Induction: Concept and Types

Once an employee is selected and placed on an appropriate job, the process of familiarizing him with the job and the organization is known as induction.

Induction is the process of receiving and welcoming an employee when he first joins the company and giving him basic information he needs to settle down quickly and happily and stars work.

Induction is welcoming a new employee to the organization. In other words, it is a well orches­trated event to socialise the new entrant with the people and the work environment in a particular organization.

According to Michael Armstrong “Induction is the process of receiving and welcoming an employee when he first joins a company and giving him basic information he needs to settle down quickly and happily and start work”.

B.P. Billimoria defined induction as “a technique by which a new employee is rehabilitated into the changed surroundings and introduced to the practices, policies and purposes of the organization.” In short, induction is, therefore, the process of welcoming, indoctrination and socialization of new employee to his/her job and organization.

Objectives of induction

• To help the new comer to overcome his shyness and overcome his shyness nervousness in meeting new people in a new environment.
• To give new comer necessary information such as location of a café, rest period etc.
• To build new employee confidence in the organization.
• It helps in reducing labor turnover and absenteeism.
• It reduces confusion and develops healthy relations in the organization.
• To ensure that the new comer do not form false impression and negative attitude towards the organization.
• To develop among the new comer a sense of belonging and loyalty to the organization.

The advantages of formal induction are:

• Induction helps to build up a two-way channel of communication between management and workers.
• Proper induction facilitates informal relation and team work among employee.
• Effective induction helps to integrate the new employee into the organization and to develop a sense of belonging.
• Induction helps to develop good relation.
• A formal induction programme proves that the company is taking interest in getting him off to good start.
• Proper induction reduces employee grievances, absenteeism and labor turnover.
• Induction is helpful in supplying information concerning the organization, the job and employee welfare facilities.

Contents of induction Programme

• Brief history and operations of the company.
• The company’s organization structure.
• Policies and procedure of the company.
• Products and services of the company.
• Location of department and employee facilities.
• Safety measures.
• Grievances procedures.
• Benefits and services of employee.
• Standing orders and disciplinary procedures.
• Opportunities for training, promotions, transfer etc.
• Suggestion schemes.
• Rules and regulations

Types of Induction

Basically there are two types of inductions, Formal induction and Informal induction.

1. Formal induction

Formal induction  is a planned attempt to introduce new employees to the organization, job and the working environment. This induction type may consume more time of the superiors to learn and deliver the new employees needs at the beginning. But this may create new employees less number of errors at the working period and good coordination among all the parties. At this type of program, new employee may get know, who are the most experienced person to have the solution of the particular problem new employee might has. At the very beginning new employees are having lots of questions as same as kids at small ages. That is full normal thing and common thing, because the new employee needs to get know all the things, he may actually needs or not. CEO, GM, Section/Department Heads, Senior Managers, and Line Managers may involve in to the formal induction program. (From top management to bottom line). This will deliver fundamental things that new employees need to know. Advantage of the formal induction program is organization will have the better chance to win the new employees’ loyalty at the very beginning. And also new employee will have the chance to carry his/her works clearly, with less numbers of errors. Also, new employee will fit to the organizational culture and the work group easily, and strongly.

2. Informal induction

Informal induction is not planned and is ad hock. New employees learn through trial and error method. They get familiar with the work and work environment by themselves. This induction type will make the stress on new employee at the very beginning, because of his/her not knowing things at the operations. So in that case, new employee may leave the organization at the beginning and then the organization may need to follow all the process of recruiting and new employee to the organization. Also this method will create a large number of errors making by new employee and then it may creates big losses to the organization. Those are the disadvantages of informal induction program. The advantage of informal induction is, if the new employee survived, then he/she may know the process by his/her experience, and the later on errors may minimize. But at the beginning the vice verse thing of above advantage may creates loses, if the new employee unable to survive at the organization. At the movements which employees couldn’t survive, there could be see they are leaving organization at the beginning they have joined to it. So this will creates high labor turn over too.

Phases of induction programme

A carefully designed induction programme consists of the following three phases:

1. General Induction

This first phase of induction is conducted by the HR department. The focus of the induction is to expose the new entrant to the organization by explaining him the mission, objectives, history and philosophy of the organization. The new employees is also briefed about his service conditions, pay and perks, promotion procedure, personnel policies and grievance handling mechanism practised in the organization. This phase of induction inculcates pride for the employee to work in the organization. The period of induction, depending on the organization, may vary from a few days to few weeks.

2. Specific Induction

This induction is given by the new employee’s supervisor. The focus is on the overall exposition of the new employee to his job. Accordingly, the employee is introduced to the job, shown place of work and around the premises, introduced to his co-workers and briefed about the procedures and methods, custom and routines, rules and regulations regarding his job. This training/ induction help the new employee adjust with his work environment. The induction may last for few weeks or even months.

3. Follow-up induction

The main objective of the follow-up induction is to verify whether the new employee is getting himself adjusted with the work and organization or not. This induction is given by the employee’s supervisor or a qualified specialist on industrial psychology.

While giving induc­tion training, the employee’s suggestions on adequacy or otherwise of the already conducted induc­tion programmes and on any other related aspects, if any, are duly taken into consideration to make the induction more and more effective. Such feedback can also be used to assess the requirements of guidance and counseling for the new entrants. The duration of follow-up induction may vary from some weeks to few months.