9 Easy Ways to Improve Employee Retention of Your New Hires

What are you doing as an organization to actively encourage retention of your new hires for their first year? Communication here, in various forms, is crucial!

New hires are the people who have the least loyalty to your organization. They have not built up a retirement account or pension with you; they usually have no great long-term friendships among the other employees or appreciation for how the organization helped them when things were tough for them a few years ago.

New hires know how to find jobs, and have fresh contacts among recruiters and other influential people. They will have no difficulty leaving for a better job elsewhere, if they are unhappy with your company.

New hires need a lot of training, from technical skills to corporate culture. It is very expensive to train them and difficult to watch them leave if they are unhappy. New hires'  first impression of your company should be an impressive one, where  a supervisor, colleagues and trainers communicate enthusiasm about their new hire and have a coordinated plan to work with the person. If a group of people (including people currently in that job less than 2 years themselves) thinks ahead of time about what a newcomer needs to know, there will be fewer episodes of "you should know by now to _____" or "someone should have told you when you started to __________" when in fact orientation did not include that information (or maybe a formal orientation did not even happen).

Provide new hires with a dictionary of acronyms and jargon used at your company and in your industry. One new hire walked into a staff meeting her first day, and was handed an agenda filled with acronyms. In addition, the person leading the meeting used many more acronyms. The meeting leader was aware of all her new staff members sitting there confused, but did not explain what the terms meant. She was in effect providing a negative first impression of her organization and wasting the time of the new hires. If a dictionary of acronyms had been provided, or the acronyms had been explained, at least they would have understood the subjects being discussed, and felt that somebody had prepared for their arrival.

Avoid hitting new employees with a tsunami of new information the first days. Teach them the essentials then, and then bring them back for more on a frequent basis. How much can new employees be expected to understand in a day?  Clearly, all the information they are given is not equally important for their job. In many organizations, each department representative is asked to present the most important information new hires need to know about that department. This includes many forms and procedures.

Later, some of the many department heads and others who presented information to dazed and overwhelmed new employees  made comments  to the new employees similar to these:
When I talked to your group at your orientation, I told you you must never do X; don't you remember? (Clearly the department representatives had no idea of how many facts, procedures and forms the new employees heard that day from many representatives, or how many such facts a person can recall.)

When you teach new employees how to use software, be prepared to give them their user names and passwords immediately.  This is especially true when the company uses several types of software and the employee may get confused between them. As one frustrated trainer scolded a new employee, "You were taught on your first day how to use that software; even though you didn't get your password for 4 months, you should have remembered what you were taught!"Adult learning doesn't work that way; how much would you recall from a detailed-filled course that was given that long ago and not referred to since then?

Focus on your new hires! Meet with them at least quarterly, and preferably monthly, to review their progress.  Ask them simply, "How are you doing? How can I help you?" Then...simply listen to them. If they don't answer, maintain a 30 second pause until they hopefully say something.  At first they may be reticent, as you are their supervisor. Keep asking, that day and on future days, until they trust you enough to ask for your help. Frequently praise specific details of their performance, and let them know how they can climb the career ladder or otherwise achieve their career goals. If you can give them a small raise sometime during the year, it will make a big impact.

Find out as soon as employees are hired what matters most to them: career growth, continuing learning opportunities, job security, team work, travel if related to work, or something else. Use that knowledge as you work with them.

On the first day the employees are at your company, ask one of their colleagues to take them to lunch (on the company nickel) and get to know them as people. Have those colleagues mentor them for the first month or so, checking in with the person frequently to see how he is doing and if he has questions.  Help the new employees make more connections, possibly through being involved in cross-departmental  teams or working on projects with various employees. Friendships help an employee decide to stay at a company.

Make a photo gallery of all the employees in a given department or in a small organization. Underneath their photos, write their names and job titles. Post this where the new employees can see it; it will help them learn their colleagues names' faster, especially if the organization is large,  operates on 2 or 3 shifts, or has employees (such as sales or training staff) who are frequently in other locales. It will also help the other employees' learn the new ones' names.

The Gallup 12 questions, as they are known, are powerful ones. Use them when an employee is hired, and then regularly to assess progress and increase engagement.
 
It takes a lot of work for a new employee to fit into a corporate culture and learn all that is expected.
Work to retain the new employees, or you will be training their replacements soon! Show them that you value their prior experience and ideas they bring to your organization. Take time to ask them to tell you some things that other organizations do differently, and which may help your company. Their fresh observations may help you understand what potential employees (and maybe customers) may see when they look at your company. If you ask for this information on an anonymous basis (maybe through a checklist) soon after they are hired,  it is possible that they will be more willing to tell you helpful negatives as well as positives.

For many more tips on powerful communication and leadership, get the e-book Executive Communication Strategies, by Katie Schwartz of Business Speech Improvement.    

Business Speech Improvement offers seminars on communication strategies for leadership development. Check out the details (including the agenda) now!

What is your outgoing voice message saying about you?

