Induction of Consultants in Professional Education: A Case Study at UNICO

Abstract

Entering a new workplace is a feeling that almost everyone is familiar with. Training newcomers at a company is a time requiring and necessary process for all organizations. This case study aimed to investigate this process, also referred to as the "induction process". This has been done earlier but not on jobs with a large focus on teaching. Three research questions were formulated: (1) What factors affect the induction of newly employed trainers and consultants? (2) How are the consultants/trainers employed at UNICO inducted for their role as professional educators and what is the consultants/trainers' assessment of their induction process? (3) What aspects of the induction process can be improved and how? The thesis used a qualitative approach. Primarily, interviews were used to collect data and were complemented by observation and a document study. The results both supported and contradicted previous research on the subject. The social aspects of the induction process were found to be important but of a more complex nature than what previous research suggested. The results also indicated that in some aspects a more individualized and less structured approach was preferable. Further, the organization's efforts of providing information impacted the newcomers' experience of their induction. From the acquired data and previous literature, some aspects of improvement were suggested as recommendations to UNICO.