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September 3, 2021

How to Design a Human-Centered Induction

4 min read
By Eileen Seissen

For our third of five Inductions hacks, we’ll be offering 3 tips on how you can put your new joiner—their needs, aspirations, worries—at the heart of your induction.

A quick refresher, before we jump in: inductions matter (up to 1 in 3 people leave a new role within 90 days). Getting them wrong can be costly (up to £30,000 per person). 88% of organisations don’t do inductions well, according to Gallup.

Previously, we’ve shared tips on how to create moments that matter in your induction, and how to design your induction as a clear and transparent journey.

Why should you consider putting people at the heart of your induction? An induction, stripped to its core, has one purpose: helping new joiners transition into their new role and/or organisation.

Changing roles or companies is a transition period, filled with uncertainties and unknowns. Your new joiners are moving from the familiar world (of a previous role, company, or life as a student) into a whole new world.

The biggest inhibitors of diving deep into their new world are the questions and worries that pop up. What is expected of me on my first day? My first week? Will I eat lunch alone? Where do I find the meeting passcode? When you know what questions will be asked, you can design a frictionless experience for your new joiners. So they can focus on what matters.

How can you do this? Design for the human.

Using human-centered design means starting and ending with your people and their needs. When you take this approach, you design a more cohesive induction experience that anticipates what new joiners needs, connects with their aspirations, and engages them more deeply with your organisation and their role.

Here are three things you can start doing today that will help you take a human-centred approach in designing your induction:

1. Put yourself in your people’s shoes.

Strive to understand what your new joiners are thinking, feeling, and hoping to do when they join your organisation. A lot has happened recently, including changes to how we work, how we interact with people, and our daily routines.

Your induction needs to speak to this current reality and how your new joiners might be experiencing it. What are they asking themselves? What do they worry about? What are they hopeful about? Seek your people’s perspectives.

2. Make data your best friend.

Ask the right questions, to the right people, in the right way. Listen, record, and engage with the answers you get. And then use these to establish evidence-led thinking. Data should inform how you structure your induction, what type of content you provide and when you provide it, how you connect your new joiners to their colleagues and within your organisation, and what modes and mediums you use to do all of this.

3. Remember, people change.

Your business needs, your new joiners’ needs, and your strategic imperatives are all constantly evolving. Your induction needs to evolve alongside. After all, your induction is where you are introducing yourself as an organisation, an employer and a business to new joiners. That means it should always represent the truest version of yourself. The key is to think of your induction as a living thing, and treat it accordingly.


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