Induction and onboarding

Claire Manning 0:00

Hello, my name is Claire Manning from Canberra Blind Society. My colleague, Peter Granleese and I are members of the Canberra Blind Society Mentoring Program. And we would like to welcome everyone to our four-part podcast series that goes with our checklist resources that are available on the Canberra Blind Society website. In podcast four, Peter and I talk about some helpful hints when supporting people with a vision impairment through their induction and onboarding, plus transitioning into new workplaces. We hope you find it useful.

Claire Manning 0:30

Welcome to our podcast. We're talking about onboarding and induction. Peter, last time you and I were together, we shared insights about the recruitment process in this podcast, we're hopeful that we'll be able to offer some helpful hints and tips and stories related to onboarding and induction. In our ideal world, someone we know with a vision impairment has successfully gained employment in a meaningful role. They have moved from applicant to candidate to employee. So that makes me think, Peter, about the pre-start phase and thinking about it, what does an organisation have to do before the official start date to support this new employee?

Peter Granleese 1:14

Well, firstly, there are the procedures that all employees go through prior to starting on day one. And it's a bit more difficult when dealing with a vision impaired person. So we suggest, as soon as the organisation knows that a vision impaired person is starting work, a person from the onboarding team, be it the HR people or administration, different organisations have different people to do the induction part of it, they should make arrangements to contact that individual to help them through the onboarding process. There's always quite a lot of documentation starting with the contract and also and silly information relating to security clearances or medical or bank details that need to be provided before the person actually starts work on day one. Normally in dealing with a sighted person this is just quite routine. This information is always online but unfortunately the platforms that some organisations use are not user friendly and accessible to vision impaired people. The adaptive technology is quite good, Jaws is the one that's most popular, and that's quite good for most systems, but there are difficulties sometimes. The web pages on too many organisations are just not readily accessible. 

So it's important therefore that the vision-paired person has somebody from the onboarding process who can, for example, introduce them to the IT person to identify what the difficulties are and hopefully walk them through the processes. Normally they're not very great but there are problems sometimes and it's in the pre-work stage that any difficulties that are there should be identified and walked through.

Claire Manning 3:05

I have to say from my experience with public sector jobs there needs to be a great deal more work with accessibility of documents. So I agree with you in the case of putting in place structures where someone from the HR team, like you suggest, works with the person who's starting. The other thing when you were talking about the IT compatibility, it's an interesting space, which i've only just thought of now with regards to JAWS, is within the public service and in the private sector, there is a process of funding employees to pay for JAWS. And that does take time. But it ends up belonging to the person who has the vision impairment. So they can take that equipment to another role. It's not challenging if you have stuff in place and everyone knows what everyone's got. And I would say that that would apply to all employees, all having different needs when they come into the space. The other one you talked about when we were chatting earlier was regards to supporting an employee with a guide dog. What are your thoughts on that?

Peter Granleese 4:09

Well, it's not overly difficult to support a person with a guide dog. When the guide dog comes into the workplace, there are certain protocols that must be observed. Now the obvious ones are of course you don't pat the guide dog while it's in the harness and even if it's out of harness you shouldn't pat it either unless the owner gives you permission to do so. More importantly the guide dog has to be toileted and so a place has to be found, an appropriate place, pretty close to where the individual is working so the individual can take the guide dog out at lunchtime. The guide dog owner will be able to tell you what sort of facilities they need to do that, but apart from that they can do it themselves. The owners, as a condition of getting a guide dog in the first place, must be able to tour it to the dog itself and clean up after it. They have the equipment, the little doggie bag and they have other fold up doggie bowls that they can water them as well. 

You talk about the person with a vision impairment, they know what to do with their guide dogs, but we've talked about in the past, skilling the new team about what it would be like having someone with a guide dog. Now are there resources and places that you can get that sort of information Peter?

Peter Granleese 5:30

The most prominent ones are Guide Dogs New South Wales and ACT and Vision of Australia. They provide guide dogs on the east coast. There are other ones South Australia, West Australia and Queensland have their own guide dog organisations as well. All those organisations are very professional and provide you with the information you need.

Claire Manning 5:50

They're not just about guide dogs, are they? What other supports do they offer?

