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Attracting talent into your business or organisation is not an easy feat. It’s highly competitive for employers to attract the right candidates and challenging to secure those that have the best skills and experience to bring into the role and add value to your organisation.
The time and resource required to recruit, and onboard new starters can be expensive. So, the last thing you want or need, is to lose them to another job offer from a competitor or another business just before the last hurdle – becoming a part of your organisation. But there is something you can do that could help stop your new starters from being poached…
It’s all about having the right approach to onboarding in your organisation
Recent Glassdoor research has shown that having a strong onboarding process can improve new hire retention by 82%. Onboarding can mean different things to different people and different organisations. It is mainly the act of getting a new employee familiar with and integrated into an organisation. Most people think this is something you do with a new starter from their first day of work, when actually it’s something you can do right from the moment they accept their job offer with you.
The minute they accept your job offer to when they join your organisation is a crucial part in the recruitment process. As they may still be waiting to hear back from other job interviews, so it’s important you ensure that they start to feel a part of your organisation and brand from this point onwards. Long notice periods can often mean new starters hear nothing from their new employer since they accepted their job offer; and in some cases, this can mean no communication with their new employer for up to 3 months before they start. This doesn’t paint a great picture of the work culture or type of organisation they’re going to be joining soon; which could lead to some people jumping ship if another offer comes on the table that has a similar package but a more welcoming culture.
So, what can HR do to improve your onboarding process?
Think about the communication you can put in place to ensure that you keep in contact with your new starters. What different updates could you provide in the weeks to come before they join? What can you tell them about the organisation to help them get a better sense of the workplace, their team, the culture and environment? This all helps keep them engaged with your organisation, feeling part of the team, and less likely to seek another offer.
It’s great if you can get your new starters day one ready so they can focus on getting to know their new team and familiarising themselves with their new role. You can do this effectively by getting role specific or organisational documents completed before they’ve even joined. Getting your new starters to provide their personal data and giving consent for it to be processed. As well as any policies or training that needs undertaking before they can commence work in their role. All these things can help better integrate your new starters for when they join by getting all the necessary admin and compliance tasks out of the way.
Don’t underestimate the time it takes to onboard successfully. It’s important to take the time to prepare and develop your new starters to ensure they’re set up effectively in their role and able to integrate successfully into the workplace. So, whilst you’re setting up your onboarding processes prior to them joining the organisation. Also think about the onboarding processes that are required in their first few weeks of them joining. Make sure you also follow up with new starters to see how they’re getting on and take the time to ask for feedback to see where you can improve, to benefit other new hires that later join the organisation.
All of this can be done successfully and efficiently through the onboarding HR software from Access. The onboarding features within Access’ software for HR professionals is well placed to support you in your talent management and recruitment objectives and goals. It is specifically designed to help you create and secure a better relationship between your organisation and new starters, enabling you to open up the conversation and begin embedding your new hires into your organisation and workplace culture before their official start date. You can discover more about our HR onboarding software here; or if you’d like to see what else our HR software can offer your organisation. Then watch our role specific demo videos to get to know more about the other HR features you could be taking advantage of and see how different roles in your organisation might use it.
