Top of the list for your personnel training programme should be a formal induction for new employees
Successful businesses foster personal responsibility and pride to minimise direct intense supervision.
A positive attitude to training nurtures a culture of customer care and knowledge and builds a team of motivated, skilled and confident people.
A formal induction for new employees should be constant in your personnel training programme. It is a very important phase which is frequently neglected.
It is part of your organisation’s knowledge management process and therefore should be integral to your Human Resource policy and planned in advance.
Newbies learn about the set-up of your garden centre, history, values and goals. It covers their job description, terms and conditions of employment, health and safety issues, administration and organisational processes that affect them.
Take them on a guided tour of the garden centre and introduce them to key members of staff and the people who they will be directly working with.
It’s a good idea to assign a ‘buddy’ to a new person starting. A person that “shows them the ropes;” helps them to integrate socially with the rest of the team and generally makes them feel welcome. Choose a buddy with a good attitude and respect for their fellow workmates so that these good qualities are transferred.
A well planned induction programme allows new personnel to immediately become a useful, integrated member of the team, rather than being thrown in at the deep end without understanding
- how to do their job;
- how their role fits in with the rest of the business
- the importance of customer care and service
- your expectations
There's an example of a typical induction programme for garden centres in section two of our People Management manual
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