New Recruitment tools to pick the Best Employees with Potential........
Posted On Friday, 20 May 2011 at at 01:48 by Sri Lankan Human Resources Portal
Interviewer Certification Training
@
OLAK Management Training Center....
Workshop on report writing in Business & Management
Posted On Sunday, 15 May 2011 at at 19:31 by Sri Lankan Human Resources Portal
Successful managers and leaders analyse information and form meanings that are useful to their organisations; they embody these meanings in attractive designs of reports, speeches, and PowerPoint presentations; and they deliver them in attractive ways so that listeners are convinced of their ideas they want to share.
Research findings support that there is a positive relationship between communication competency and leadership performance, a series of European studies show. Company CEOs today give more attention than before to global standards of communicating, especially writing for impact.At all organisational levels, it has been estimated that, at least 75 percent of each workday is spent in communicating in one form or another. It seems that every successful person is in the business of communication.
When / Where :
In recognition of the need to sharpen executive communication skills of managers and professionals, the Graduate School of Management has introduced a Workshop Series on Report Writing in Business and Management.
The second in the series, scheduled for 25 and 26 May, will consider effective writing of business reports such as economic reports, competitor analyses, investment proposals, and corporate plans. The third workshop will be on 9 and 10 June and its content will include consultancy report writing, especially feasibility studies, business plans, project analyses and appraisals.
From Whom:
These workshops will be conducted by Prof. Gunapala Nanayakkara, Senior Professor of Management at University of Sri Jayewardenepura and his team including Dr. Mahim Mendis of Open University, Dr. John Meewella of Oulu University, Finland, and Manique Mendis who is journalist and communication specialist. Prof. Nanayakkara’s text book, A Handbook for Academic and Professional Writing in Management will be among the course materials of this workshop exercises. While addressing the basics such as proper use of language in writing, the workshops will illustrate and practice international standards of effective writing – writing reports for desired impact.
To Whom:
To Whom:
Today’s executives, rather unfortunately, do not find opportunity to learn these vital competencies in our traditional educational systems. It is a nightmare for many executives to think of reaching the global standards of writing these various reports in order to satisfy the CEOs of competitive business, large companies and banks, multinational companies, funding agencies and international institutions such as the World Bank.
This workshop series is most suitable for senior managers of organisations who are responsible for writing reports for management decisions. More specifically, the ones who stand to benefit most will include General Managers/Deputy Managers, CEOs of SMEs, Heads of line Departments/Divisions, Marketing Specialists, Engineers & Project Managers, HR Managers, Bankers/Senior Credit Officers, and Business/Management Consultants (more information, tel. 2330077-8).
These workshops will sharpen such competencies of business writing and enable participants to acquire a mastery of the process of professional and analytical writing, perfect the skills of adopting international standards of presentation, learn to manage knowledge for organisational performance, provide leadership to organisations to build competitive edge through effective written communication, and acquire competencies in writing reports contributing to the growth and diversification of organisations.
This workshop series is most suitable for senior managers of organisations who are responsible for writing reports for management decisions. More specifically, the ones who stand to benefit most will include General Managers/Deputy Managers, CEOs of SMEs, Heads of line Departments/Divisions, Marketing Specialists, Engineers & Project Managers, HR Managers, Bankers/Senior Credit Officers, and Business/Management Consultants (more information, tel. 2330077-8).
These workshops will sharpen such competencies of business writing and enable participants to acquire a mastery of the process of professional and analytical writing, perfect the skills of adopting international standards of presentation, learn to manage knowledge for organisational performance, provide leadership to organisations to build competitive edge through effective written communication, and acquire competencies in writing reports contributing to the growth and diversification of organisations.
Brandix pays tribute to outstanding associates
Posted On at at 00:23 by Sri Lankan Human Resources Portal
Thirty six members of the non-executive cadre who have excelled in performance and made significant contributions to the success of top apparel exporter Brandix in 2010 were recently rewarded at the second edition of the Group’s annual ‘Employee of the Year’ awards programme.
