A welcome at the bar

Induction programmes can have a positive impact on the problem of high staff turnover. Phil Mellows looks at the findings of a new report

However marvellously talented you are, starting a new job is always nerve-wracking. You don't know what you're supposed to do or where anything is and those odd people masquerading as your colleagues seem to be conspiring behind your back and talking in code.

And what about the boss? What do they expect of you?

If you are the boss in question, you might take the attitude that your new recruits will get used to things in time. After all, weren't you thrown in at the deep end when you started?

Research, however, suggests that this approach contributes to one of the pub industry's knottiest problems - high staff turnover.

Last year, Leeds Metropolitan University's Professor Conrad Lashley, working for the British Institute of Innkeeping (BII), produced a report that revealed average barstaff turnover was a shocking 180 per cent.

This means that in the course of a year a licensee typically has to recruit for a position nearly two times over - at a cost of about £1,000 a time.

He also discovered that in pubs with the highest staff turnover, 70 per cent of leavers have joined and gone in the space of just three months. How a licensee goes about introducing a newcomer to the job is therefore crucial.

Conrad's latest research for the BII, carried out with the help of Nottingham Business School colleague Warwick Best, looks into this induction process. Out of the 11 companies - including small and large branded pubcos and regional brewers - they surveyed, all but one carried out some kind of induction process for new staff.

What this means in practice, however, varies greatly, and none of the companies measured up to best practice from other sectors of the retail industry and they failed to recognise that "well-planned and, according to the report, structured induction can play an important role in bringing down staff turnover".

"In most cases, induction was supposedly available to all employees irrespective of job status or tenure," the report concludes. "On closer examination, however, induction processes were often informally organised and somewhat limited in scope and there was evidence of inconsistency across estates.

"Few organisations had a robust system of ensuring that all employees received the induction programme as defined.

"The scope of induction programmes tended to be narrow and did not appear to consider the recruit's psychological or social needs. They were limited in time and rarely addressed employees' skills and job competence needs."

Induction was "generally concerned with introducing the individual to the organisation and its rules and procedures", but interviews with the staff showed they were more interested in how it could reduce anxiety and introduce them to their new colleagues.

Pubs with a particularly high staff turnover face what the report calls "an induction crisis" in which recruitment is rushed and new employees are arriving at frequent intervals.

"In these circumstances the induction crisis is in part a response to a mismatch between the job role and the recruit and is rooted in poor selection and recruitment.

"Even when this is not the case, both the new recruit and the employer experience what might be described as 'the shock of the new' and systematic induction is designed to reduce the negative experience for the two parties."

Best Practice​

All new employees - irrespective of whether they are full time, part time, temporary or casual - need induction programmes, says the report. They need to be quickly accepted and you want them to be effective as quickly as possible.

Induction programmes are best carried out over a period of time. It is a mistake to provide too much information on the first day.

Before the person starts work they should be told where they will be working, what type of job they will be doing and their hours, pay and conditions. Staff handbooks can provide information on the company's policies on health and safety, training, employee development and so on.

On the first day the main aim is to make them feel comfortable. Too much pressure and inadequate preparation for work stresses are key reasons for high staff turnover.

The new person needs to know where to find what they need and it is a good idea to provide a "buddy" to help them fit in and find out how things work. Basic training in health and safety and food hygiene is also useful at this stage.

Induction is most effective when the new employee is timetabled as surplus to requirements for the first few days. It is important to reduce immediate work pressure in this early learning phase.

Initial training should be carried out over several days with the recruit working alongside a "buddy" who is trained to train. Interviewing the new person in the first week can help identify problems or difficulties.

More knowledge and skills can be built up over a few weeks. Provide information in small amounts rather than cramming it all into the first days.

Another interview can check on progress and begin to look forward to future development needs.

In summary:​

• Programmes should meet the employee's psychological and social as well as skill needs
• Start induction before employment and extend it into the first few weeks
• Train people to deliver induction training
• Monitor the process in detail for each new recruit
• Present induction as the first step in a career path
• Evaluate with a view to making adjustments
• Formalise the scheme and have specific objectives in mind.

Criticisms of pub operators​

• None of the induction programmes aimed to meet the recruit's psychological and social needs
• Only one company saw induction as the first step in a career development programme
• None of the programmes started before the first day
• Induction is short-lived and occurs during normal working duties. None of the organisations had systems that bring in the new recruit during quiet shifts or timetabled them as surplus to requirements
• Only one company had an induction programme delivered by managers who were themselves trained to train
• There were no formal procedures in the majority of cases and little mechanism for checking that individuals had been inducted
• Evaluation was at best informal and at worst relied on "rather vague claims".