Posted By Ann Hacon Good afternoon My organisation are revamping a 55 minute induction session which is delivered at a 'welcome day' along with other induction subjects. The purpose of the session is to provide an overview of our organisation, access to information, statistics, responsibilities etc. to groups of delegates who are from very different departments. I am interested in finding out about the methods of delivery and content of induction/training which receive good feedback. With thanks

Posted By Alec Wood In my experience, induction and other presentations benefit from some kind of interaction between presenter and audience. It's important that everyone receives the same standard of presentation, but this can benefit from some tailoring to the audience. A mixture of pre-prepared presentation and ad-lib can be used to maintain audience interest and stop the sleepy heads nodding off. Just because the presentation is not exactly the same every time, it doesn't mean that the same information was not delivered or that the same standard of delivery was not employed. I work from a laptop and projector and use a mixture of slideshows and video. I try not to put all the detail on slides, just the headers, so I am not merely stood up reading the contents of the screen - the audience are normally quite capable of doing that themselves. I have also found some points, particularly in health & safety, can benefit from group discussion. Multimedia files such as videos can be embedded into Powerpoint, or alternative software can be used to bring together all elements of your presentation, I like Macromedia Director. Pauses can be added so that you can do Q&A slots or stop for a coffee. The whole lot can be burned to a CD very cheaply. Many companies will produce a PC based individual induction package, complete with Q&A session and photographic verification of the person doing the induction which is very handy for contractors and the like. I was impressed with a demo from local company Harlington Straker (info@harlington-straker.co.uk). The DVD solution mentioned above is very cheap if you record your video as SVCD and record to CD rather than DVD. Most of the common CD authoring software will do this for you, and almost all DVD players will play SVCD. Alec Wood