How to retain job hoppers
While an improved economy should be a good thing, it has created something of a dilemma for employers. With the job market up, employees have more job opportunities to choose from, which has made it difficult for companies to retain their employees long-term. It costs an average of $4,000, not including salary and wages, to hire a new employee, making the current job hopping frenzy expensive for employers to keep up with.
As the workforce leans towards finding careers that are meaningful and open to growth opportunities, their search has become less about money and more about fulfillment. So, what can employers do with their onboarding processes to ensure a long-term commitment of their new hires?
Streamline the onboarding process
Now that the job market has given employees the upper hand, there’s a certain level of intolerance when it comes to feeling unfulfilled. With nearly 90% of employees deciding to stay or leave with the first six months of employment, it’s more important than ever that employers engage their new hires as soon as they are hired.
Employers can get their new employees involved in getting acquainted and learning the job sooner if they streamline the tedious, dreaded portions of onboarding. Companies that have standard onboarding processes experience 50% greater new hire retention. By having an updated, all-encompassing onboarding software, employers can expedite new hire paperwork and start engaging their new people in the company culture and job duties as soon as possible.
Click Boarding offers a fully configurable, paperless employee onboarding software to employers that allows them to keep onboarding processes standardized, but also customizable to the organization’s own business rules and processes. Once the not-so-fun introductory stages of onboarding are completed, you can focus on ways to acquaint your new hires with the company, colleagues and their exciting, new career!
Use unique onboarding tactics
It may be more appropriate to call them “welcoming” tactics, since that is a big part of what they should achieve. It can be easier said than done, however, to keep the onboarding processes exciting and engaging. There is no one way to do it, but here are some suggestions:
- Use gamification to inform new hires about the company products, policies and procedures. A survey conducted by the Aberdeen Group discovered that out of those surveyed, the companies that made use of gamification increased engagement by 48% and improved turnover by 36%.
- Introduce new hires to their colleagues by having each department present themselves, what they do, and how it contributes to the bigger picture. This simultaneously helps new hires learn who everyone is, but they get to learn about what everyone’s purpose is.
- Ask new hires to fill out a survey of non-traditional questions that shed some light on what kind of personality they have and what their interests are. Then, have a team member construct a fun bio and share it with the company and on social media. Make a big fuss about your newest addition so they feel important and valued.
- Acquaint new hires with important team members, supervisors and managers by scheduling various lunch dates in the first month or so of their employment. This gives new hires a chance to get to know the team on a more personal level.
Once you’ve determined what kind of interesting tactics to throw into the early onboarding processes, it’s time to make a long-term plan for keeping your new hire engaged.
Plan out onboarding… for the long term
Despite the fact that it can take a year or longer for a new employee to reach full productivity, only 15% of organizations extend their onboarding past 6 months. Engaging the workforce is a job that never really ends. If employers want to keep their new hires from seeking out greener pastures, they should consider making their onboarding processes extend into the first year of employment. Here are some tips for how to focus each milestone of onboarding:
- The first month: this is the time to acquaint new hires with the job duties, policies and procedures entailed in their position. Training is a huge part of getting new employees engaged as soon as possible so companies should implement training during the first couple of weeks on the job.
- The first three to six months: this is the perfect time for managers, supervisors and team members to communicate regularly with new employees about performance. They should feel comfortable seeking out help when needed. Now that the new hire has learned the ropes, continuous feedback is what is going to help them hone their skills, catch mistakes, and take corrective action when needed. It’s also a great way to establish rapport and trust with the rest of the team.
- The first year: when the first year is up, the new hire can finally be considered a long-term employee. What this means for managers is that they can finally make an honest, well-guided judgment on the employee’s productivity and skills. If they decide the employee is going to fit in long-term, the first year mark is the best time to start having conversations about their future with the company and their individual career development.
As retaining employees becomes more of a challenge, companies have to seek out new and innovative ways to engage their workforce. Investing their efforts during the onboarding stages is the best way to ensure the long-term commitment of those precious new hires. Want to revolutionize your onboarding processes? Ask how Click Boarding’s employee onboarding software can help!
