Hello,
My company conducts "Exit Interviews" when someone leaves the business, however there is nothing in place when they join.
I am looking at introducing an "Entry Interview" to fill this gap, to gain information on; feedback on induction, training received, reality of role vs. expectations, clarity of role and objectives set, etc.
Does anyone have any experience/ideas in this area? Any information would be helpful.
Regards,
Ewen.
Ewen MacPherson
8 Responses
looks like you have it cracked
Hi Ewen
My question to you is “Why is this a special “entry interview”? Isn’t it just the second meeting in your Performance Management process?”
Rus
Entry Interview
No Rus, the performance management review process is completely separate and conducted by the individual’s manager.
This would be conducted objectively by a representative of training/HR.
ah ha
Thanks for clearing that up, Ewen.
I did something like this during my brief tenure in-house and frankly I didn’t do much more than you have mentioned in your original post.
It did give me some really useful feedback that helped improve the induction and probation period as well as giving some useful feedback on the management styles of the line managers and the impression left by the recruitment process (both of which allowed us to take appropriate action)
Rus
Onboarding review helpful?
I carried out an onboarding review recently in conjunction with our HR team,looking at attraction and selection, and then induction and transition into the workplace. This covered a number of the elements you mentioned, and enabled us to identify some key actions to improve both HR and L&D processes.
Questionnaires were issued to new starters and those with less than 1 year’s service, so it may be slightly out of scope for what you describe, but please email if you would like the questionaires as a starting point for your task.
Nicky
to Nicky
Hi Nicky,
Sounds like I’m on the right track then, thanks.. Would be great to see the questionnaire, what’s your e-mail?
Cheers.
Note of caution
It depends a lot on your corporate culture but often this kind of exercise provides “garbage” feedback. People are often afraid to give their opinions (particularly negative ones) in the first few days/weeks of the job.
I have just finished working for a really good company with a lousy HR function – pay and expenses always late, housing advances (really important in the Middle East) delayed for months, school fees unpaid, holidays lost, appalling calculations for overtime, poor joining process etc. but the survey given in the first week showed them to be excellent – even though informal feedback showed a totally different picture. Because no-one wants to rock the boat when they first join a company (except maybe me, I figure if you don’t want feedback you shouldn’t ask for it – and by and large that’s been OK but in one job it was an absolute disaster – no great loss mind you I don’t want to work for a company that doesn’t mean it but it was a very trying period nonetheless).
So you need to be very supportive of feedback and take it on the chin – even if you don’t agree with it.
Contact details
You can contact me at [email protected].
In support of Nik’s comments, conducting the survey as a third party outside of the line management structure did provide us with some frank feedback – most of which we expected to be honest. What it did allow us to do was reframe some of the behaviours and processes which had slipped, to reinforce the importance of the employee’s first weeks/months in the organisation.
Nicky
Thanks.
Trying to avoid the garbage feedback by having a team of people outside of their department/management structure to conduct the interviews.
Thanks all for your input.