Induction is just as important as recruitment

If you are recruiting correctly you will be giving it the time it deserves.

Unlike my mate who runs a restaurant in Edinburgh. Well, I say restaurant; café is a more accurate description.

He’s always hiring because people keep leaving – it’s a real issue to him.

His problem is that he doesn’t make it hard enough for people to get the job. He advertises in the window of his restaurant/café and people walk in off the street. He gives them a trial and as long as they don’t screw up too badly, they get the job.

Then, when the new employee arrives, my mate has invariably forgotten they’re coming and so he’s in a bit of panic ‘cos he’s got nothing prepared.

Lo and behold, a week later, the new member of staff becomes his latest ex-member of staff.

Now, there are a couple of reasons for this, firstly it’s because it’s easy come, easy go but secondly it’s because his employees don’t feel welcome when they arrive.

Let’s assume, just a for a minute, that you do give recruitment the time it deserves and you’re using something like the Chainlink Recruitment System, which requires candidates to jump through a series of (metaphorical) hoops before they get the job. In other words, it’s tough to get a position with you, which means you are left with the people who really want to work for you and the job is valuable to them.

Of course, if you give recruitment the time it deserves, this means there’s a significant investment, not least in your time.

And you can blow that investment out of the water if you fail to follow it up with a proper induction process.

Think about it for a minute. All through the recruitment process you’re saying ‘come and work for us, we’re great’ and the first time you get to demonstrate this to your new staff member, you ain’t. Great, that is.

So what does a great induction look like?

Well, to a certain degree it depends on the business, but the one common denominator is time. Your time as boss of the business, dedicated to your new member of staff will say to them ‘You’re important to me and I want you to be comfortable.’

Then you really need to consider Herzberg.

Yes you do and you know you want to.

Herzberg says that you have to make sure all the basics are in place before you can start to motivate anyone with things like nights out. The basics, probably, means things like getting the contract sorted, pay details, where the loos are, being introduced to the team and making sure there is a work station, email address and personal space available if it’s needed in your business, of course.