Peter Granleese 5:54

Guide dogs are the most identifiable things they do, but they also provide long cane training, and they also provide training in a range of electronic aids, like sonic guides and mini guides and things like that. These are things that you hold in your hand and you can use to navigate yourself down the street. Electronically. So they provide a whole range of mobility guides and aid.

Claire Manning 6:21

So guide dogs, Vision Australia, Blind Citizens Australia all provide some interesting stuff of building disability awareness skills of the team. And that would help with also orientating the new employee to a new office, would it?

Peter Granleese 6:35

Yes, the individual's responsibility is to get themselves to the front door of the office and guide dogs or Vision Australia will help them do that, mobility and orientation in the office themselves is the responsibility of the organisation, but they can quite often do, seek the assistance of these organisations to do the training for themselves as well inside the office. They'll have to pay for it of course.

Claire Manning 7:00

Well these organisations don't run on their own do they? And I know from my research that there is also information online, especially Vision Australia and Blind Citizens Australia, they have resources online in regards to employment to build the team skills beforehand so that they're all prepared when they come. So we've got the documentation in place, built awareness, disability awareness skills of the team, they know where to go to get expert guidance, so it's day one. So Peter, what areas would you suggest could make a successful day one for all stake holders involved, the new employee and the team?

Peter Granleese 7:42

I think the first thing is not to overload the individual with too much information. Hopefully most of the extra issues affecting the vision impaired person are resolved so when the individual arrives to start work, day one is a pretty seamless transition, straight more or less into the workplace. It's very important that somebody meets the individual at the front door, not only to introduce them to the workplace where the individual will work, but to complete any final formalities that might need to be completed. There's always some little thing that has to be finalised, like getting a security card for example. That's very important. It's also important that somebody's there to escort the individual to the workplace and introduce them to the work team.

Claire Manning 8:29

That's really interesting because we were talking earlier today about the idea of, in the old days, because you and I are a bit older than the average, was there was a receptionist. So getting into a building or getting into a floor where an office is, when you've got a vision impairment, just has that extra level of complexity because if you're sighted, you can see, oh, there's no one here, i'll just sit here and wait. There might be a bell to ring, there might be an intercom.

Peter Granleese 8:57

But there are also other problems. Quite often, the foyers have cafes and pot plants and seating and it's a bit of a mind-fuelled just to get to the lifts to go to where you've got to go. So certainly some of you there to help you navigate all these obstacles that you might have to navigate was very helpful.

Claire Manning 9:18

The first few times someone will need help but otherwise they'll be able to navigate it there.

Peter Granleese 9:22

And they need to be shown places of reference as well. If the foyer is spacious and well laid out for sighted people, we don't have many places of reference to navigate ourselves by. For example, pot plants can be quite helpful if you know you can walk into the foyer a little way and meet a particular pot plant in terms of left or right. Some of those little points that are referenced are quite helpful, but you need to have some to walk you through them the first few times.

Claire Manning 9:51

So that's interesting because we talked about guide dogs a bit earlier, but you don't use a guide dog. How do you...?

Peter Granleese 9:57

I'm a long cane user, so I identify objects in front of me by moving the cane side to side in sequence with each step I take and so the idea is when you advance your right foot forward, the cane goes over your left, and your left foot forward goes to the right, and you sweep there. And that tells you what's in front of you. It also helps you identify things, so that if I'm looking for a pot plant or a pillar or something like that as a point of reference, I can set the next course after that, turn right or left or on course going straight to the lifts, for example, well, that's how I do it.

Claire Manning 10:37

And whats the term you use, I don't know if it's around the pot plants but around walls and things like that?

Peter Granleese 10:42

Oh that's foreshoring. The idea is it does seem a bit daunting coming to a building for the first time to find their way to where they work but it's usually quite simple because most office buildings are pretty similar. Once you get to the floor you're working, you come out of the lift and it's either a corridor to the left or right. I foreshore along the, if I'm going to the left, I foreshore along the left hand side. If the office I'm working in is on the left-hand side, it's either the first door, second door, third door, whatever that may be, and I just count the doors using my cane, or if it's on the right-hand side, I go down the right-hand side. Foreshoring is just a method of moving a cane along the foreshore.

