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!