My big bugaboo (I love that word) is employee retention and of course the big secret to retention is engagement but what appears to be lost on many people is how the recruiting experience can help set a platform for that.
I was reading an article recently on how employee engagement starts with onboarding.
Unfortunately, if 100 people read this article, 88 of you are doing a garbage job (not my stats, don’t shoot the messenger) at onboarding. Yet, a third of companies in one survey also admitted they spend diddly over squat on onboarding.
It’s quite odd to me that you’d spend a boat load of money at recruiting people but drop the ball as soon as they walk in the door on day one.
This is the bit where 88 of you stop reading and I have self selected my audience to 12 people.
So here goes with the earth shattering news, the employee experience starts with a candidate experience, not just pre-employment but also when going through the recruitment experience.
Other earth shattering news, this isn’t a Gateway plug, we could do better. Confession time over. I don’t think any recruiting company can claim a good job though.
Here’s the thing, open lines of communication, near complete transparency on the process (obviously, there’s alot of information we just aren’t allowed to share) and complete clarity on the new hire’s role ahead of day one are essential.
It’s astounding to me how many search firms, human resources departments and hiring managers rely on a job description as the core of any employee search.
A job description is a great place to start but the key is that everybody makes an informed decision ahead of the acceptance of a job offer.
Only then can we improve some of these statistics.
25% of employees quitting inside 90 days of starting.
Of those, 43% saying that they didn’t know what the expectations were of them (lay that one firmly at the door of the agency, recruiter or search firm if you used one).
44% of new employees have considered quitting.
Contrast this with Messer’s, a leading industrial gas supply company that even has a term for it, they call it, pre-boarding. It’s a program designed to educate the new employee on corporate goals and culture, complemented by a learning and development program that is customized to that person’s learning style and the role and all neatly wrapped up in new employee and manager surveys to make sure that it is totally transparent.
You only get to that transparency with security in your position as either a new employee or a manager.
Preboarding, I like that word.
And bugaboo.
