June 7

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Inside <strong>June</strong> 7, 2018 .qxp_Layout 1 6/6/18 9:22 PM Page 5 06 View DAILY HERITAGE THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2018 HR Today: enriching the on-boarding process BY SHARLYN LAUBY/BRIGHT AMPADU OKYERE Tel. #: 0244204664 | Email Address: hrtoday@gmail.com THE ON-BOARD- ING process really tells the true story of the organisation to new recruits; it’s a defining moment where businesses must give a good account of themselves. Remember that first impressions are always essential. New recruits form their opinions of their organisation during their few weeks of joining the company – everything possible must be done to ensure a welcoming atmosphere and a culture that encourages a deep sense of belonging. However, organisations are understandably focused more on employee retention. Turnover is expensive, in terms of both hard costs and impact on morale. Left unchecked, turnover can quickly become an epidemic. It only makes sense that companies want to find ways to keep turnover under control. On-boarding is a key factor in employee-retention efforts, according to 98 percent of C- Suite executives. But this means that organisations need to have well-designed on-boarding programmes to yield the retention results they need. They should start right from the beginning with a comprehensive programme that seeks to engage all recruits into a working culture that inspires growth. Offer refreshers for promotions and transfers – onboarding isn’t only about an individual’s knowledge of the company. It’s also about how well they know their work. When employees change jobs because they get a promotion or transfer, they should receive some kind of on-boarding. Granted, it doesn’t need to be the same programme that an outside hire receives, but it should help with the transition. Provide on-boarding to managers – managers are responsible for 70 percent of variance in employee engagement. And most organisations don’t have training programmes on “How to Conduct on-boarding,” so many managers learn how to onboard employees from the way they are onboarded. New managers need their own on-boarding programme, beyond management development, to learn how to onboard their employees successfully. Add a pre-boarding component – one of the great tasks that technology can do for us is to send personalised, automated messages to new hires. Organisations can create a pre-hire checklist of messaging to send candidates. The checklist could include a welcome video from On-boarding is a key factor in employee-retention efforts, according to 98 percent of C-Suite executives. But this means that organisations need to have well-designed on-boarding programmes to yield the retention results they need. the Chief Executive Officer, introduction to on-boarding buddies and FAQs about the first day and week. It helps the new hire and adds a higher level of service to on-boarding. Distribute a map – during orientation — a step itself in the on-boarding process — new hires should be provided with a roadmap of what’s going to take place during on-boarding. It lets employees understand that the process has been thought out, and they can focus on their immediate work. On-boarding processes take time. In some organisations, on-boarding can take as long as a year. Providing a roadmap helps employees see the long-term plan. Schedule o-boarding checkins – because on-boarding takes time and resources, it only makes good business sense to ensure that these things are being used well. The last thing any organisation wants is to spend months and money, only to have a new hire leave within the first year. Companies can get feedback from employees through pulse surveys, one-on-one check-in sessions and focus groups. Keep on-boarding content current: – company policies and procedures change all the time. When changes are made, organisations need to •Bright Ampadu Okyere The last thing any organisation wants is to spend months and money, only to have a new hire leave within the first year. Companies can get feedback from employees through pulse surveys, one-onone check-in sessions and focus groups. The usual exit notice period served to current employers also offers the new employer the opportunity to prepare to welcome new hires – office set-up, ID cards and everything needed for the commencement of work must be ready before their first day at work. New hires should be able to hit the ground running with no bottleneck. ask themselves if the information should be added to onboarding and whether the information should update the existing on-boarding programme. New hires should never hear one piece of information in orientation or onboarding, then something different when they’re at work in their departments. On-boarding programme set new hires up for success by educating them about the company, the work and the employeevalue proposition. The goal is to give an employee the information they need right before they need it. This will allow the employee to immediately apply the information in the workplace and also retain it. The on-boarding period is not the time to ask them to ask them to take pictures for ID cards, signing of offer letters amongst others. The usual exit notice period served to current employers also offers the new employer the opportunity to prepare to welcome new hires – office set-up, ID cards and everything needed for the commencement of work must be ready before their first day at work. New hires should be able to hit the ground running with no bottleneck. Today’s on-boarding programme involves more than simply a half- or full-day orientation programme. It’s time to think about on-boarding as a longterm strategy responsible for educating employees before the first day and for months beyond. The investment will result in higher engagement and retention — a win for everyone. Organisations must invest in technology so they can automate most of the processes – this will ensure efficiency and reduce the time wasting. Always remember that retention is better than recruitment.
