The former England manager oversaw a 1-0 home defeat to Southampton in his first match in charge of Palace, and after Tuesday's game, his side face Premier League fixtures with Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea in the coming weeks.
He has already admitted that it could be some time before Palace, currently occupying bottom place in the league table, significantly improve, despite his confidence he will be able to steer them to safety.
Having previously succeeded with Fulham and West Brom, Hodgson revealed the first stages of that process.
"I'll have a chance on Tuesday to see a few more (players)," said Hodgson, who signed a two-year contract at Palace last week, 14 months after resigning as England manager.
"Going forward, I'll have a much better idea of the playing personnel, and that's a very important factor.
"That was an important part at Fulham: looking at the playing personnel, working out who's going to be good enough on the field and who's going to be really ready to roll their sleeves up and die for us in this cause because we're not doing too well. That'll be the main thing.
"In terms of confidence you've got to be careful. You can't just go round to people all the time saying: 'You'll be okay, you'll be fine, that was all right, bad luck', because they need more than that.
"What you have to have is: 'Look, what we're doing here, or what you're doing there, that's not what we want, that's not good enough, you've got to do this, that and the other'. And we've got to show them that in training, that's what I mean by working in training."