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| A proud mother pins a medal on a Brandix associate at the Group’s Annual Awards |
These outstanding associates, as Brandix employees are referred to within the Group, will in addition to their rewards be provided a valuable opportunity to further enhance their skills through study tours to India, China and Bangladesh in appreciation of their efforts, the Group said. Exemplary contributions of three factory Supervisors were also among those recognised this year.
Mementos and special insignia that can be worn with their uniforms were also presented to 18 female associates and 15 male associates, by their respective parents and spouses at a ceremony at the National Youth Centre in Maharagama. The event commenced with the men’s and women’s finals of the Group’s inaugural Inter-plant Volleyball Tournament for the ‘Mercury Challenge Trophy’ (Rasadiya Kusalaanaya).
Seventeen of the associates chosen through the Employee of the Year programme will visit India on study tours while eight associates each will visit China and Bangladesh. Each of the three chosen supervisors will also visit one of these countries.
“Rewarding the commitment and efforts of our associates is an important aspect of the caring and inclusive corporate culture of Brandix,” said Colonel Sujith Jayasekara, Group HR Manager – Works HR of Brandix. “The valuable exposure and training that they receive will contribute significantly to further professional development and enhance their prospects.”
The chosen associates shared their experiences on how their lives have been enriched after joining Brandix, when they were hosted to an informal tea session with the Group CEO.
Associates were chosen for the Employee of the Year awards through a stringent process based on a broad range of criteria including Key Performance Indicator (KPI) achievements, efficiency, absenteeism and other additional assessments.
Apart from initiatives that reward associates for significant contributions, Brandix also conducts numerous programmes that empower the Group’s workforce by strengthening ties between associates. The Inter-plant Volleyball Tournament was introduced in this spirit, the Group said. This was subsequent to the successful completion of the Brandix Group Sports Fest which was held last year to exhibit the sporting talents of the executive cadre. Sports and team events are a frequent occurrence at Brandix, where diverse sports are promoted to drive team spirit.
The Group also contributes to the enhancement of living standards of its associates, many of whom are from rural backgrounds, through employee specific initiatives such as the ‘Care for our Own’ CSR programme through which water and sanitation facilities are provided for needy associates of the Group, the Marks & Start programme which supports the differently-abled, ‘Brandix Ran Daru Scholarships’ awarded to the children and siblings of non-executive employees, the Chairman’s Fund, Worker’s Councils, Employee Loans and Medical Insurance.
The Brandix Group is supported by 32 manufacturing locations island-wide, in addition to other facilities in the South Asian region, and strategically located international sourcing offices globally, and directly employs over 30,000 associates in Sri Lanka whilst providing indirect employment to an equivalent number.
The pioneer of the concept of ‘total solutions’ in Sri Lanka’s apparel sector, Brandix is a preferred solutions provider to some of the world’s leading apparel brands, including Victoria’s Secret, PINK, Gap, Banana Republic, Marks & Spencer, Lands’ End, Tommy Hilfiger, Hanes, Express, H&M, Intimissimi and Tesco. The Group specialises in casual bottoms, underwear, lounge and sleepwear, bras, textiles, knitted and woven fabrics, sewing and embroidery thread, accessories and hangers, and also offers wet processing and finishing and fabric printing.
Mementos and special insignia that can be worn with their uniforms were also presented to 18 female associates and 15 male associates, by their respective parents and spouses at a ceremony at the National Youth Centre in Maharagama. The event commenced with the men’s and women’s finals of the Group’s inaugural Inter-plant Volleyball Tournament for the ‘Mercury Challenge Trophy’ (Rasadiya Kusalaanaya).
Seventeen of the associates chosen through the Employee of the Year programme will visit India on study tours while eight associates each will visit China and Bangladesh. Each of the three chosen supervisors will also visit one of these countries.
“Rewarding the commitment and efforts of our associates is an important aspect of the caring and inclusive corporate culture of Brandix,” said Colonel Sujith Jayasekara, Group HR Manager – Works HR of Brandix. “The valuable exposure and training that they receive will contribute significantly to further professional development and enhance their prospects.”
The chosen associates shared their experiences on how their lives have been enriched after joining Brandix, when they were hosted to an informal tea session with the Group CEO.
