Retention Begins with the Interview and Onboarding
How do you ensure employee retention? That’s a question many companies and hiring managers ask themselves. If you’re looking for one clear-cut, all-encompassing answer then you’re out of luck. Instead, there are many factors that contribute to employee retention:
Company culture
Management and leadership
Benefits
Salary
Flexibility
Training
Development
The list could go on. The idea is that, if all or most of these factors are satisfying to an employee, they’ll remain with the company for longer periods of time. However, when employees feel that any (or all) of these factors are lacking, they will update their resumes and start actively looking for a new position.
Shifting Focus
While most companies focus their retention efforts on their existing staff, there are two audiences they are ignoring: job candidates and new hires. The seeds of retention or resignation are often planted with these audiences.
As you are aware, the current job market is making it difficult for hiring managers to fill vacant positions. Currently, job seekers have the upper hand since there are more jobs than candidates to fill them. Many applicants are turning down jobs for a variety of not-so-obvious reasons. For example, they don't feel like they’re a good fit for the company culture based on the job description; the interview leaves them cold or unimpressed; they accept the job, only to ‘ghost’ when a more enticing offer comes in shortly thereafter. Or, if things go awry during onboarding, they may leave just after a few days or weeks.
With this knowledge in hand, it’s important to focus on new employee retention early in your relationship with candidates and new hires. We’ll discuss some simple solutions you can implement in your interview and onboarding phases to help cultivate employee retention.
Define the Company’s Culture
During job interviews, the candidate and the hiring manager both want to determine whether or not specific skills and qualifications are met. The candidate wants to be certain that they can successfully carry out the responsibilities the job requires. The hiring manager wants to be certain, too.
In addition to being able to perform the job requirements, the candidate also wants to be sure they’ll be a good fit for the company’s culture. The job description may have only offered a boilerplate overview of the company. Perhaps it focused on the company’s background and success, but it didn’t clearly define its culture. The interview provides the opportunity for the candidate to ask questions to get the bigger picture. It gives them a chance to learn what it’s like to work in the respective department.
Many hiring managers can shed more light on the company itself. Unfortunately, they don’t often possess in-depth knowledge of the various departmental environments. There are some simple ways hiring managers can give candidates a better understanding of the company and the environment where the prospective employee may work. For example:
Conduct a company-wide tour for candidates to help them familiarize them with the physical workspace. It also humanizes the company culture that was outlined in the job description and discussed in the interview.
Arrange a less formal conversation with various members of the department. This allows the candidates to meet and interact with their prospective coworkers.
These simple steps help candidates determine if the company and position meet their expectations. In turn, these solutions allow hiring managers to observe each candidate’s personality to see if there’s a connection with the company’s culture.
Practice Great Onboarding
Now that you’ve hired a qualified candidate, it’s time to onboard them. For many candidates, the onboarding process is similar to a child attending a new school. There are so many new people, procedures, and locations to absorb that it can be a bit overwhelming. That’s why it’s extremely important to clearly outline the onboarding process.
A poorly defined onboarding process that takes a “sink or swim” approach to new hires is a sure-fire way to lower new employee retention rates. Expecting someone to immediately familiarize themselves with the company’s policies, get used to their surroundings, and perform the job with little training and no real support system produces negative results. It may lead to an abrupt parting of ways, or it can spur a resignation within the first weeks or months. Then it’s back to the hiring process and job coverage scenarios, yet again.
Focusing on specific topics each day or week allows the new employee to feel more welcome, relaxed and confident. The first day should allow the employee to adjust to their new environment. After that, various training sessions should be scheduled each day for a specified period of time. As the new employee’s skills and confidence grow, they will be able to work more independently and boost their productivity and effectiveness. All of which will contribute to employee retention.
As you can see, employee retention shouldn’t solely focus on existing employees. It needs to consider the needs and wants of prospective and new employees, too. By implementing suggestions like the ones discussed above, your organization will improve its productivity and culture thanks to happy, focused employees.
Relying on an experienced staffing agency like Elite Personnel can help strengthen your retention efforts, too. Allow us to help streamline your search efforts by finding qualified candidates that not only meet your needs but also align with your company culture. Contact our staffing experts to learn more about how we can help fill your available positions with quality candidates.