Claire Manning 11:23

Peter comes and works at our office at Canberra Blind Society, and you come from the, you know, you have had a long history with Canberra Blind Society, but you catch the bus in and you get to Canberra Blind Society without any assistance. So it works in there. Peter, what would you suggest existing staff do to welcome and inform their new colleague?

Peter Granleese 11:42

Make sure that they go up to introduce themselves and make them welcome. The problem i've noticed going into the workplace for the first time is that my colleagues are unsure how they'll approach me. I don't know whether they're scared of saying the wrong thing or they feel embarrassed of doing so. I've thought about this a lot. And i've come to the conclusion myself that sighted people communicate with each other a lot by eye contact and by body language. And being vision impaired, we don't do eye contact or body language that well. We rely more on listening to the way people talk and we listen differently to the way you might listen, Claire. I can tell a lot about you, Claire, by the way you talk to me, not what you say necessary but it's the way you say it. Do you sound sincere or insincere? Are you condescending? Are you reserved or impatient? All of that. I can always pick those things up. It might be very great. It might be slight but...

Claire Manning 12:49

And I'm all of those and it was interesting when you said the sign language thing. I nodded my head at you. So you're exactly right. From that, Peter, and I think it's something that's come up a lot in the mentoring program and these are your words I think I'm using is, treat the new employee like anyone else.

Peter Granleese 13:09

Yes, I would say that. Bear in mind the individuals have gone to university and they've gone through the same job process that you've gone through so they're the same as you, there shouldn't be any difference at all. If we do seem a bit vague or a bit vacant quite often we just don't realise you're there, we just don't get the eye contact or the body language too well and so we have our wits about us and we're probably listening to you.

Claire Manning 13:35

And I think that would fit, wouldn't it? Because everyone's nervous on their first day, so that fits in exactly. What do I ask? Who's the best person to ask? So sighted people are sussing out. And someone with a vision impairment is sussing out.

Peter Granleese 13:49

I think in the process when you're rolling out the welcome map, and I think it's a good way of putting it, you have your way to involve them in the activities of the section. If you meet round the T-Earn, make sure you speak to the individual, not just nod to them because they won't see that. If you pass them in the corridor, say good morning to them. Don't just nod to them or wave to them like you might do with every other person. And involve them in some of your activities. I found a very good way of being involved in the activities of the sections I worked out is join the football tipping competition. I don't know anything about Australian rules, I still don't. But I joined it and I and that was an occasion to talk to people, whereas maybe I never would have talked to that person about anything at all. 

So it's a way of breaking the ice of being in contact and showing to them that you're just another normal person. Another thing was going to drinks on Friday night. My section used to go out to drinks on Friday night, and I was never invited. And I sort of thought, do you mind if I come along? And they said, oh, oh yeah, yeah, come along. And every week thereafter they asked me if I was coming for drinks. And sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't, depending on what I had on. But I break the ice and they thought I was just another normal person. And a long time after that I talked to one of my colleagues and said, I just don't know sometimes how you people treat me. And he said, well look, we were a bit worried about how we would, but now that we've got to know you, you're just another staff member.

Claire Manning 15:28

What would be your thoughts on how, you know, showing someone around? Do you want to know everything on the first day or how would it work best?

Peter Granleese 15:36

It works best if you don't overwhelm them with a full-length guided tour of the whole building. What you're wanting here is how they can get to the front of the building, to the workplace and out of the building to go home in the afternoon, and also where all the important facilities are like the lifts, toilets, the tea room, the lunch room, whatever, and the place they have to go to in the ordinary course of their work. More extensive knowledge of the workplace can come later, perhaps later in the week or even in the coming weeks. Too much information on the first day is counterproductive, I think. They're vision impaired, they can't see anything, they're in a workplace, and so it's a pretty daunting place anyway.

Claire Manning 16:22

I'm guessing everyone will be different of what their priorities are. So would it be like what i've learnt on this program is to ask the person what they would like to know on that day one that would be the most helpful?

Peter Granleese 16:34

Yeah. Most student-led people these days are coming to a job, have a university degree or some sort of tertiary qualifications. They've gone through university, probably used to travel to and from university, getting around the campuses where they're left on their own resources most of the time. They find out whether there are facilities that are through trial and error. And so they're pretty good at finding their way around. You'll always find they won't need much assistance at all.

