An induction is more than just a welcome

Starting a new job is always hard on the ‘newbie’ of the office. No doubt one of the greatest contributions to this problem is their feeling that everyone else thinks that they know nothing. Hiring procedure isn’t at fault here but simply your recent recruit is unacquainted with so many day-to-day issues of an office that the first day of school fears are often revisited… but without the friendly new-entrance teacher.

• Where is the stationary cupboard?
• Where do we go during a fire drill?
• Team meetings are held how often?
• And most importantly in some offices: how do you keep the coffee machine clean?

A simple induction is more than just a welcome; it’s a manual of all those things that bring about the frowned forehead of a manager spending his hour teaching you how to tame the temperamental photocopier. E-learning is a great opportunity to offer an induction before the client starts their first day. TalkTactics strongly encourages the use of our Learning Management System for inductions, or even on-going orientations that continue to remind staff of company visions, policies, and objectives.

Company culture may be very clear to the executives who discuss it on the golf-course, or the HR manager who describes it during the hiring process, but is quickly forgotten by individuals who are trying to feel out the culture in their first trepid days. While induction is considered an introduction, our system TalkTactics OnDemand can be utilised to test how well the company vision, policies, procedures are retained, it can request feedback about how individuals or teams wish to realise this, or be the basis for a staff competition to bring it to reality! Induction may be a once-upon-a-time event, making it memorable is definitely more valuable than any paperweight-like-manual or a harassed co-worker/ baby-sitter.

As for the latest member of your team, they may remain the ‘newbie’ for a while, but not nearly as long if they have already put names to faces of the entire team, and know how to avoid upsetting other coffee-machine users! 

The year of the Rugby World Cup begins

It’s a new year, and it’s the year of the Rugby World Cup. It is hard to deny this important event being a New Zealand based company. And being a company in the training industry, it is also hard to deny that other than the All Blacks the service industry is going to need all the coaching it can get to meet the needs of a big, roaring crowd!

As much as New Zealand loves to show other nationalities how to have a good time, achieving the professionalism throughout the hospitality industry for the month of September will be a challenge the industry must face now. With $1.5billion expected to be generated by the Rugby World Cup, we can only begin to imagine the need for numbers of flat whites to be served, corporate meeting rooms to be perfectly managed, and enquiries to be answered punctually.

The opportunities are not limited to simple every-day services, and we don’t expect Kiwi’s to hold back on their ingenuity in finding new ways to serve customers better. Here is one idea well-worth developing before the first kick-off- your staff training needs! Rather than leave it to the last minute as hiring is completed, answer your own demands from staff by making it accessible to them before hiring, during hiring, and after hiring. Well after the Cup is handed out staff training will continue to be a win or lose event!

Fortunately the Learning Management System that is TalkTactics OnDemand is designed to be easy to use, simple to start up, and its cost-effective pricing is based on active users- all this creates a brilliant package to quickly get your training straight to the staff and even deal with the increased staffing numbers required. Of course, we don’t have a score-board but no doubt our reporting systems will deliver whatever results the coach has asked for!

Although the topic has been on the media before New Zealand even won hosting rights, the Weekend Herald (22^nd January) featured a great article titled RWC motto: be prepared. There was an important warning for those who plan to dismiss training as a last minute item- “Market pressures of good staff could mean a short-term rise in hourly rates, as businesses serving food and drink pay a premium to attract the skilled and experienced people they need” (Bruce Robertson, CEO of the Hospitality Association of New Zealand, as quoted by Steve Hart, Weekend Herald). The better way to look at the situation is (along with the All Blacks winning) ‘ “it’s up to people… to show how our service sector can shine and use it to show our reputation” ‘ (Michael Barnett, CEO Auckland Chamber of Commerce)

  

Expect more and more media reports on the people-factor as we get closer and closer to the September hype. I’ll leave you with this quote from another type of ‘football’ coach, I’m sure it will inspire your hiring plans:

“No coach has ever won a game by what he knows; it’s what his players know that counts”

- Paul Bryant (American football coach 1913-83)