When a prospective customer, client, friend or someone else calls your business or personal phone, he may hear your outgoing voice message. What impressions are others getting of you after hearing this?

Today I called a luxury hotel and heard the outgoing message of the director of a department. The message was very fast and I had to listen very carefully to understand the person's pronunciation.
The message included the date the person recorded it, as in "Today is ____. I am in the office today." The problem was that the this was not the date I was calling on, so the message had not been updated.

The impression I got was of someone who speaks fast and may not pay attention to details, such as the date or his speech. I wondered if he would pay attention to his department's business details.

When recording an outgoing message, say your name slowly and carefully. Your prospective customer may be in a noisy setting, or may need to remember it so he can write it down. If you leave a telephone number on any phone message, say it only as fast as you can write it (in the air, if needed). Your listener may be writing it down - and if it is clear, he may only need to do it once. 

Put only the essential information in the outgoing message, so you have time to speak clearly.  If you record a new message daily, do that first thing in the morning. If you leave an outgoing message promising to return calls quickly, keep your promise!

If you have speech difficulties, get help for them, whether they are a strong accent, a communication impairment, or something else.  Your speech gives an image of you and your organization. Speech help these days can come in the form of individual or small group coaching, online coaching, an e-book, an mp3 file, or other options.

Business Speech Improvement (www.BusinessSpeechImprovement.com) provides intensive coaching, small group seminars and e-books on diction, accent modification, presentation skills, communication strategies for leadership development, and more! 

Leadership: Developing and Communicating Emergency Plans

What would you do - right now - if the electricity went off in your home or business? Do you know where the closest flashlight is, and have the batteries been checked in it this month? Could you find it easily in the dark? How would you cook or get heat? Are there people who are dependent on electricity for medical reasons, such as CPAP machines? If so, do you have a back-up generator?

Now consider the common emergencies faced in your workplace or home. Besides a loss of electricity, consider weather-related ones, medical, building repair, financial, personnel and legal ones (such as someone getting arrested).

Recently, a reader with expertise in emergency management asked his supervisor about the organization's emergency management procedures. The employee was startled to hear that the supervisor didn't know these plans, but referred him to the Human Resources department.

If emergency plans are not known to everyone - and practiced regularly - there is a major problem in communication. During a disaster, it's too late.

Ready.gov is a great source in the US for information on how to prepare for common emergencies.
Check it out!

Business Speech Improvement provides intensive training in executive communication skills.

Getting right to the point; changing your focus

Are you ever so focused on what you want to say when you go to see someone, that you forget to say "hello" first and see how the other person is doing? That's a common experience. You know it's rude, but you don't know how to change this.

When asked about this today, I advised the person asking me to imagine himself walking into his workplace and having a periscope rising from his head. Using the imaginary periscope, he is to look around and notice others, ask how they are doing, notice what they are doing, and only then to say what is on his mind. He may discover, for example, that when he notices his boss, she is in a bad mood or too rushed to listen to him at that time. He will know then to wait until another time to discuss the topic on his mind, or to see if someone else can help him.

Business  Speech Improvement offers intensive coaching and economical e-books on many aspects of verbal communication, such as executive communication skills, presentation skills, verbal networking and more! Enroll today in our free online e-magazine, too!

The On-boarding Process and Your New Employees: 3 Questions to Ask and When

When a new employee starts, especially if there is only one starting at that time, the orientation or on-boarding process can be given little attention. The goal is to get the person to be a productive worker as fast as possible, so why worry about the "frills"?

The extra information presented, often at a slightly slower pace than warp speed, allows the newcomer to get acclimated to the company's culture and ways of doing things. On-boarding often occurs over a period of several days, weeks or even a year, depending on the complexity of the job and the amount to be learned.

After the new employee has been there a month, it's a great time to realize the employee may have ideas to share with his new employer - if the employer cares enough to ask. The employee may have worked for other companies with different ways of doing things, and may know a better way to do a process or project. He may know helpful websites, or have concerns about how things are done at your company. However, he is not likely to say these - unless a manager takes the time to ask these 3 invaluable questions.

1. You've worked at other places. Based on that (or what you've learned in school, if the employee is a new graduate), do you have some suggestions on how we might do things better? Every employee's ideas are of interest to us! We might not notice what we do, because we've done it so long or so often, but you as a new employee would notice these things right away.

2. Do you know of  non-confidential websites, great equipment or other resources that might be of special benefit to the company? If you find these, please let us know.

3. What information related to your job, the company or the industry would help you most at this time? Do you need training in a specific area? If so, do you know how to request it?

This is also a time to share some initial feedback with the employee, of positive things you have noticed. The employee then realizes that he matters to you,  that you notice what he does, and  he will usually try to please you.

Business Speech Improvement provides intensive coaching and e-books on various types of communication. If you found the above technique helpful, you'll definitely want to read Executive Communication Techniques, our e-book on many other practical strategies leaders can take to improve communication skills!