One of the tools for creating a professional South African public service, committed to the values, principles and ethics of government, is a compulsory, government-wide and generic induction programme. The Public Administration, Leadership and Management Academy (PALAMA) - now the National School of Government (NSG) - was tasked with the development and rollout of such a programme. Due to the size of the South African Public Service, geographic realities, the limitations of traditional induction programmes and the value of workplace learning, finding an innovative approach to learning and the development of new entrants was essential. The result was that conventional contact tuition evolved into a blended learning approach, enabling participants to tap into the benefits of eLearning. This research article focuses on induction training in the South African Public Service with emphasis on the rationale and context of induction, as wel