Hiring Best Practices: Don’t Leave Your New Employees On Their Own

A company’s most important resource is its employees. While companies that can hold a strong workforce continue to grow and develop, we see that companies that fail to achieve this are at best standing still.

One of the best strategies for retaining the workforce is to adopt practices that will ensure the proper recruitment process management.

Recruitment is a process that starts with preparing and publishing the job posting and continues until the end of the new employee’s probationary period. Although the selection and interview stages are as important in the recruitment process due to the nature of Human Resources, we will focus on the practices after the new employee accepts the job offer, which makes this process more productive.

Having an Effective Recruitment Plan

Planning the steps and standardizing the process makes the hiring process most efficient so that the hiring experience is consistent for every new employee.

It is essential to have procedures and customary practices for onboarding new employees. An example is assigning a guide/buddy to whom the new employee can ask questions about the company’s internal processes and help adapt to the company socially.

The new employee must easily access the documentation, instructions, and relevant people when they have questions.

Process Before Onboarding

HR should send a “Welcome” e-mail to the new employee that introduces the company, along with the user name and passwords that may be needed when accessing the systems they will use at work.

HR should announce the new employee’s name, role, and department throughout the company before their first day to familiarize them with other employees.

Your new employee should not spend their first day at work signing documents or waiting for something someone has to prepare for them. A date before the first day should be set for the employee to submit the required paperwork and sign the contract.

In addition, it is no longer necessary to wait for the first working day for the new employee to meet other employees. By organizing online meetings, they can meet their team and department and establish relationships with their colleagues before they even start working.

First Day at Work

The orientation and probationary period processes should be explained thoroughly to the employee on their first working day. Their responsibilities and what is expected of them should be discussed in detail. It is essential to show the tasks they are responsible for, per the company procedures and policies, and answer their questions.

Having the employee’s desk and electronic devices such as computers, work phones, etc. (if the company provides them) ready will shorten the employee’s idle time and make the first day much more productive.

Human Resources and the employee’s team and department managers should show interest in the employee. Even if HR announced the employee’s first day, they should still introduce them to other employees in person.

Team gatherings can be organized to encourage social adaptation on their first days, or they can go out to lunch with their guide/buddy.

“A welcome gift kit” will also help increase the brand value in the new employee’s eyes, and create attachment.

Orientation and Internal Training

New employees will be comfortable with the onboarding if they have an orientation plan because the worst thing that can happen is leaving the people who are supposed to help with the employee’s orientation unguided.

It is crucial to create a similar experience among the employees that do not allow for differences in the orientation process, as it may work differently each time in initiative-based processes.

In addition to the legally compulsory training such as occupational health and workplace safety, the new employee must receive training about the company history, organizational structure, how the company works, internal processes, systems and computer programs used, and company projects. The employee must also receive customized training related to their role.

The training process is fundamental for the new employee to adapt to the company’s business processes and become familiar with the programs and processes. Internal training should be up-to-date and understandable. In addition to the characteristics of the training, the time to be allocated for them is also important. New employees can be stressed if they are given responsibilities before their onboarding. Reserving at least the first week for orientation and training would be helpful.

Prepping for the Role

Despite communicating the job description at the time of the job offer, reminding the new employee of the scope of their role and re-declaring what is expected of them can prevent possible misunderstandings and help release the tension of starting a new job.

During the probationary period, it will be beneficial for the new employee to be given some targets to prepare for the responsibilities and a warm-up for the company’s internal processes.

To monitor the probationary period more effectively, it can help to hold frequent meetings with the new employee, track the progress of their targets, and support their needs.

Benefits of Having a Structured Recruitment Process

Let’s not forget that; even if the employee is experienced, starting a new job can still have stressful aspects. It entails social factors such as getting used to a new environment and new colleagues, as well as professional factors such as taking on the responsibilities required by a new role, perhaps being in situations you have not encountered in previous work experiences. It is crucial to make the employee feel comfortable.

Participating in a well-functioning and smooth hiring process will help increase the employee’s confidence in the company and reduce any question marks about the new job.

In the majority of cases, new employees prefer to leave in the first months of employment. The efficient management of these processes reduces the turnover rate of employees in the first months by almost 80%* and provides companies with longer-term, stable business relationships.