Even under normal conditions, the hiring process can be grueling and surprising. Now, with the market conditions constantly changing, the process requires even more preparation and focus.
If you can attract great candidates, get them through the recruitment process, and help them exit their current company, you’ve accomplished a lot. You’re almost at the finish line. Now, you’ve got to help them transition and acclimate into your company. That’s not so easy either.
By presenting yourself as a partner in the transition process rather than just an employer, you can make your candidate and soon-to-be employee feel supported and prepared as they go through a period of flux.
Here are some tips to help you:
Don’t Underestimate the Transition
The transition is a period your candidate may be trying to relax, decompress, or refocus before starting their new position. That’s understandable, but you shouldn’t be resting on your laurels.
The transition is an excellent chance for you to help your new employee warm up to everything they will be experiencing at your company. You should begin sharing information about the company. You’ve probably already covered most of the general aspects of the company during the interview process, like mission, vision, and values, but this is a chance to get into more of the company culture.
Talk about what the day to day life is like in the office. Play up some less obvious benefits that you’ve built into the company culture. You could even give them a rundown of some team-building activities and events that are coming up. Anything to make them feel like they understand what situation into which they’re walking.
Along with preparing the way for them to enter your company and reinforcing the feeling you gave them during the recruitment, you can also use this time to answer any questions the new employee has about the minutia of a day in the company.
Let them get as specific as they’d like because it’s hard to know what can be anxiety-inducing for a given person. If you completely open the floor, you can relieve a lot of their stress before it becomes a problem.
Difficulties Will Help You Grow
The transition isn’t always smooth. It rarely goes along without significant hiccups. You’ve got to understand that this is a substantial change in your new employee’s life. Even in its most simple form, switching jobs causes a big difference in one’s daily life. Everyone’s life is different, so the transition can see a variety of additional hiccups arise.
This period provides you the opportunity to offer tangible, valuable support to the new employee. Again, open the floor and ask them what issues their facing in during the transition process. This step is crucial if the new employee has to relocate.
You can help them make travel arrangements, welcome them to town with dinner, provide preliminary information about the area, and do many other things to offer support.
You should document every solution you come up with for a new employee. Why? So that you can fold it into your Employee Value Proposition going forward. Solving transition problems for employees is a valuable skill that not every company has. You may find that this will become a real selling point to future candidates.
Utilize Positive Onboarding Practices
Lastly, onboarding isn’t just something that you want to be over as soon as possible. Of course, you want your employees to get comfortable and up to speed as quickly as possible, but a positive outlook on this process is valuable to all parties involved.
Your goal is to bring the new employee into the family. Here at Reveal Global, we like to start by giving them a “warm hug,” everyone at the company sends a personalized welcome email to get the ball rolling. That’s step one.
Next, you have to remember that good onboarding is about immersion. It’s about making the new employee feel like they’re immediately and seamlessly connecting with the rest of the company. There are a lot of ways to accomplish this.
We recommend that you go a little further than giving simple introductions. Establish an accountability matrix. Don’t just say names. Tell the new employee the position that each person holds, and also make it clear what questions should be directed toward that individual. That provides a sense of security and direction in the onboarding process.
To take that idea of direction and guidance in the onboarding process a step further, you can set your new employee up with an onboarding peer.
Rather than being a supervisor or mentor, this onboarding peer is someone on the same level as the new employee. This pairing allows the new employee to ask questions they may be embarrassed to ask people in positions of authority.
Lastly, employee resource groups are a great way to help employees adjust. You can create these groups around specific identity groups or issues such as new parents, individuals who relocated to the position, or many other things.
These groups provide a place for new employees to convey pointed questions and concerns to sympathetic parties.
Providing Support is Valuable
With these strategies, you can be a supportive partner for your new employee. You can lay a foundation of an inclusive, informative work environment that solves problems for new employees rather than ignores them.
Many companies see the signing of the offer letter as the end of the hiring process until the new employee starts filling out onboarding paperwork. But things don’t have to be that way. The process can be valuable and positive, and both parties can work together to provide immediate value to each other.
For more information on the other recruiting process steps, please download Reveal Global's resources on Attracting Quality Talent and Recruiting Quality Talent.