Inside <strong>June</strong> 7, 2018 .qxp_Layout 1 6/6/18 9:22 PM Page 6 Ways of preventing wrinkles • Stay hydrated Good skin starts from within. Stay hydrated with water, coconut water and green tea (which is full of antioxidants). Not only is moisturising from within important but water rids your body of toxins. • Eat lots of antioxidants Free radicals (unstable molecules that damage our skin – i.e. pollution and toxins) hate antioxidants. Vitamins A, C, & E, and beta carotene are all antioxidants. Here are some sources of antioxidants: • Eat lots of saturated fat Good saturated fats are an essential part of a healthy diet and healthy skin. Saturated fat makes your skin more elastic and more resistant to the oxidative damage from the sun. Sources of saturated fat include grass-fed butter avocados and coconut oil. WWW.DAILYHERITAGE.COM.GH DAILY HERITAGE THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2018 &Env. Prayer camps impeding fight against HIV — AIDS Commission THE GHANA Aids Commission is worried about the activities of some prayer camps and healing centres in the Eastern Region which have become treatment centres for persons living with HIV/AIDS. According to the Commission, some prayer camps have become a place for treatment of patients living with Aids and delivery centres for pregnant women, a situation the Commission says is hindering the fight against HIV in the region. In an interview with ‘Citi News’, a Technical Coordinator with the Ghana Aids Commission in the Eastern Region, Ms Golda Asante, indicated that the activities of the prayer centres posed a significant challenge to achieving the 2030 goal of ending HIV Aids in Ghana. “There was one prayer camp that had 52 pregnant women there, and we were told that that was the least. Sometimes they can get as many as 120. When you look at the total number of pregnant women who attend antenatal, the number who test positive and those who are enrolled in treatment, you can see a gap,” she said. “Some of them instead of going back to access the antiretroviral treatment to prevent their children from contracting the virus will prefer going to the •Ambassador Dr Mokowa Blay Adu- Gyamfi, Director General of Ghana AIDS Commission prayer camps,” she said. Last month, the Society for AIDS in Africa stated that it was critical to train the next generation of researchers who would contribute to tackling HIV/AIDs and other diseases on the African continent. The group’s newly-elected president, Professor John Idoko, commended all HIV and AIDS advocacy groups across the continent for collectively attaining a remarkable feat in the fight. Prof. Idoko, however, noted that in the last decade, new diseases like Ebola and Lassa fever threaten to militate against the fight. In January this year, the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) announced that there was still no known cure or vaccine for HIV and AIDS currently and advised persons living with HIV to stick strictly to the anti-retroviral medication to stay healthy. The Director-General of the Ghana AIDS Commission, Dr Mokowa Blay Adu-Gyamfi, who refuted the claims of herbal cure for HIV at a media briefing in Accra, said these claims should be ignored. “If you think herbal medicines are good for you, have them as supplements like you take vitamins. Please tell everybody who is living with the virus never to neglect to take the antiretroviral medication in addition to the therapy.” Job strain could be harming your heart INDIVIDUALS WITH high-strain jobs are more likely to develop atrial fibrillation, which is a common heartbeat disorder that can significantly raise the risk of stroke. People who have high-stress jobs such as assembly line workers may be more likely to develop A-fib. This was the conclusion of a new Swedish study on work stress, now published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. The researchers define ‘high-strain jobs’ as those that are ‘psychologically demanding’ but give job-holders little control ‘over the work situation.’ Examples include bus driving, nursing and working on assembly lines. Previous studies have linked work stress to coronary heart disease but whether there is also a link to atrial fibrillation (A-fib) is less clear. Preventing A-fib According to first study author Eleanor I. Fransson, who is an associate professor of epidemiology at Jönköping University in Sweden, “A-fib is a common condition with serious consequences and therefore it is of major public health importance to find ways of preventing it.” A-fib affects millions of people in the United States. It occurs when the upper two chambers of the heart (the atria) beat abnormally and disrupt blood flow to the lower two chambers (the ventricles). The condition, which can be temporary or permanent, raises the risk of stroke. A person with A-fib has a four to five times higher risk of having a stroke than a person without it. A study found a 30% higher risk of A-fib among those scoring high on a clinical test for depression and taking antidepressants As well as irregular heartbeat, individuals with A-fib might also experience: chest pain, palpitations (a fluttering or pounding sensation in the heart), shortness of breath, feeling lightheaded, and "extreme fatigue." However, some people with A-fib may have no symptoms and not even realize that they have it. High death rate Each year in the U.S., A-fib is responsible for over 750,000 hospital admissions and contributes to 130,000 deaths. Deaths in which A-fib is a contributory or primary cause have been increasing for the past 20 years. The costs associated with A-fib are substantial. Overall, the burden in the U.S. amounts to $6 billion per year. The average annual medical bill for treating an individual with A-fib is $8,705 higher than for those without it. Demands-control model To assess work stress, Prof. Fransson and team used a measure of job strain that is based on the job demands-control model. It is one of the ‘most widely studied’ models of work stress. It is based on the idea that the effect of job demands on the strain that people experience is ‘buffered’ by the amount of control that they have over their work. For their study, the researchers used a Swedish questionnaire based on the model. It comprises five items on job demands and six on control. The questions ask, for example, whether the individual; has ‘to work very hard or very fast,’ experiences conflicting demands in the job, has enough time to complete tasks, has to complete lots of repetitive tasks and is able to decide which tasks to do and how to do them. Link between job strain and A-fib The researchers used data on 13,200 individuals who constituted a ‘representative sample of the working population’ of Sweden. They were recruited in 2006, 2008, and 2010 to take part of the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health. None of the participants had A-fib or a history of the disorder when they joined the study. Neither did they have a history of heart failure or heart attack. They were all employed, and they all completed a battery of questionnaires when they entered the study. These were sent out by post and included the usual demographic questions plus others about health, lifestyle, and work. The study followed the group for a median of 5.7 years. Using national registers, the researchers identified 145 cases of A-fib during this period. The risk stayed the same when the team further adjusted the results to take into account the effect of exercise, smoking, blood pressure and body mass index (BMI). Pattern 'consistent' with other data The researchers carried out a further analysis in which the SLOSH data were pooled with data from two other similar studies. This found that job strain was linked to a 37% higher risk of A-fib. ‘Across studies,’ states Prof. Fransson, ‘there was a consistent pattern of work stress being a risk factor for atrial fibrillation.’ She urges employees who feel stressed due to work and experience palpitations or any other symptom of A-fib to see their doctor and talk to their boss about improving their situation. “Work stress should be considered a modifiable risk factor for preventing atrial fibrillation and coronary heart disease,” Prof. Fransson. Medical News Today
Page 1 and 2: NO. 100714 THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2018 P
Page 3 and 4: WWW.DAILYHERITAGE.COM.GH DAILY HERI
Page 5: WWW.DAILYHERITAGE.COM.GH DAILY HERI
Page 10 and 11: Inside June 7, 2018 .qxp_Layout 1 6
Page 12 and 13: Inside June 7, 2018 .qxp_Layout 1 6
Page 14 and 15: 14 DAILY WWW.DAILYHERITAGE.COM.GH H
Page 16: Every Ghanaian can own shares in MT

June 7

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?