High-stakes Hiring
There’s a moment of truth in the recruiting process. An exact moment when you literally start realizing or losing the investment you’ve made in finding and acquiring a great hire.
As soon as your offer is accepted, you shift into onboarding. Not the first day of employment: the moment your offer is accepted. When your Employer Brand (a promise you make) becomes Employee Experience (delivering on that promise). Everything you do from the point of offer acceptance affects employee engagement, time to productivity, employee referral, brand loyalty and advocacy, and retention. In other words, the bottom line.
Think the stakes are high? Think about this:
- 4% of employees don’t even show up on their first day
- 20% of new hires quit within the first 45 days
- 90% of employees decide whether to stay with the organization or leave within the first 6 months
- Gallup estimates the cost of actively disengaged employees at $450-550 billion dollars in lost productivity every year
Holy smokes. Let me save the day with this stat:
New employees who went through a structured onboarding program were 58% more likely to be with the organization after three years. (Whew!)
Speed Productivity & Drive Engagement
Every day you take to get an employee 100% productivity is literally costing you money. Any degree below 100% productivity at any point is literally costing you money. Once the decision to hire is made, organizations need to immediately engage. This reduces the risk of losing the employee to counter- or competing offers, shows you’re excited for them to join the team, speeds time to productivity, and sets the tone for employee engagement. What does this look like?
- Reiterate your company purpose and values; employees want to feel connected to their work and the bigger picture.
- Align your new employee with a mentor and/or start to connect them with their teammates. (Only 25% of employees feel connected to their peers! Easy fix, big results.)
- Provide the tools they need to be productive. Have these tools prepared so when they show up on Day One, they feel welcomed and set up for success.
- Prepare an itinerary for their first week on the job; incredible how it reduces anxiety and shows you’re ready to support them.
Strategic Onboarding
The reality is the function of recruiting is just that…to recruit. An organization should not expect a recruiter to onboard if their success is measured by recruiting. You need to ensure a smooth transition from Talent Acquisition to the hiring manager and the business. This is Strategic Onboarding.
What are the tangible wins of strategic onboarding?
- Beat the odds by overcoming the national statistic of 20% turnover in the first 45 days.
- 18% increase in performance and productivity in the first 90 days.
- 50% increase in brand loyalty…imagine having your employees brag about where they work! Certainly makes recruiting easier!
- An engaged (read: happy) employee who is more productive and longer tenured.
You have a secret weapon in the war for talent. Engaging, nurturing, making advocates of, appropriately activating, retaining, and driving to productivity the talent you’ve already won is a competitive edge that will pay massive dividends.