Associates were chosen for the Employee of the Year awards through a stringent process based on a broad range of criteria including Key Performance Indicator (KPI) achievements, efficiency, absenteeism and other additional assessments.
Apart from initiatives that reward associates for significant contributions, Brandix also conducts numerous programmes that empower the Group’s workforce by strengthening ties between associates. The Inter-plant Volleyball Tournament was introduced in this spirit, the Group said. This was subsequent to the successful completion of the Brandix Group Sports Fest which was held last year to exhibit the sporting talents of the executive cadre. Sports and team events are a frequent occurrence at Brandix, where diverse sports are promoted to drive team spirit.
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| Rasadiya Kusalaanaya |
The Brandix Group is supported by 32 manufacturing locations island-wide, in addition to other facilities in the South Asian region, and strategically located international sourcing offices globally, and directly employs over 30,000 associates in Sri Lanka whilst providing indirect employment to an equivalent number.
The pioneer of the concept of ‘total solutions’ in Sri Lanka’s apparel sector, Brandix is a preferred solutions provider to some of the world’s leading apparel brands, including Victoria’s Secret, PINK, Gap, Banana Republic, Marks & Spencer, Lands’ End, Tommy Hilfiger, Hanes, Express, H&M, Intimissimi and Tesco. The Group specialises in casual bottoms, underwear, lounge and sleepwear, bras, textiles, knitted and woven fabrics, sewing and embroidery thread, accessories and hangers, and also offers wet processing and finishing and fabric printing.
What good HR can do for a business
Posted On Saturday, 14 May 2011 at at 02:22 by Sri Lankan Human Resources Portal
Captured from DailyFT (13th May 2011)
- By Mr. Dinesh Weerakkody
Good people are very crucial for any business. So finding them, managing them, motivating them and holding them are key responsibilities of HR.
However, in many companies we know of, HR gets it wrong – either operating as a cloak-and-dagger society or a health-and-happiness sideshow.
These are extremes, of course, but if there is anything we have learned over the past three years in our consulting practice, it is that that’s an outrage, made only more so by the fact that most HR leaders aren’t scrambling to fix it for reasons best known to the HR heads.
These are extremes, of course, but if there is anything we have learned over the past three years in our consulting practice, it is that that’s an outrage, made only more so by the fact that most HR leaders aren’t scrambling to fix it for reasons best known to the HR heads.
In our view, HR should be every single company’s engine of growth. What could possibly be more important in a company than who gets hired, developed, promoted, or moved out of the door? After all, business is in a game to make profit and, as with all games, the team that puts the best people on the field and gets them playing together as a team wins and makes adequate money to breed more success, give salary increases to their players and to become famous.
It’s not that simple anyway to get the best out of your human resources. You would never know that though, until you get the right man on board as your HR head.
Why the CFO reigns supreme
However, even though many CEOs believe that people power is the real engine of any business, in many companies the CFO reigns supreme and as a result HR is relegated to the background. It just doesn’t make sense.
If you owned the Indian cricket team, for instance, would you hang around with the team captain or the Treasurer of the Board? Sure, the treasurer can tell you how much money the board has, but the captain knows what it takes to win, how good each player is and where to find strong recruits to fill talent gaps. That’s what HR should be all about. And as we see when we move around, it’s usually not.
That was never as painfully clear to us as it was few years ago when we spoke to some HR professionals about their role.
At one point, we asked the audience: “How many of you work at companies where the CEO gives HR a seat at the table equal to that of the CFO or the Marketing head?” After an awkward silence, fewer than five people raised their hands. Awful!
Since then, we’ve tried to understand why HR has become so marginalised and often treated as the poor cousin in the management team, and as noted above, there are at least two poles of bad behaviour. The cloak-and-dagger role:
That occurs when HR managers become stealthy little kingmakers, making and breaking careers, sometimes not even at the CEO’s behest.
These HR departments can indeed be powerful but often in a detrimental way, prompting the best people to leave just to get away from the palace intrigue of it all, then after a while become a drag on the business and finally get marginalised.
