How to ensure your prized recruits start work and stay with the business

So you’ve entered the world of social recruiting and have now successfully found and offered your ideal employee. Challenge over, right? Wrong! Whilst finding talent is a big challenge in today’s world, ensuring that person starts and then stays with you is equally as challenging and frequently overlooked.

Having worked in the recruitment industry for 17 years I’ve seen many a firm fall short in this area (including some of those I’ve worked for). I’ve spent time understanding why so many of us get new employee on-boarding and induction wrong and what we should be doing to up our game in this area, to retain our people.

Mind the Gap

Working a notice period can be a stressful and emotional time, so from the moment your newly found future employee accepts your offer; your on-boarding process needs to begin. In the recruitment industry we call it ‘Mind the Gap’!

Ask yourself, “How can I get this person emotionally engaged with my business and disengaged with their old employer before they are even working for me?” Your answer to this question will be your on-boarding process. For example, get them to meet the team for a drink, invite them to any events, send them details of what you have planned for them for their first few weeks, tell them about company successes or wins, ask them questions about their requirements (phone, laptop, business cards etc.), give access to the firms social media, send printed brochures.

Essentially, just come up with any excuse to keep in touch with them and set about preparing everything they need for their arrival. I once worked for a firm who refused to print business cards until their staff had been there 3 months! Nothing like a vote of no confidence!

Inductions & Mentor Programs

Now they are with you, how can you properly induct them? Induction should have two parts; a primary induction and a secondary induction. A primary should include a welcome to the business from the MD/President, an explanation of the firm’s objectives and how their role fits into this, a tour of the work place, a brief explanation of the rules and regs, an explanation of the promotion criteria and career opportunities and how they get paid and rewarded. Several years ago I was staggered to receive a hand written welcome card from my new employer’s Managing Director. In fact I probably still have it somewhere! Ensure everyone knows they’re starting.

The secondary induction needs to cover specific training and development for this role and in my view it should be delivered by the new recruit’s line manager. There’s a well know saying which is “people join organisations but they leave managers”, so set about cementing that relationship early. Ensure you produce quality material not a collection of out of date, hand written instructions. Start with the basics and deliver it in short chunks over a period of approximately 3 months. Let the new recruit know exactly what you will be covering and when. Ensure they have material they can refer back to so they don’t feel overwhelmed and let them feel successful early on, then they will want more!

In addition to an induction, access to a well-chosen buddy or mentor can also support the manager further with building the emotional engagement of their new recruit to the organisation.

Concluding Thoughts

So don’t waste all of the time you have invested in sourcing and recruiting your new hire; spend a bit more time with on-boarding, inducting and engaging them and your investment is more likely to stick with you for the long term.

Good luck

James