Even in these times of economic uncertainty, the number of people who leave their employment voluntarily is pretty static – about 13.5 per cent in 2010, according to a recent CIPD survey. And that can be a huge cost to organisations – particularly in terms of lost expertise and return on investment, plus the cost of recruiting new staff and the impact on productivity.
Download the full New Employee Induction Factsheet.
There are many crunch points that may result in the departure of an employee. And one of them is right at the beginning of the relationship – more than 10 per cent of employees leave in the first six months. The reason too often is simply a lack of support. Other times it is a lack of care and attention in the critical first days and weeks when employees most need to be engaged if they are to stay engaged for the long term.
2011 is bringing new recruits to many organisations. Morrisons has announced it is creating 6,000 jobs, with Tesco promising 9,000, Sainsbury’s 6,500 and John Lewis and Microsoft 4,000 each. If you are expecting new joiners, do you know how you will engage with them early on and how you will build on that? I don’t mean when they walk in the door on day one. Rather, do you know how you will engage with them from the moment they apply for the job? If not, you should.
Too many organisations recruiting in a downturn are more concerned about managing the anticipated deluge of applications than managing the organisation’s reputation throughout the process. And that can mean negative sentiments abounding. Even among successful applicants whose own misgivings and anxieties about changing jobs – or joining a new employer perhaps after a period of redundancy – may be totally overlooked in a mechanised recruitment ‘procedure’.
To engage new recruits, employers need to think about every step of the process from application, interview and job offer to day one – and beyond. Yet too often the induction process is not thought to start until the new joiner reaches the door. That is a mistake – and a massive missed opportunity. Because not only are engaged employees more likely to stay longer, they are also better placed to be more productive and build positive customer relationships from day one.
Find out more in our New Employee Induction Factsheet or check out our recent induction training case study.
Skillsmart Retail has worked with Calibre HR & Training for a number of years with great success. The work it has done with us embedding organisational objectives across the organisation, developing new managers and management team building has really helped our business. Steve Walker and his colleagues develop a real empathy with the team and that delivers real results for the business.
How I agree with this article, and how employers need to consider their employer brand far more than they do. With so many candidates out there, what makes one employer stand out from the rest?
Over the last year, I have been involved as a candidate in the recruitment and interviewing process several times and I have to be honest and say that overall it has been a fairly underwhelming experience. Some of the interviews have been very poor in terms of questioning and structure. Even worse, is dealing with recruitment consultants, who do seem overwhelmed at the number of cv’s they are getting, rather than a focus on the quality of the candidate. I just feel that some employers are missing out on really good people because the quailty of their process is so poor. With my level of experience (and age!) if this is how I am finding things, then imagine what it must be like for a much younger person?
Finally, courtesy costs nothing, and when someone has taken the time to apply for any job, I don’t think it is too much to ask that they at least get an acknowledgement for that, or some notification that they hadn’t been successful, and a bit of feedback that could help them in the future. I know that people are a bit scared about doing this, however, if you have used a fair and objective system, then there should be nothing to be afraid of.
Off the soap box now!
Good luck to all job seekers
Best wishes
Claire
Claire, thanks for sharing your experiences. I’ve been running training recently for young people coming to the end of their work experience contracts. Their frustrations are real and they feel the rejection more than anybody when it comes to repeated applications that go into a black hole never to be heard of again. If only employers could hear the conversations we’ve been having about their sloppy recruitment processes they would be ashamed. However I suspect they don’t really care and the issue of having thier brand talked about in negative terms on social media is just passing them by. Shame. They need to look up now and again and put some effort into linking all aspects of their brand including how they treat prospective employees.