Just as often, though, you get the other extreme: HR departments that plan picnics, put out the in-house newsletter and generally drive everyone crazy by enforcing rules and regulations that appear to have no purpose other than to increase bureaucracy. They derive the little power they have by being the ‘you can’t do that,’ which we call the audit or police role.
Get HR to do its real job
So to get it right, it all starts with the kind of people boards appoint to run their HR – not kingmakers or cops but real HR professionals, people with real stature and credibility.
In fact, they need to fill HR with a special kind of hybrid: people who are one part a priest, hearing all sins and complaints without recrimination, and other part the parent role, loving and nurturing but giving it to you straight when you are off-track.
Priest-parent types can rise through HR, but more often than not, they have run something during their careers, such as a factory or a function.
They get a good feel of the business – its inner workings, history and tensions, the hidden hierarchies in people’s minds.
They are known to be relentlessly candid, even when the message is hard, and hold the confidence at any cost. Indeed, with their insight and integrity, the priest-parent earns the trust of the organisation. But priest-parent types don’t just sit around making people feel warm and happy.
They make the company better, first and foremost by overseeing a rigorous performance management system that lets every person in the organisation know where he or she stands, and monitoring that system with the same intensity of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.
CEOs should also make sure that HR fulfils two other roles: That they create effective mechanisms to reward and recognise the right people in the business and prepare the organisation to face their most charged relationships, such as those with unions, individuals who are no longer delivering results, or stars who are becoming problematic, for instance, becoming arrogant, greedy, instead of growing.
Now, given our experience with HR, the kind of high-impact HR activity we talked about probably sounds like a pipedream to a CEO.
But given the fact that most CEOs loudly proclaim that people are their ‘biggest asset,’ CEOs need to put their money where their mouth is and get HR do its real job: elevating people management to the same level of professionalism and integrity as financial management.
Since people in our view are the whole game, what could be more important in a business than to put money behind the people who run your business and create that competitive advantage that other companies cannot copy in a hurry.
Why the CFO reigns supreme
However, even though many CEOs believe that people power is the real engine of any business, in many companies the CFO reigns supreme and as a result HR is relegated to the background. It just doesn’t make sense.
If you owned the Indian cricket team, for instance, would you hang around with the team captain or the Treasurer of the Board? Sure, the treasurer can tell you how much money the board has, but the captain knows what it takes to win, how good each player is and where to find strong recruits to fill talent gaps. That’s what HR should be all about. And as we see when we move around, it’s usually not.
That was never as painfully clear to us as it was few years ago when we spoke to some HR professionals about their role.
At one point, we asked the audience: “How many of you work at companies where the CEO gives HR a seat at the table equal to that of the CFO or the Marketing head?” After an awkward silence, fewer than five people raised their hands. Awful!
Since then, we’ve tried to understand why HR has become so marginalised and often treated as the poor cousin in the management team, and as noted above, there are at least two poles of bad behaviour. The cloak-and-dagger role:
That occurs when HR managers become stealthy little kingmakers, making and breaking careers, sometimes not even at the CEO’s behest.
These HR departments can indeed be powerful but often in a detrimental way, prompting the best people to leave just to get away from the palace intrigue of it all, then after a while become a drag on the business and finally get marginalised.
Just as often, though, you get the other extreme: HR departments that plan picnics, put out the in-house newsletter and generally drive everyone crazy by enforcing rules and regulations that appear to have no purpose other than to increase bureaucracy. They derive the little power they have by being the ‘you can’t do that,’ which we call the audit or police role.
Get HR to do its real job
So to get it right, it all starts with the kind of people boards appoint to run their HR – not kingmakers or cops but real HR professionals, people with real stature and credibility.
In fact, they need to fill HR with a special kind of hybrid: people who are one part a priest, hearing all sins and complaints without recrimination, and other part the parent role, loving and nurturing but giving it to you straight when you are off-track.
Priest-parent types can rise through HR, but more often than not, they have run something during their careers, such as a factory or a function.
They get a good feel of the business – its inner workings, history and tensions, the hidden hierarchies in people’s minds.
