The document discusses induction and development in the workplace. It states that the length of time an employee stays in a role is influenced by how long they have already been in the organization. New employees are most at risk of leaving during the first 12 months. Good recruitment and selection aims to stabilize this risk period and help new employees integrate into their roles. A planned induction program provides assistance to help new employees settle in while being productive. Competency-based selection provides clear strengths and weaknesses that make induction planning easier. Measuring individual and organization performance can help evaluate the effectiveness of selection techniques.

1. Induction
and
Development
chapter 15

2. Induction
There is a cost to selection, not only in the direct cost of finding
and selecting people, but also the indirect cost of disruption and
learning curves. Recruitment and selection must therefore be
concerned with the length of time the new person will stay in
the role, how quickly they can achieve full performance, and
how well performance and commitment can be sustained.
The single most important influence on labor turnover is length of
service. The simple truth is, that the longer an employee has
been with an organization the less likely they are to leave.
Conversely those most at risk of leaving are new employees.
The term ‘induction crisis’ has been coined to describe the first
12 months of an employee’s service in which he or she will be
most at risk period, but normal stability does not really occur
until after 12 months of service. Most organizations will find
that, even if their labor turnover rates are in low single figures,
labor turnover for the twelve month ‘induction crisis’ will be
about 20 per cent. Good recruitment and selection practices
must therefore be concerned with stabilizing the risk and
managing the integration of the new person into the role.

3. Planned Induction
Once started, the new employee should follow a carefully planned
induction program which balances help and utilization, so that
plenty of assistance is provided to enable him or her to settle in
and be able to do their work, but avoiding their attendance
becoming just a ‘learning’ experience without getting a return
on their time. The more clearly defined the role, and the greater
the degree of homogeneity between organizations, then the
easier it will be for the new person to adapt and become truly
productive. A maintenance fitter, for example, may be able to
make an immediate contribution on the first day while a
supervisor or manager will need a great degree of familiarization
with people, processes, equipment etc, before being able to
make a particularly meaningful contribution. A balance also
needs to be struck between ensuring that there is sufficient
information provided to speed up the induction process, while
avoiding ‘information overload’ which will make it unnecessarily
difficult for the new person to absorb all the information and is
therefore counterproductive. It is useful, therefore, to plan the
process over a few weeks rather than trying to cram everything
into the first few days.

4. Competency-based induction
Some of the difficulties faced in planning induction are often
reflections of the difficulties arising from the selection process
itself. Where the specification or decision, or both, are unclear it
is possible that candidates are recruited because they ‘seem
suitable’ or ar ‘not particularly strong, but should be okay’ or
other vague reasons. While there may be concerns about the
candidate not being wholly suitable for the role, it is not easy to
articulate what those concerns are and therefore not easy to
plan how they should be handled when the new person starts
work. Equally, even where there are no such concerns, it is
difficult, when appointing someone on generalizations of
suitability, to be clear about individual strengths and
weaknesses. The competency-based approach to selection
ensures that the person-specification is broken down into its
constituent parts, related to performance in the role, and
expressed in clearly understandable terms and described in the
behaviours one would expect to see in the workplace.

5. The advantage, from an induction viewpoint, is that it is
possible to be very specific about where the candidate does
or does not match the specification. It then becomes easier
to plan induction, development, and the everyday
management of that person to play on the strengths and
accommodate the weaknesses. The table gives an extract
from a competency-based report on a candidate, which
provides very useful input into all these processes.

