On-boarding for the journey?
Talk today is all about talent acquisition and retention. It costs a lot of money to recruit new staff members, so the hope is that they stay for a long time, or long enough to really benefit from their skills and talents. With the younger generations, Millennials and Gen Zs, there is a greater requirement for work that is meaningful, or at least enjoyable.
They want to feel that they are making a contribution from the beginning and that they can see how they fit into the organisation, and where they can go. No one looks to join and stay in the same role for the next 30 or 40 years – those days have long gone, thank goodness!
The reality is that how you start your employees work journey is a great indicator of how it will go! You only get one chance to make a first impression is true not just for interviews but also for the new recruit’s first workplace experience. If you miss the opportunity to onboard them effectively you will never get them to deliver the real value and contribution that they could make.
Alan Hosking of HR Future says:
When someone is about to start working for your company, they will never be more motivated. They’re keen to start a new job, keen to meet your team, keen to identify with your brand, keen to grow through the ranks.
That keenness can soon wilt away if the organisation is not ready to welcome them, make sure that their resources are available, that they meet the right people and feel the organisational values that were sold to them at their interview. Historically by the third week or employment the new recruit has an idea of whether they are in your organisation for a long or short stay.
Joining a new company is like moving to a new place. You are the stranger, and you have to break into this community. That can be very challenging for many people, particularly younger people with little workplace experience. They don’t know how things work around here and having a buddy or mentor can make that ‘breaking in’ so much smoother.
As humans, we have a need to belong and to have connection. Some people do this easily because they are more extrovert and can proactively reach out to others. There are many who are more introverted or cautious and need to feel their way slowly. Settling in can be a slow process for them and this delays them being able to give you their best performance.
An effective onboarding reduces the time to confidence and productivity. Having a team welcome a new member can be challenging. It unsettles the status quo and the dynamics, so you can wait and see what happens or you can set out to enable good things to happen.
Coaching and mentoring of new staff members can be a very effective way of transitioning them into the workplace. Their technical training requirements are probably planned for, but their own personal development in terms of transitioning, whether from education to work, or one company to another, is very rarely supported. New job = change. And even with enthusiasm change is not easy!
We work with all levels of management and leadership and with teams to bring them ‘chameleon skills’, the ability to be adaptable, to move forward into the new role and to leave behind those behaviours or beliefs that will no longer be relevant or required in the new environment.
Click here here to find out more about our Integrating Graduate Talent Programme. We are here to help you whether it is one individual or many. The small investment in on-boarding will enable you to reap benefits in commitment, performance and delivery.
References:
https://muckrack.com/alan-hosking