day HR functions and global recruitment for the company’s group over most of the 13 years since the company’s inception. Company B1 is also in the UK consumer electronics industry. A long-time competitor of AP, B1 is a well established player in the market (top 2, to AP’s top 4). It now strives to take over AP and successfully completes TUPE transfer of business. For B1’s regular offices and outlets it’s business as normal. B1’s head office is based elsewhere in the country, with its own call centre and a multitude of retail outlets nationwide. Although they have a large recruitment and HR team, none are made available to AP to assist with migration of function. The two organisations have developed very different recruitment systems and totally different HR Information systems, each with vastly different levels of sophistication. Understandably, this leads to very different induction schemes, though both adhere strongly to best practice guidelines (ACAS, CIPD, etc.) Immediately after TUPE transfer of business, a rather unique scenario occurs: While the ultimate aim is for the recruitment and HR systems of B1 to be migrated to AP, certain logistical and practical issues mean that this migration cannot take immediately. Therefore to ensure continuity of AP’s business, existing procedures need to remain in place until all aspects of the business are assessed and accounted for to enable processing on B1’s existing framework. From the point of view of new starters and inductions a decision is made by the heads of both HR departments to carry out both organisations’ inductions for all new employees for a certain period of time.

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