They are known to be relentlessly candid, even when the message is hard, and hold the confidence at any cost. Indeed, with their insight and integrity, the priest-parent earns the trust of the organisation. But priest-parent types don’t just sit around making people feel warm and happy.
They make the company better, first and foremost by overseeing a rigorous performance management system that lets every person in the organisation know where he or she stands, and monitoring that system with the same intensity of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance.
CEOs should also make sure that HR fulfils two other roles: That they create effective mechanisms to reward and recognise the right people in the business and prepare the organisation to face their most charged relationships, such as those with unions, individuals who are no longer delivering results, or stars who are becoming problematic, for instance, becoming arrogant, greedy, instead of growing.
Now, given our experience with HR, the kind of high-impact HR activity we talked about probably sounds like a pipedream to a CEO.
But given the fact that most CEOs loudly proclaim that people are their ‘biggest asset,’ CEOs need to put their money where their mouth is and get HR do its real job: elevating people management to the same level of professionalism and integrity as financial management.
Since people in our view are the whole game, what could be more important in a business than to put money behind the people who run your business and create that competitive advantage that other companies cannot copy in a hurry.
(The writer is CEO, HR Cornucopia.)
IPM - National HR Conference 2011
Posted On at at 01:49 by Sri Lankan Human Resources Portal
HR Powered Edge in a Booming Economy
More Information will follow ....
Apologize for the Inaccessibility
Posted On at at 01:38 by Sri Lankan Human Resources Portal
Dear Sri Lanka Human Resource Portal Readers.
We are highly apologize for the difficulties which you might faced during last few hours due to the technical issues of the Blogger, the web hosting provider of this site. Few of our published articles have been automatically removed by the blogger administrators while solving their issues.So we will publish the same in coming days. Thank you very much for being with us for creating the biggest online Human Resource Management Pool.
Your Comments / Feed back is always welcome… !!!
SL-HR portal Team
Managing Leave & Absenteesm @ Work Place - IPM Seminar
Posted On Friday, 13 May 2011 at at 00:17 by Sri Lankan Human Resources Portal
Advance your Resume
Posted On Saturday, 7 May 2011 at at 01:05 by Sri Lankan Human Resources Portal
[Article from http://www.ihrm.or.ke ]
The resume is also a record of your identification details (bio-data) and contact information, which you can leave with potential employers or employer’s agents for their use and / or sharing within their membership network. In such case usually information is collected by a standard form.
The basics of resume / CV writing resume is an evolving description of your experiences that documents your skills and knowledge, network and the referees.
It is an outline of your accomplishments; commonly referred to in the job adverts as hands-on experience of a number of years at a level in the management or track record and the resume is a communiqué about the match up of your competence and qualifications to the job.
Each edition of your Resume is a presentation designed for a specific employer and a specific job. You need to have tailor-made Resume for each job application. This is one the 7(seven) model Checklist in the Article “Advance your Resume” in the HR Management Journal of May /June 2010.
You should always have an up to-date edition of your resume, but you should consider its format and style anytime you undertake a new search. This will be covered partly in this article.
CVs Objectives
The purpose of a resume /CV is to introduce yourself to prospective employers. The objective is to present your expertise clearly and succinctly so that you earn (merit) an invitation to the recruitment process. This a key point to keep in mind.
You can be invited for an interview or call for your papers or headhunter to do a background check on you or sit for an aptitude test or required to do case scenario.
Writing Preparations
The particular mix of qualifications that an employer is seeking will depend on the job or vacancy available to be filled. The more you know about what the employer is looking for, the better you can tailor your Resume.
Your description should be more relevant than any other applicant in language that the recruiter understands. To market your competitive advantage that you bring to the employer to solve their problems. Remember your “sales pitch”. Your resume should communicate both your general and specific qualifications.
In preparing descriptions of your academic achievements, student activities, and employment history or career aspiration, make certain that you document your skills, such as your ability to:- learn quickly; adapt to new environments or manage change; research, analyze, and solve problems; work collaboratively embracing diversity; lead a team or be lead in a team; Employers or their Agents are executives looking (searching) for people who are enthusiastic, energetic, reliable, mature, productive, perceptive, intelligent, persistent, conscientious, and ambitious.