6. Table: Extract from A Competency-based Report
Achievement orientation
He has a much higher level of energy and drive than most
people (achieving sten 9). People with his style are often
perceived as very organized, disciplined and thorough. The
strengths of his style are that he will readily accept responsibility
and pursue his objectives energetically. He seems to have the
motivation to try to make the most of what is done and get the
best results (Belbin “Shaper”).
One the negative side, he may find it difficult to switch off from
work. He may also find it difficult to accept people who don’t
have the same sense of purpose and career direction, or who
have different values and standards.
Development advice
To increase his personal effectiveness, he should think about the
following development points:
• Establishing whether other people are committed to the task.
• Considering other people’s ideas and proposals and being
prepared to negotiate and compromise.
• Showing that he understands that other people may see things

7. Using information
There are some key data which are often ignored beyond the
selection process. In planning future work or organization
structure and resource requirements it is important to have the
information on things such as skill levels, working time,
flexibility, availability, etc. the assessment of future training
needs and current training effectiveness requires information on
the abilities and potential of employees. Decisions on pay
structures need to take the account of the motives, values, and
expectations of employees if they are to be effective.
Organization development and culture change require and
understanding of the psychology of the workforce. The work and
the expense of gathering such information at the time the
vaious initiatives are proposed may be so daunting or expensive
or contentious that it is not gathered. It seems strange that
often in these cases the raw data are wasting away in employee
files or selection assignment folders, and are not funneled into
an aggregate information database which could prove an
invaluable guide to the development of human resource policies
and practices.

8. Measurement
and
Evaluation
chapter 16

9. Statistics
Assessing the effectiveness of selection function, although
important, is not a common practice and there is also a great
deal of disagreement between researchers on appropriate
measures of effectiveness. The basic promise is that the natural
laws of distribution will apply to employees and candidates as
much as they apply to anything else. Thus, taking a group of
people and measuring them against some criterion such as
height or age etc, there will be a distribution pattern which
equates to a bell-shaped curve. The proportions either side of
the mid-point will be equal and most people will be nearer to the
mid-point than the extremes. In statistical terms the bell shaped
curve is known as the ‘normal distribution curve’, and the
difference between the smallest and the greatest measure is the
range, which is divided into sections known as ‘standard
deviations’ so that 68 per cent of people will be within one
standard deviation either side of the mid-point 95 per cent of
people will be within two standard deviations either side, and
virtually all (99.7 per cent) will be within three standard
deviations wither side.

10. Utility analysis
One of the main arguments, in proposing that the effectiveness of
selection techniques should be evaluated, is to say that by
improving the techniques, selectors should be able to select
those who are at the higher levels of performance, ie those at
the higher range of the bell-shaped curve. Thus, selectors ought
to be looking to recruit those from the top 15 per cent of
performance, put simply – trying to attract the best.
Two problems emerge:
• What is the ‘population’?
• How can all employers
recruit ‘the best’?

11. Measures
Given the difficulties of obtaining ‘off the shelf’ methods to assess
the usefulness of techniques and the potential pay-back, it is
important to develop measures internally which can be used as
the quality control and pinpoint problems and opportunities.
Measures should be looked at from the perspectives of:
• Individual performance
• Organization performance
The measures of individual performance may include such aspects
as productivity (whether measured in output or sales or some
similar measure), performance against quality criteria such as
error rates, or level of competency, length of service in the
organization, or perhaps speed of promotion, and levels of
absence. By gathering individual data on such measures, and
comprising and contrasting with similar data for other
employees, it is possible to discover whether the people
recruited were a good choice, and therefore reflect on the
quality of the selection process and decisions.

12. Measures
Given the difficulties of obtaining ‘off the shelf’ methods to assess
the usefulness of techniques and the potential pay-back, it is
important to develop measures internally which can be used as
the quality control and pinpoint problems and opportunities.
Measures should be looked at from the perspectives of:
• Individual performance
• Organization performance
The measures of individual performance may include such aspects
as productivity (whether measured in output or sales or some
similar measure), performance against quality criteria such as
error rates, or level of competency, length of service in the
organization, or perhaps speed of promotion, and levels of
absence. By gathering individual data on such measures, and
comprising and contrasting with similar data for other
employees, it is possible to discover whether the people
recruited were a good choice, and therefore reflect on the
quality of the selection process and decisions.