Buddying Programme

A new work environment can present some challenges and can confuse a new employee. A new employee will have to understand many aspects - in terms getting to know the departments, understanding organization structure, policies, procedures and etc. While an induction session helps to a certain extent, buddying programme will be more helpful.

What is buddying?

Buddying is a system wherein a new employee is paired with an experienced employee as a “Buddy”.

What is a buddy?

A buddy is someone who partners with a new employee during his/her first two or three months of employment in an organization.

Why have a buddy?

The purpose of buddying programme is to help new employee. It provides a new employee a single point of contact for their questions regarding work experience. It reduces the initial confusion and uncertainty faced by new employee. It ensures the new employee get to understand the routine procedures, availability of stationery, printer, conference rooms and etc.  

Who can be selected as a buddy? 

A buddying programme can be successful based on the selection criteria to become a buddy.

A Buddy should be

• An employee who is willing to take responsibility of buddying and understands the role;
• An experienced employee (typically with more than one year experience in the organization);
• An employee with good communication skills, approachable and friendly;
• An employee from the same department at the similar level;
• An employee who understands the job – roles and responsibilities of the new employee;
• An employee who is aware of routine procedures, people in his/her and other departments – especially finance, admin, Networking /system administrators.

A Buddy should not assume himself/herself as a mentor or a supervisor to new employee.

Who should appoint a buddy?

A department manager is responsible for identification and appointment of buddy. 

What are the responsibilities of a buddy?

• Welcome the new employee on Day one;
• Establish a rapport with the new employee – may be start offering a coffee/tea and having lunch on day one and later on once or twice in a month;
• Make a tour of office premises showing new employee’s desk space, conference rooms, cafeteria, and availability of basic essentials.
• Introduce employee(s) from his/her department, other department(s);
• Educate new employee on policies, procedures and guidelines;
• Ensures an open communication providing confidence in the new employee;
• Provides his/her contacts like mobile phone, e-mail id;
• Follow up with the new employee on a regular basis – start with once in a week and then the meeting can happen once in 15 days or once in a month or based on the speed of adjustment of new employee.

 Tips for buddies:

1. Buddy as an expert: Often new employee carries away the impression that the buddy is an expert. Buddy should not be worried being perceived as an expert;
2. Patience: Developing a rapport and relationship will take time. So be patient and try not to impose all the matter on day one itself;
3. Judgmental: Don’t be judgmental and simply offer feedback and suggestions;
4. Availability: Buddy to provide his/her contact – mobile phone number, e-mail id and meet at regular intervals – once in 15 days or based on the need.

Tips for new employee:

• Understand the role of a buddy;
• Make themselves aware of the details like organization structure, culture, policies, procedures, systems and software, intranet and etc;
• Respect the time of the buddy.

Employer Branding

Employer branding has been very popular concept. Employer branding is not about advertising or marketing. Employer branding is communicating and shaping an organization’s reputation.  

What is employer branding?

A brand symbolizes a few messages. Just like a brand of a product expresses certain qualities, an employer brand represents the corporate identity - to its current employees, prospective employees, stake holders.

Why employer branding?

In an increasingly competitive and dynamic business environment, companies must focus on developing their employer brand. Reasons for developing an employee brand attract and retain talent.

Who is involved in employer branding?

Employer branding strategy is not the sole responsibility of Human resources department. A successful employer branding program is a team approach which starts with the leadership – CEO or Managing Director, executive team and includes all departments – Human Resources, Marketing, Finance.

What consists of employer branding?

Employer branding has external and internal aspects. 

1. Internal aspect of an employer branding is an overall employment experience that a  current employee has and it includes

• Organization’s Vision & Mission
• Organization’s culture i.e., values
• Leadership capability
• Challenges faced by organization
• HR practices – compensation, benefits, welfare schemes, employee engagement activities, employee growth, learning and development, performance management
• Locations
• Employee referral program
• Rewards & Recognition
• Work/life balance
• Corporate social responsibility
• People experience and employee survey results

2. External aspect of an employer branding is what the a prospective employee and the existing clients feels about the organization and it includes

• Market performance
• Market Status in your organization’s specific sectors, products and services
• Work place rankings and awards

How can you make employer branding more effective?

• It should be believable: The objective of building an employment brand is that it must be built “virally” by others. An organization’s culture, leadership capability, work/life balance, HR practices and etc. to be talked by others, internally by employees, externally by clients and prospective employees, in order to be credible and believable. To achieve this, organizations has to tell a compelling story with real examples - success stories and experience of current employees in the organization and also it should include hard and real data.