Claire Manning 17:01

That just reminded me though of people who have a guide dog or people who use a cane. But sometimes you need some support from someone, what the industry calls a sighted guide.

Peter Granleese 17:15

Yeah well, there are recognised methods of sighted guiding. I'm a cane user so most of the time I don't need a sighted guide. I'm quite capable of guiding myself in a new place or where you want to get through the crowds and I have the use of a sighted guide, i'll always avail myself of that use. There are a recognised ways of sighted guiding. They are hanging on the sighted guide's elbow and the sighted guide will guide you through the traffic where you just follow the elbow so to speak. Quite often an inexperienced side of a guide will just think, well they've got to help you so they'll just grab you by the sleeve or the hand. That doesn't work because the guide doesn't have the full control as they would hang onto the full elbow.

Claire Manning 18:07

You also said with regards to getting to know everyone, you've talked about sort of, we call it roll call, which sort of sounds like we're taking us back to school. But you know my voice but I do know there's members that come in to Canberra Blind Society and you say hi and they go, who am I talking to? So sometimes it's good to say, hi Peter, it's Claire here, can I help you with anything? And in a meeting, how would you describe the roll call aspect?

Peter Granleese 18:36

In an ideal situation, where you're welcomed into the team for the first time, if the team was really proactive, they might even organise a morning tea for you, where all the staff would be there and they could do a roll call, just take it in turns to introduce themselves, give the VIP (Vision impaired person) the opportunity to hear their voice for the first time. They won't remember it all of course, but it's a good introduction. But you're quite right when people come up to you and say, well, hi Peter, this is Claire here or Bill here or whatever. That does help. It does impress the voice on to your memory. After a while of course all those sorts of procedures fall by the way because they're not needed. Another thing is to though, if you're talking to a vision impaired person, just don't walk away. Tell them you're leaving the conversation. That's very important because sometimes i've found myself talking to nobody because the person I was talking to has just walked off and hasn't told me he's leaving.

Claire Manning 19:37

And so probably in a meeting, if you're meeting everyone for the first time and you're getting to recognise, you know, build up a knowledge of their voices, it'd be sort of a case of, Hi, I'm Claire Peter and I'm the project officer. And that's probably all that's needed. There has been during our programme, our mentoring programme discussion, and we still don't know what the right answer is, but there has been in the last few years, a format where people describe what they look like. And it's probably not necessary and it takes up a lot of time. There may be people with a vision impairment who get stuff out of that, but I would ask them first.

Peter, Moving on from building good relationships, there are other important issues to consider on day one, sort of after a tour, after meeting the team, and I think it's one that's dear to both your and my heart, and it's in regards to preparing for an emergency. What are your thoughts on that?

Peter Granleese 20:32

Well, most organisations have emergency evacuation policies. As soon as possible after day one, it's important to introduce the employee to the fire warden on the floor that you're on. Most buildings have fire wardens on each floor these days, where there are large numbers of people working in the building, and they have emergency evacuation policies and procedures. And the procedures are, from below you can see, each floor has to get to the stairwell as soon as possible, whilst not running, and go down the stairwell. And they have brought people to the door to supervise the orderly exit of the people. If you're vision impaired or a guide dog user or a long cane user, as I am, that can pose problems if we're left ourselves to get out of the building. Guide dogs and cane for that matter can be quite dangerous, especially if you're shore lining along the corridor and people are coming out doors left, right and centre, they'll trip over the cane and there'll be a terrific pile up in the corridors and can be quite disastrous. 

So when I was working for the public service, the fire ward arranged with me actually that a reserve person in my section would come and collect me and the person would take me to the fire exit. I knew where the fire exit was, but they would take me there and I taught them how to sight a guy so I'd grab the elbow and they could steer me through all the traffic coming out of the door and I got to the door without any trouble and also taken to the top of the stairwell because stairs are very difficult if i've got a cane I can feel where the first step is I would not take the cane, I'd leave the cane in the office and rush to the fire exit like everybody else and I needed to be taken to the top of the stairs and showed where the inside rail is and once I knew where the rail was I could take stairs down like everybody else but without that assistance and I'm pretty independent but without that assistance on these occasions it could be quite dangerous so as independent as I am emergency evacuation of the building is not the time to be independent.

