Building an employee induction program can feel like a daunting task. Where to begin? Where to end? How much training is enough during the first few days or weeks for a new employee?
Each organisation typically requires a different employee induction program, as does each role within those organisations. As a starting point at least, there are common employee induction training topics which should form the backbone of any employee induction program.
In this article, we breakdown employee induction programs into four components and review the most common training topics within each. This example program is not specific to any role. It seeks to cover the essentials. From this, role-specific induction can be added. This might include additional safety information, specific training for management roles or industry-specific training requirements.
Welcome to our organisation
All employee induction programs should begin with a welcome to the organisation. This is a single online topic or workshop session, giving context to the organisation as a whole. It is typically delivered by a senior manager or executive or uses videos of senior people in the online training.
We recommend that this session cover at least the following seven key sections. The level of detail in each of these sections will vary. For example, ownership structure may be a short section for a privately held organisation but may be more detailed for a publically listed company.
Ideally, give a little extra attention to the sections on organisation values and current organisational goals. These two sections relate to employee behaviours, so it’s critical to get them right from the start.
- Organisation history
- Mission or vision statements
- Ownership structure
- Organisation values
- Organisational chart
- Executive management
- Current organisational goals
Working in our organisation
Next, employee induction should give context to the employee’s day to day routines. Start with a session or module on-site access, followed by a section or module from the HR team covering the common HR issues and processes.
There should then be a series of team introductions modules. This is where an online platform like Tribal Habits can dramatically improve the efficiency of delivery by allowing for templates for team introductions and using role-based pathways to determine which team introductions are relevant for each new employee.
- Site access procedures
- Site access and opening hours
- IT access
- Phone access
- Email access
- HR introduction
- Payroll
- Sick leave
- Holiday approvals
- Performance reviews
- Team introductions
Staying safe at our organisation
With your new employees now understanding the organisation as a whole, it’s time to ensure they are safe. As a minimum, this should include a work health and safety session or module. Do not assume your new employees have been previously trained on staying safe. By providing this training at the employee induction level, your organisation helps demonstrate its duty of care to its employees.
In addition to general work health and safety, training on office ergonomics (particularly for desk-based roles) and IT security fundamentals (which should be mandatory for almost all roles now) are important.
Other role-specific safety training and occur now or later when the induction training moves into more detailed on-the-job and role-based training.
- Work health and safety fundamentals
- Office ergonomics
- IT Security fundamentals
Being professional at our organisation
The final part of your employee induction program should address employee behaviours. Once again, modern organisations should be providing employees with guidance and policies in this area. As a minimum, we recommend sessions or modules on;
- Our Code of Conduct
- Anti-bullying and anti-harassment policy
- Sexual harassment policy
- Equal opportunity policy
- Drug and alcohol policy
From there, additional role, industry or management training may be required – such as managing performance for managers, privacy policies for employees dealing with personal information or anti-money laundering training for financial staff.
In this part, you should be providing training on each topic (ensuring that training is current and in line with legislation) as well as providing your policies to new employees and verifying their understanding and agreement.
Reducing the workload with Tribal Habits
If you are feeling a little worried about the amount of work, you don’t need to. With a platform like Tribal Habits, you can build this employee induction program in a few weeks.
First, our Compliance library has built-in, Australian-lawyer approved training on;
- Work health and safety fundamentals
- Office ergonomics
- IT Security fundamentals
- Anti-bullying and anti-harassment
- Sexual harassment
- Equal opportunity
- Drug and alcohol
These modules appear in your organisation’s branding and can be integrated into role-specific pathways with automated enrolments and reminders.
Second, you can use our amazing content creation process to rapidly build training modules for organisation and team introductions, policy distribution and agreements and topics including site access and HR policies. We even have template topics you can use as a starting point, and every topic you create receives a free review by a Tribal Habits training expert.
You can then automate combinations of training topics for each role and location, including automated due dates and reminders. With no set-up costs and a ‘pay as you go’ subscription option, your organisation can have an on-demand employee induction training program for minimum effort and cost, but with maximum impact and outcome.