Your resume must meet these criteria.
It should be designed for two types of reading audiences:
i) those scanning your resume should glean your academic degrees, job titles, special experiences, or skills;
ii) they should learn valuable information about your achievements and gain an impression of your competencies, personal values and ethics.
Resume / CVs writing Approaches There are two approaches you can use to write your resume. First, HR Consultants (working with a coach) can help you analyze the relevant skills that you have developed or have the potential to develop in your activities (education and professional studies), work experiences and describe those skills in words that the employer will understand.
Second, Professional resume-writing services will develop your resume for a fee, but they will not produce a resume that is a personal reflection of your experience and uniquely yours. Most of Professional Resume writers use a small number of standard formats and styles. Your resume will look like other peoples’ resumes (other clients) and will probably be recognized that it is not your own work. Lack of originality, depicts one as someone without creativity. It is an abuse / misuse of the Copy and Paste tool in information Technology and Communication (ICT).
I recommend the first approach where the job seeker is helped to write his/her Resume. Please discuss with the HR consultant your unique story (an idea why the employer should hire you) and let him/her “shadow” write your story. A common story among the fishing communities says that it is better to be taught how fish than to be given the fish to feed yourself. The first approach breeds independence and also interdependent whereas the second approach breeds dependence.
You need to thoroughly understand the Resume formats and styles before you start either to write or re-writing your resume.
Resumes Formats and Styles
There are three resumes formats and styles namely Chronological, Functional and the combination of the Functional and chronological.
Resume / CVs- Do It Yourself (DIY) Developing a good resume is a challenging task.
The best resumes are usually a product of many drafts. Start by writing a comprehensive outline of all the experiences and information you might want to include. Use an outline as a reference while you experiment with a variety of formats and styles. Then select the most pertinent information from the outline and organize it so that the most important items stand out. In order to develop a resume that communicates your qualifications, you need to understand what employers are seeking. Identify several prospective employers and find out what skills and knowledge they are looking for. Reading the job advert, occupational, professional and the organization literature, visiting a person at work to observe the functions, pace, interpersonal relationships and work environment. HR Consultants / Career Counselors / Placement Advisors can comment on the impression your resume makes and what they learn about you from it.
‘Hambantota Job Solutions’ launched to help youth in South....
Posted On Thursday, 5 May 2011 at at 03:45 by Sri Lankan Human Resources Portal
Article from DailyFT
The Hambantota District Chamber of Commerce (HDCC) in collaboration with the World Vision Lunugamvehera Regional Development Programme and Hambantota District Secretariat organised the job fair and the education exhibition at the Hambantota Singapore Conference hall on 28 April 2011.
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| Photo : http://www.hdcc.lk/jobfair.lk |
The Country Director of World University Service of Canada, Ingrid Knutson was the chief guest of this event and the special guests of this event were W.A.Dharmasiri, Additional Secretary, Hambantota and Mohan Kumaran, Consul General of Indian Consul General’s office in Hambantota. Knutson said “look at vocational training with a positive mind and jobs in this sector would be very paying in the future. In Canada plumbers, electricians and beauticians earn more than doctors and engineers. In Sri Lanka there is a gap between the education system and requirements of job providers. She also mentioned about the key role of public-private partnership to eliminate youth issues”.
More than 30 private companies who are seeking to employ staff and Professional organisations who provide career skills & self employment participated at the event such as David Pieris Co., Keels Super, Richard Pieris Co., MAS Holding, Brandix & vocational Training Consortium etc. During the event group career counseling programmes was conducted. University of Ruhuna conducted a special seminar on “self employment opportunities”. Self employment service providers in the district organised a “Self Employment Piyasa” in the Job fair. Keynote speech was delivered by Mohan Palliyaguru, well known consultant & trainer. More than 2000 job seekers participated. We have been able to provide more than 500 employments opportunities and training opportunities for the participants.