Claire Manning 22:45

Right yes exactly as I said it's dear to my heart sort of being prepared yeah if you never have to use it then that's a great thing and I think you reminding everyone to have that conversation if not day one in that first week. You can definitely talk to the fire warden about what has worked for you and what works well. One of our other mentors shared a story of emergency drill at a workplace he was at. He was told to wait and someone would come and get him. So he waited and then he noticed about 20 minutes later that everyone was coming back into the office and no one had come and got him. So it was a great learning lesson I think for that office because if it had been a real emergency and not a drill he would have you know may have perished.

The other thing that you and I were talking about, Peter, was also open plan offices and hot desking. It's not as easy as Claire, you're sitting in the desk next to Peter. Can you make sure if there's a fire drill that you sort of give him as much support as he needs? We now need to put in place potentially extra steps, don't we?

Peter Granleese 23:51

Well, hot desking doesn't work all that well for vision impaired people because if it's a big open plan area, the employee, once they know where the desk is, they can find their way back to that desk on subsequent days. But if they're hot desking, it could be a different desk every day.

Claire Manning 24:09

From what we've talked about with people and we talked to someone last week, didn't we? Usually vision impaired people don't have to hot desk.

Peter Granleese 24:17

No, not where he is.

Claire Manning 24:19

He has the same desk every time. But he only goes in the office twice a week. So other people use that desk. But yeah, my question to you is you're never sitting next to the same people so if there's a fire drill everyone has to be aware you're more to check with Peter

Peter Granleese 24:34

I think so you involve the whole work team I think you know and most people are only too willing to help so it's not difficult to arrange people like to help on those occasions

Claire Manning 24:47

And again it's about us listening to what help you need so you're going to put down your cane but you're going to say offer your elbow to me and get me to the stairwell. Do people try and help you down the stairs?

Peter Granleese 24:57

No, they are, well, some vision impaired people mightn't be too good on stairs, but in my case I was quite okay. Once I found the top step and got my hand on the rail, I was okay because I'm used to walking up and down stairs from university days, running from lecture to lecture from the third floor to the first floor sort of thing.

Claire Manning 25:23

They always put them far away, don't they? So I think we've really covered day one and possibly week one. About getting to know everyone, understanding emergency plans, finding out where you're sitting, meeting your team, building rapport and learning more about that. But what are your thoughts after day one? Check-ins at one week or one month?

Peter Granleese 25:44

I think, there's always something that's not resolved on day one, not resolved on week one, i've found, in my time. So there needs to be a checking time. Working through some of these issues is good, but certainly checking in with your manager, even with your onboarding people or IT people, after one week and two weeks or even the month, it just depends. It depends what issues are resolved and unresolved.

Claire Manning 26:16

And I think that's good practice for all employees. But is there an element for someone who has a disability or a vision impairment to not want to cause a fuss or something like that? Say if the IT systems not working, could there be some people who are reluctant I don't want to ask another question.

Peter Granleese 26:35

For the first month or so, I think the supervisor should make a business to check in at the end of every week just to see how things are going. And normally it shouldn't be more than a month to do that, I don't think. There are not too many issues that are ongoing after the initial month or so.

Claire Manning 26:55

One of the things we forgot to say earlier, just in finishing up, we talked about it in more the emergency drill, getting support, but what about a buddy or something in the early days? Is that something that you've had experience with?

Peter Granleese 27:07

A buddy's very helpful. I was very lucky when I joined the ACT government because the person who chaired the interview committee became my buddy. When I first started working in that department, he showed me around, took me everywhere, but he was very helpful whenever wanted something, wanted to know what to do, which law reports I needed to look in. And he knew all that, so he was able to help me and give me advice and tell me where the boss's office was, where the senior secretary's office was and all the various things I had to know. So, certainly a buddy is very good and he became a very good friend after that, so buddies can often end up in good friendships as well.

Claire Manning 27:55

Our checklist has a bit more detail in that and when I read through the checklist it's sort of like I said earlier it's good practice with all employees, not just someone with a disability or a vision impairment. But I think your experience has given some real insight into thinking about, you know, I don't want anyone left when there's emergency drill. Come and wait for me. Wait here, we'll get you later. So I think we'll finish that one there. Yes.

Peter Granleese 28:22

Thank you, Claire.