Business Proposal – Induction Program Implementation
Executive Summary
Crude BTL requires an induction program for answering the challenges of remaining competitive and increasing its performances in the light of its resent extension into new emerging markets. The induction program is meant to assure a unitary working process across Crude BTL’s subsidiary, enhancing the employees’ feeling of belonging, their motivation and professional results, which contribute to the overall increased clients’ satisfaction and organizational performances.
The guidance of the induction program should be assigned to the Internal Communications Specialists, making sure to convey to newcomers the company’s history, policies, values, organizational structure and the main functions performed within each department. Likewise, the Internal Communication Specialist should encourage the interaction and communication between the new and the existent employees.
- General Induction Day;
- An Informal Meeting Day between the employees and the subsidiaries’ managers;
- A day-to-day 3-4 weeks training;
- An evaluation of the induction program;
This internal program is designed as a training activity, having the purpose to facilitate the organizational learning, to enhance organizational communication and to engage the employee motivation. These are required actions for assuring a performing and competing working environment in Crude BTL’s current business extension process.
Business Proposal – Induction Program Implementation
Introduction
Crude BTL is known to be a global advertising and events organization agency, which employs around 5000 people worldwide, out of which 1000 are working in the home country, United States. The company functions since 1992, serving international brands such as Unilever, Tymbark, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Stefanel or Yves Rocher, to name a few. Crude BTL agency incorporates various services for its customers, ranging from designing advertising materials, radio, TV or online commercials, to assuring integrated communication campaigns, which imply assuring human resources (promoters, hostesses, technicians) or various logistical needs and technical equipment. Therefore, the company’s operations are extremely varied and the company needs to maintain a unity among its diverse teams, in order to foster the feeling of belonging. Recently, the company extended its operations in new markets from Asia (China and Singapore) and Europe (Romania and Ukraine), added to its 10 existent subsidiaries (three in United States, two in Canada, two in United Kingdom, one in France, one in Belgium and one in Italy). In the light of these emerging operations, the company needs to implement a new organizational process for maintaining the unity of its values and structured working procedures, throughout its subsidiaries, in order to remain competitive and improve its performances.
Body
In this sense, Crude BTL needs to provide to its employees an induction program, allowing the new employees to become familiar with the company’s structure. Like this, every new employee will understand what every department does and the basic specificities of the main job functions, the key persons in the organization/subsidiary and the basic work structure and procedures they need to respect.
Whitcomb and Clarke (2000) associate the induction process with the first day at school, because just as a first grade pupil is confused and disoriented, has no idea what s/he should be doing or where s/he should be going, the same happens with an employee in the first day of work, feeling dazed in the chaos of the seemingly mystic organizational processes. Goni Garcia (2011) states that starting a new job is like entering the cinema hall in the middle of the movie and everyone else except you know what is happening in the movie.
Hence, the purpose of the organizational induction process is to clear the mystery away, guiding the new employees into the organizational structure, processes and working environment.
The induction program’s main objective would be to rapidly and effectively integrate the new employees into the company’s policies and to allow them to accommodate with the working processes, organizational structure and to understand what the other employees are doing. The expected result of this new organizational process is to make the new employees, in the new and existent subsidiaries aware of their positions and role in the organization, familiar with the organization’s goals, mission, values and to influence them to interact among each other and to mingle with the existent employees. As Whitcomb and Clarke (2000) state, the induction program aims to make the new employees’ effective members of the organization, by introducing them to their new job and to their work colleagues.
This organizational process requires establishing the organizational values that need to be promoted at global level: creative force, quality, competitive edge, push the limits, business ethics, and embracing the diversity. Likewise, there should also be established the organizational values applicable at local, subsidiary level, which will vary from country to country, according to each subsidiary’s goals, but which should comprise: unique, fresh ideas, integrity, friendly working environment.
The induction process should also include a brief history of Crude BTL, from its formation to the current moment, which implies that the presentation will need to be permanently updated, once a new major event occurs and the group or at the local level. The history section should include both a history of the group and the local history, of the subsidiary.
Next, the organizational structure should be introduced to the new employees. A global, general organizational structure of the top management should be seconded by the organizational structure of the subsidiary, which should present in more details the key figures of each department. Next, a brief summary of each department should be presented, indicating the main job functions and activities carried out within each department, as well as the contact persons from each department, in case an employee needs to communicate ideas, or ask questions regarding the activities they are handling. This approach is actually encouraged as a strategy of enhancing the interaction and communication between the new employees and the older ones, from the same or different departments, making the absorption into the company more facile.
The induction process should also include a section delineating the employees’ benefits and facilities accorded by Crude BTL. Also, the career development programs should be detailed, as well as the international mobility opportunities.
