When new hires don't work out, you may be quick to assume the employee wasn't a good fit for your company. However, new hires are also evaluating your culture, and a poorly planned onboarding process can prevent them from feeling welcomed and valued by the team. If your company makes these common mistakes, consider overhauling your practices to improve employee turnover.
1. Failing to Explain Responsibilities
Despite having experience in a similar position, new hires don't walk in knowing exactly what your company expects from them. Communicating the company's vision and current goals can help employees solve problems and prioritize their work, instead of struggling to decide what to do next. Explaining their responsibilities and how these tasks improve daily operations gives new hires a sense of how they fit into the team.
2. Being Unprepared
If you want employees to stick around, show them they're worth taking the time to set up a comfortable workspace. Starting a new job is nerve-wracking enough without the added awkwardness of working in a storeroom, hunting around for supplies and bothering co-workers for pass codes. When choosing a start date, make sure HR has all the required information to set up accounts and grant access to essential materials. Provide a functional workstation equipped with typical supplies for the first few weeks on the job, but also inform new hires where to find anything else they need.
3. Disengaging Too Soon
In most cases, new hires are surrounded by strangers, and they may find it difficult to break into the social landscape without help. Formally introduce new hires to their direct co-workers and department leaders, and invite them to lunch to get to know everyone outside work. Spending weeks eating alone and overhearing cliques discussing their weekend plans can make new workers feel unwanted.
Avoid overwhelming employees by trying to introduce them to the whole company at once. Instead, write an interesting profile for each new hire, and share it with the entire company in a newsletter or email. At the same time, continue checking with new employees to make sure they don't have problems or concerns they're afraid to voice. When they fail to form strong connections, employees have little incentive to stick around if a better offer comes along.
4. Piling On the Rules
Training and company policies are essential to the onboarding process, but they don't have to be the first things new hires experience. Making employees suffer through hours of training when they're already nervous is a recipe for boredom, and your anxious, captive audience may not remember the majority of what they hear. Relieve new-job fears and immediately engage employees in the company culture by planning creative onboarding events. At the Grand Wailea Resort in Hawaii, new employees complete a property tour the first day and compete in a scavenger hunt the second day to test their memories of the layout.
New hires are in the stressful position of having to absorb vast amounts of information while appearing positive and in control at every moment. Make their transition easier by outlining how to succeed in your company and creating an environment where everyone feels important and included.
Photo courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Become a member to take advantage of more features, like commenting and voting.
Register or sign in today!