Benefits of Effective Recruitment and Onboarding

A bad hire is not only costly, but it can be toxic to an organization. If someone isn’t the right fit, it affects the team’s performance and morale creates an unpleasant experience for the new employee and involves another expensive and time-consuming rehiring process. As Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says, “I’d rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person.”

By the same token, a good hire needs to be nurtured, informed, and integrated to accelerate productivity and improve retention. Job trend surveys show inefficient onboarding processes lead to one-third of new employees quitting within the first six months. So, it is critical for organizations to show a good first impression, cultivate new hires, and prevent the unnecessary liabilities that come with ineffective recruitment and onboarding.

Refining Recruitment

A company is only as successful as its people, which places a strong emphasis on having a solid recruitment process. Employers need to focus on taking an active approach in finding the best candidates and not simply through posting a job vacancy and hoping for the best.

Talent acquisition specialist, Mervyn Dinnen researched emerging trends in employee recruitment and engagement while co-authoring the book, Exceptional Talent underlines the key factors in refining the recruitment process.

Companies should identify and reach out to the best candidates, even those who are not actively seeking new employment.

Active recruitment can involve engaging with potential employees through trade shows, job fairs, visiting college campuses, incentivized employee referrals, and word of mouth. When you have a job vacancy, it is a chance to present opportunities to top talent whether they are looking for it or not.  

Job seekers are now basing their application and joining decisions on what they perceive a company is like to work for and how they are treated during the hiring process.

When it comes to interviewing, screening, and hiring, it is important to have unobstructed processes. Lack of feedback, convoluted procedures and disinterested or under-prepared interviewers registered highly as the biggest frustrations experienced by applicants.

The recruitment process should be an exciting journey in finding quality people that will drive the company’s success and it should offer a compelling experience to the potential employee.

Optimizing Onboarding

Compare the experience between new employees having to self-navigate in a new company and those who are engaged early through a structured strategy. The former is most likely to leave within the first year (if not sooner) because of the lack of integration and information, and lack of clarity on their role and the company culture.

Mervyn Dinnen emphasizes how early integration influences a new employee’s commitment to the organization long term.

The most important part of the employee life cycle is the onboarding phase.

When new employees start off knowing they have the support and the tools to show what they can do, they start off on the right foot. And this increases their chance of becoming productive team members in a shorter period of time.

The time between accepting a job offer and starting the first day of work is typically the time when new employees get the least amount of information. But it is a great opportunity to begin an engagement.

Onboarding Checklist

The onboarding process can be optimized through automated workflows that start with getting the employment contract signed, and giving the new hire access to important company policies that they can review before the first working day. By the time the new employee arrives, they are not uninformed nor overwhelmed.

By incorporating the following checklist into an onboarding workflow will ensure the HR and employee process is a smooth and enjoyable transition.

• Initiate job contract
• Manager and HR approval
• Employee agreement and sign
• Open employee file and payroll
• Request employee tax and banking details
• Activate employee system access
• Allocate IT resources to prepare the work environment
• Assign colleague for office tour – day 1
• Meeting with manager and team – day 1
• Set goals and milestones – week 1

Give your new employees the confidence they need to get a head start on their and your future success.

Leverage Technology

Technology is needed to help you achieve consistency. Consider using a HR document management system (DMS) to streamline the employee onboarding processes. DMS equips the HR team with tools such as automated work-flows, role-based access, notifications, digital signatures, and secure document repositories. With these, HR can focus on promoting the well-being and development of everyone who joins your team.