I'm writing a 2 week induction package for Banking and Savings Advisers. The content and scope of the material is wide and I'm thinking of splitting the induction. The first week would involve savings knowledge and systems, with sales skills. The colleagues would then go back to role for 2-4 weeks to "practice what we've preached". I'd them being them back into the training enivironment to deliver the Banking phase of their Induction. Is there any evidence to suggest a 'two-phased' approach will/will not work? Has anyone any experience of this?
Mel Edley
4 Responses
Academy
Hi Mel
Within my company we have set up an Academy for new inductees. How this works is we still have a 4 week induction where advisros will complete the necessary system and soft skill training while visiting the department in between to shadow their own mentor thats been assigned to them personally (this will be the same person for the 4 weeks). Once they have completed their 4 weeks they then go into the “Academy” within their business area and finish any additional training and also begin their role early. They will have the support of trainers and managers while in the Academy who will provide daily support and learning sessions dependant on specific individual training needs. We have found this works really well because as they are learning they still have the oppurtunity to re-visit training in the Academy enviroment. This is just for two weeks and then they join their own team. This can obviously be adjusted dependant on the size of your companies induction/your needs etc.
Hope this helps
Many thanks
No reasons why not…
… and maybe a few why it will work very well indeed.
Splitting the time spent learning should help people understand better how the learning will affect their role.
I’ve never officially “split” an induction course but there have been plenty of “advanced” or “refresher” courses after the initial induction period to ensure that learners weren’t overdosing on information without the opportunity to put the learning into practice.
Go for it, I suspect that your learners will find the structure better suited to their roles than delivering everything in one chunk.
Split Inductions
Mel
I have previously run several ‘split’ inductions and have found these to be very successful as it allows the delegate’s time to put into practice what they have learnt. I am also taking a guess from your comments that those you will be training maybe telephone based staff?
An induction I ran for a call centre lasted four weeks however two of these four weeks were spent on the telephone whilst in a training environment. The induction ran as follows:
Week 1 Product training
Week 2 Systems and sales training
Week 3 & 4 ‘Soft Dial’ (delegates taking/making calls whilst in a training environment)
One thing you may want to consider is seeing if you can extend the induction to four weeks and having two of the four weeks ‘on the phones’. For example:-
Week 1 Savings knowledge, systems, sales
Week 2 Taking/making calls related to savings training
Week 3 Banking knowledge and systems
Week 4 taking/making calls related to banking / savings and banking
Your delegates would still be having a two week induction however training would provide support for the first 2 full weeks on the telephone.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this Mel.
Neil
Terminology
I think your terminology is skewed. In my view (and the dictionary view) an induction is simply a formal introduction to an organisation – ie. the facts of location, policy, structure etc.
Training job specific skills and knowledge is a different issue and ought not to be confused with the ‘induction’ part.
With that proviso, I think your approach is sound and I’ve used it in the past (with the understanding that where the fire extinguishers are is part of the induction and the sales skills are part of the job specific trianing).