Based on the experience gained in providing job matching service for young people as well as employers since 1996, HDCC launched “ Hambantota Job Solutions” with the theme of “ We will connect you to your future” – Wiwara Kara Demu Obata Heta Lowa, with the objective of placing unemployed youth in employment, providing them with self –employment opportunities and providing them with guidance to develop their potential and talents in vocational activities as well as job matching service, staff training and employer forum for job providers.
More than 30 private companies who are seeking to employ staff and Professional organisations who provide career skills & self employment participated at the event such as David Pieris Co., Keels Super, Richard Pieris Co., MAS Holding, Brandix & vocational Training Consortium etc. During the event group career counseling programmes was conducted. University of Ruhuna conducted a special seminar on “self employment opportunities”. Self employment service providers in the district organised a “Self Employment Piyasa” in the Job fair. Keynote speech was delivered by Mohan Palliyaguru, well known consultant & trainer. More than 2000 job seekers participated. We have been able to provide more than 500 employments opportunities and training opportunities for the participants.
Based on the experience gained in providing job matching service for young people as well as employers since 1996, HDCC launched “ Hambantota Job Solutions” with the theme of “ We will connect you to your future” – Wiwara Kara Demu Obata Heta Lowa, with the objective of placing unemployed youth in employment, providing them with self –employment opportunities and providing them with guidance to develop their potential and talents in vocational activities as well as job matching service, staff training and employer forum for job providers.
The Importance of Staff Induction
Posted On Wednesday, 4 May 2011 at at 00:23 by Sri Lankan Human Resources Portal
This article has been written by James Robertson, (http://www.steptwo.com.au) - James Robertson is the founder and Managing Director of Step Two Designs, a vendor-neutral consultancy located in Australia. James is recognised as one of the world-wide thought leaders on the topics of web content management and intranet strategy. He has worked with many organisations in both the public and private sectors, including Fortune 500 companies and Federal Government agencies.
Staff induction activities are designed to provide new-starters with the information they need, as well as getting them up to speed on how the organisation works.
Induction processes are vital to ensuring that new staff are productive as quickly as possible, and should play a key role in knowledge management initiatives.
Despite this, most organisations have inadequate or ad-hoc staff induction processes, with many relying solely on staff just ‘working it out as they go’.Having investigated induction processes in a number of different organisations, this briefing outlines our suggestions for making staff induction a valuable and effective process.
Staff induction often focuses on the corporate policies: safety, security, anti-discrimination, etc. This is useful information, if not the most interesting to participants.
Beyond policies, staff induction should also cover practicalities. This includes:
- how to conduct common administrative tasks (changing a phone number, obtaining a business card, ordering stationary)
- what key information systems exist (such as the intranet)
- how to get around the building (security, floorplans)
Training, as well as induction
When new IT systems are introduced, such as a new intranet or transactional system, training is often provided. Beyond these initial training sessions however, there may be little or no further training provided.
New starters who missed this initial training are therefore left unsupported and untrained. To address this, resources must be set aside to provide ongoing training for new staff, or for staff who have moved between different areas of the organisation.
Cultural change
New starters are unfamiliar with the environment and processes of the organisation, so it is the ideal time to induct them into the “new” way of working.
In this way, new starters can be “shaped” in order to achieve cultural change, such as:
- encouraging the intranet to be used as the primary information source
- overcoming the “silos” within the organisation, by providing a holistic view of the organisation
Knowledge transfer
By formalising knowledge transfer, or providing a more rigorous framework for informal transfers, new starters can be provided with the information they need to conduct their work.
Build social networks
One of the main frustrations for new starters is not knowing who to contact in the organisation if they have a question. This is reflected in the comments of long-serving staff: “Well, I’ve been here for 10 years, so I just know who to go to”.
Staff induction can specifically address this, by introducing the new starter to key people in the organisation.
Approaches such as mentoring or ‘buddying’ are particularly valuable in addressing these issues.
Involve all business units
Staff induction is not just a human resources issue. Instead, induction activities should be developed with the involvement of all relevant business units (such as security, IT, assets, etc), to ensure that new starters are given a complete picture.
Immediate induction
Finally, induction must be provided very shortly after the new staff person starts with the organisation. There is little value in only holding induction seminars every few months, as the new starter will have already been forced to have struggled through for themselves.
