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A Questionnaire on Organisations’ Newcomer Induction

Thank you for taking part in this survey.

What follows is a questionnaire that seeks to find out more about the induction
processes conducted by organisations to integrate new employees and
newcomers to a role.

Part 1 is a brief analysis of your role and your current organisation.

Part 2 analyses what your current or most recent organisation’s procedures are,
along with their strengths and any possible weaknesses.

Part 3 reviews a hypothetical scenario and looks at how you would, using all your
skills and experience in recruitment / HR, handle the particular issues described.

Part 1

Current Job Title

Time in current
role

Time with the

current
organisation

Business Sector
of current
organisation

Year of
establishment of
organisation
(if known, or
best
approximation)
Organisation
Name (optional)

Your total time

in the field of
Recruitment /
Human
Resources

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Part 2

An organisation’s induction/orientation is of benefit in a number of ways. Through

your experience of taking part in, conducting or receiving results from your
organisation’s inductions, please review the objectives below and answer the
following question.

[Just to re-emphasise, this is not an assessment as to what you think should

constitute the ideal induction, rather, it is an assessment of your how well you
think your organisation’s induction achieves the specified objectives.]

For your organisation’s induction process, please tell us how much you
agree or disagree with the statements:

For online respondents, please use the bold, colour or highlight facilities to underscore your answer.

Objective of Induction Rating

My organisation’s induction provides an
understanding of the company: its culture, Strongly Undecid Strongly
For the Company

Disagree Agree
disagree ed Agree
structure, products and clients

Part of the induction involves imparting and

collecting information on policies and
Strongly Undecid Strongly
procedures: health & safety, performance disagree
Disagree
ed
Agree
Agree
management, discipline & grievance, pay,
holidays, etc.
The induction includes setting out work
Strongly Undecid Strongly
objectives: disagree
Disagree
ed
Agree
Agree
department and company goals
Enable the newcomer to meet colleagues
Strongly Undecid Strongly
with whom they will be working disagree
Disagree
ed
Agree
Agree
For the Job

To provide appropriate training to enable the

Strongly Undecid Strongly
post holder to carry out their duties disagree
Disagree
ed
Agree
Agree

To enable the post holder to understand their

job descriptions and how they fit within the Strongly
Disagree
Undecid
Agree
Strongly
disagree ed Agree
framework of the organisation

To provide a warm and sincere welcome

Strongly Undecid Strongly
Disagree Agree
disagree ed Agree
For the Newcomer

To put the newcomer at ease

Strongly Undecid Strongly
Disagree Agree
disagree ed Agree

To provide a good impression of the

Strongly Undecid Strongly
organisation disagree
Disagree
ed
Agree
Agree

Our induction integrates the newcomer

Strongly Undecid Strongly
quickly and effectively disagree
Disagree
ed
Agree
Agree

Our induction provides the newcomer with

Strongly Undecid Strongly
skills and knowledge to do their duties well disagree
Disagree
ed
Agree
Agree

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From your answers so far and indeed from anything not mentioned thus far,
please let us know the following:

What aspects do you think your organisation handles particularly well

in its induction?

Can you identify and elucidate on any apparent weaknesses in your

organisation’s induction process?

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Part 3

In this final part we look at the following hypothetical scenario.

An organisation in the consumer electronics industry is taken over (by TUPE

transfer of business) by a larger competitor in the same industry.

Both organisations have their own unique and very different HR and recruitment
procedures and consequently different induction schemes.

For a period of time during the consultation process, to ensure continuity of

business the decision is made to carry out both organisations’ inductions for all
new employees at this time.

From your experience of dealing with inductions and knowledge used

for this questionnaire, please state your opinions on what would be the
biggest problems in this scenario encountered by:
Both organisations

HR Staff that carry out the inductions for AP

New employees during this interim period

What in your opinion are possible ways to handle any of the problems

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you have highlighted?

Possible solutions for either organisation

Possible solutions for HR Staff at AP

Possible solutions to assist new employees during this interim period

That completes the questionnaire.

Many thanks for taking part.

Please send your completed questionnaire to

CRS-quiz@ntlworld.com

A summary of the results will be published on www.scribd.com in Mid-September

2009.

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Appendix

Further details of the scenario described in Part 3

Company AP is a well-established brand name in the mail order UK consumer

electronics industry. It has a head office near central London, a satellite office in
the suburbs and a despatch depot in the Midlands. Although most of the staff are
call centre agents (inbound and outbound telesales and customer service), the
company recruits for a myriad of roles, including marketing, finance, IT,
telecoms, logistics, PAs, receptionists and administrators.

They have a small but well instructed HR and recruitment team that has carried
out all the day-to-day HR functions and global recruitment for the company’s
group over most of the 13 years since the company’s inception.

Company B1 is also in the UK consumer electronics industry. A long-time

competitor of AP, B1 is a well established player in the market (top 2, to AP’s top
4). It now strives to take over AP and successfully completes TUPE transfer of
business.

For B1’s regular offices and outlets it’s business as normal. B1’s head office is
based elsewhere in the country, with its own call centre and a multitude of retail
outlets nationwide. Although they have a large recruitment and HR team, none
are made available to AP to assist with migration of function.

The two organisations have developed very different recruitment systems and
totally different HR Information systems, each with vastly different levels of
sophistication. Understandably, this leads to very different induction schemes,
though both adhere strongly to best practice guidelines (ACAS, CIPD, etc.)

Immediately after TUPE transfer of business, a rather unique scenario occurs:

While the ultimate aim is for the recruitment and HR systems of B1 to be

migrated to AP, certain logistical and practical issues mean that this migration
cannot take immediately.

Therefore to ensure continuity of AP’s business, existing procedures need to

remain in place until all aspects of the business are assessed and accounted for
to enable processing on B1’s existing framework.

From the point of view of new starters and inductions a decision is made by the
heads of both HR departments to carry out both organisations’ inductions for all
new employees for a certain period of time.

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