As this program aims to create effective employees, it is structured as a training program. This suggests that training and communication strategies, specific to both Human Resource and Public Relations departments. Whitcomb and Clarke (2000) suggest that the role of conducting the induction program should belong to a Human Resources Specialist, underlying that the key role of inducing new employees should belong to the older colleagues in the department where the new employees will work.
This is a valuable perspective, which needs to be taken into consideration within Crude BTL’s operations. However, the specific of this organization should also be considered. The proponent of this report proposes that since Crude BTL is a communication-based company the induction program should be conducted by the Public Relations Specialist, familiar with the internal communications, hence, the inter and intra-departmental communication at subsidiary level. The Public Relations Specialist, preferably the Internal Communications Specialist (activating in the PR Department) should provide the general mentorship to the new employees, who will later pass in the care of their Department Manager, responsible of assigning a member of his/her department for continuing a more specific induction.
As a process, the induction program should be structured as it follows:
- A General Induction Day, preferably in the first day of work of the employees, but no later than the first week of work. This should include a one hour presentation of the organization’s values, history, organizational structure, departments and key figures, benefits, facilities, career and international mobility opportunities and other relevant organizational information. Also, it should include a tour into the subsidiary, presenting each department and the main job functions. At the end of the induction, the new employees should be given a welcome package, including the induction brochure (comprising the information presented in the induction program), a Crude BTL branded notebook, pen, mug for their coffee or tea and their personalized legitimation.
- An informal meeting between the new employees, the subsidiary’s management and the Departments Managers. Preferably, this reunion should be organized in an informal setting, either the recreational rooms of the subsidiaries, or another location, outside but near the office, which to allow the presentation of movies, PowerPoint slides and other materials that each Department Manager wants to present to the new employees, for making them more familiar with the work of each department. After the presentations, cookies, coffee, tea and soft drinks will be served, allowing 30 minutes/1 hour of informal interaction between the managers and the new employees. This reunion should be organized on a monthly basis, gathering all the new recruits coming in the last 30 days within the company.
- A day-to-day induction program in the first three-four weeks. Each new employee will be assigned to existent colleagues from their departments to continue their accommodation in the company’s policies, procedures, rules and regulations and in their daily activities (Asumptha, 2012). Gradually, the new employees need to demonstrate that they are becoming accommodated and that they understand and can adjust to their responsibilities, which they can perform independently, knowing the internal procedures and organizational guidelines.
- An evaluation of the results of the induction program, in which the supervisors or Manager Departments of the new employees will have to assess the level of accommodation of each new employee, indicating the areas of improvement, if the objectives of the induction were met, if the new employees understand the organization’s regulations, policies and guidelines (Asumptha, 2012).
The evaluation results of the induction program will be delivered to the Internal Communication Specialist, who, alongside the HR Specialists will assess whether the induction program generated the intended outcomes (Hendricks & Louw-Potgieter, 2012).
There are various benefits of induction program for the Crude BTL, for employees and for the organization. Through the induction program the new employees learn more easily the organization’s values, goals and internal policies and regulations, they become motivated to concentrate their efforts for achieving increased career opportunities; moreover, they interact effectively with colleagues and superiors, fostering the feeling of belonging (Asumptha, 2012). Applying this induction process within all the subsidiaries of the organization will create a unitary communication flow at various organizational levels across the company. The new employees will be effectively introduced in the company’s goals; they will become accustomed with their subsidiary’s main customers and will better understand the integrated services that Crude BTL provides and how the company delivers creative and qualitative solutions. Comprehending the company’s values and acting according to Crude BTL’s guidelines and internal regulations, the company will register increased efficiency, hence, increased performances, as the induction program is meant to speed up the employee effectiveness by eliminating the bureaucracy and the opaque working processes (Whitcomb & Clarke, 2000).
Conclusion
The induction program proposed for being implemented within Crude BTL is meant to generate employee effectiveness, employee motivation, improved clients’ satisfaction and increased organizational performance. The proposed process and recommendations made for the successful implementation of the induction program is meant to align the company’s goals with the employees’ professional objectives, allowing increased transparency on the organizational processes, procedures, structure, activities, while speeding up the communication among new and existent employees. This facilitation of the newcomers’ integration to companies’ environment serves the company’s increased performance goals, in the context of its expansion on new markets from Asia and Eastern Europe.
References
Asumptha, A.J. (2012) “How to design an induction program and execution in an organization”. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research. Vol. 3, no. 10, pp. 1-8.
Goni Garcia, H. (2011) Best practices in people development. Sofia: Technical University.
Hendricks, K. & Louw-Potgieter, J. (2012) “A theory evaluation of an induction programme”. Journal of Human Resource Management. Vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 1-9.
Whitcomb, A. & Clarke, G. (2000) Heinemann office procedures for CXC. Oxford: Harcourt Education Ltd.