• Mode of communication and interactive: Employer branding is a long term strategy and is to be communicated
• externally through editorial content in target publications, building a company brochure, write-ups in academic case studies, impressive website, presentations at conferences, career fairs , using the job sites, branding in social and professional networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, posting video clips in YouTube, allowing employees (only selected and trained employees) to interact through webcast, podcast and presentations in conferences.
• Internally through employee referral award programs, town halls, HR connect sessions, induction and at trainings.

Effective employer branding leads to

• Employees being more committed to the organizational goals
• Increased employee retention
• Reduced recruitment costs
• Competitive advantage and improved reputation
• Enhanced talent pipeline

What are the phases in developing employer branding?

Employer branding has four phases

1. Concept/Research Phase: It involves a 360 degree audit of organization in terms of

• To know how the employer brand is perceived by internal audience (employees/stake holders/share holders) and external (clients, customers, applicants or prospective employees)
• To know where the employer brand is positioned in relation to its competitors
• T o understand the organization objectives
• Research or gather information – leadership, organization’s mission, vision and values,  cost per hire, retention rates, success rate referral award programs, diversity, employee satisfaction survey results, work/life balance, feedback from recent recruits, a variety of people sharing their experience, rewards & recognition, performance management, learning & development programs.
• Identifying and training employees, at all levels - executive level, entry, mid and senior level employees, who can represent as Brand Ambassadors.
• Identifying the target groups/audiences, communication channels.
• Allocation of budget for the program.
• Review timelines.

2. Designing Phase: The design phase is the process of formulating your employer brand strategy or employer value proposition. Employee Value Proposition (EVP) as a set of associations and offerings provided by an organization in return for the skills, capabilities and experiences an employee brings to the organization. In simple terms, EVP gives current and prospective employees a reason to work and differentiates it from competitors.

3. Implementing Phase: This is the most important phase of employer branding and involves developing a communication strategy and express the employer value proposition (EVP) to internal and external audiences. Communication must be relevant by using right words and images and choosing right channel for communication. Communication material has to be consistent – should have the same look and feel irrespective of the communication channel.  Channels may include organization website, career job fairs, advertisement in news papers, company brochure, company newsletters, presentations in conferences, video clips, social and professional networking sites – facebook, LinkedIn and etc.

4. Evaluating Phase: The evaluation phase involves measuring the impact of employer brand program and thereby adjusting the program based on the findings. While there are no standards for measuring employer branding as this is a dynamic process. Measuring employer branding can include 

• Enhanced talent pipeline like increased number of applicants 
• Reduced recruitment costs – cost per hire, internal hire ratio, offer-to-acceptance ratio by applicants 
• Obtain feedback from recent hires/recruits 
• Employee Retention rates 
• Employee engagement surveys

Essentials of an Effective Training Management System

Training plays a vital role in every organization. It helps improve or acquire skills for a required position to perform the job effectively. Overall, it also helps in improving the organization capability. A Training management system can be effective only if we align training with organizational goals.

Process of Training:

1. Identification of training needs: This includes assessment of skills required for various jobs, identification of skills possessed and required for each and every employee at various levels. Skills can be of technical and soft skills.
2. Designing of training catalogue: This includes designing of training material, identification of trainers available in the organization. Need for external trainers and training.
3. Designing training calendar: Human resource professional with the help of technical managers design the training calendar. This helps in scheduling of the employees and increases the chances of availability for a specific training program
4. Budgeting: Once the training calendar is designed and with the availability of the training catalogue, human resource professional can define the total cost required to execute the training calendar. This should include the cost incurred for internal and external training
5. Execution of training: It starts with communicating with managers on a particular training schedule and seeking nominations from their respective teams. An ample time of at least 10 days is to be given for effective scheduling of their resources and providing nominations accordingly. Communication should include number of nominations required, timelines for sending nominations, training venue, training title, objective, date, time, duration of the training and the trainer profile.
6. Training material: Define objective, prepare the content and assign duration for each module. Print and provide to each and every nomination. Make the soft copy of the material accessible to all employees.
7. Pre-training: Assess and capture the skills of all nominations before the training program.
8. Feedback mechanism: A training feedback form has to be collected from each and every participant and share the metric with the department managers.
9. Post training & a refresher programmer: Assess and capture the skills of all nominations especially the changes they have adopted because of the training programme. Arrange a refresher programme, for an employee(s) who have not acquired or lacking the skills set required even after attending training, after one or two months and after gathering effectiveness evaluation of the training.
10. Effectiveness evaluation of the training: This is an important step in the entire process of training program. This would evaluate the skills acquired, changes adopted to possess the required skills after attending the training program. The effectiveness evaluation can be collected or done in various ways – on the job, class room sessions, and performance improvement by the employees.