Employers are forgetting the importance of well executed and compiled inductions according to latest research by reed.co.uk which shows that one in 25 employees have walked out after starting new jobs because of poor attention to starter orientation.
Almost all workers, 93% are reported to believe that a poor induction has a continual effect on their productivity in the job.
Most at risk from receiving induction-enduced resignations are employers in the media and public sector. The figure rises from one in 17 compared to a national average of one in 25.
Workers in the North East and the Thames Valley topped the regional charts for walking out after a poor induction (one in 17) with employees in Scotland, Wales and the South East showing more sticking power with one in 50 leaving for this reason.
Seven weeks is the average for an employee to feel settled into a new job following a poor induction.
One in three said an induction should last for a week while just over a quarter said the ideal period would be two weeks. The reality is quite different, however, with over a third lasting for one day only.
The good news it that things are looking up; over half of respondents said they felt inductions were improving and were better now than they were three years ago.
Martin Warnes, Head of reed.co.uk commented:
“The war for talent is heating up, so it seems a shame to lose everything after a battle has been won.
“Many employers have realised just how important it is to attract the right people, and invest much time and money in recruiting them. Yet all that effort can be wasted if there is no structure in place to help a new starter make the transition and become fully productive. The best inductions are a process not an event, they combine ongoing support to bring people right into the culture of their new team.”
Respondents highlighted the following induction problems from their experiences:
- Too short: one new starter was simply told, “Here are the keys, here is my mobile number, good luck.”
- Too hasty: A new recruit’s manager took them on “a ten minute brisk walk, showing me the toilets and a door, which was apparently a fire exit – nowhere near my office.”
- Boring: It doesn’t look good when the induction is given by “a team manager that was not engaging enough to keep the troops awake.”
- Impersonal: One new starter was “left alone in a room for four hours with a pile of videos, then someone came to ask me if I was ready to start.”
- Too personal: one irritated starter reported, “The HR officer who gave the induction was much more interested in the male inductees’ private lives.”
- Neglectful: One woman started a new job only to find “The manager didn’t know I had been recruited.”
- Isolated: One inductee said that the induction “Left me feeling separate from the rest of the employees.”
- Embarrassing: One starter was “Told to hop on one leg and sing ‘we all live in a yellow submarine’ on my own in front of 20 other new starters.”
Over 5,700 people were surveyed.
