The most important things to help a new employee settle in

Hiring new staff is a lengthy and expensive process.

There are therefore fewer things more frustrating in business than seeing all that time and money walk out of your door within the first twelve months.

The Euro Projects Recruitment Settling in Survey has now been running for two years and we are delighted to report on the results of our latest research to help your business improve staff retention and build an employer brand your staff will proud to be part of.

This survey has been compiled from respondents after their first six to eight months in a new position, allowing them to reflect on how well they feel they have settled in and which factors have been important to their effective settling in. Download the full report here.

Why Is This Important?

Understanding what new employees value will enable you to effectively target your culture, policies, procedures and activities towards an improved settling in strategy.

The sooner your new employee is up to speed, the sooner your business will enjoy a return on investment.

First impressions count and a good initial impression of your business with a new employee will decrease the chances of them leaving within the first two years.

It is important that once the excitement phase of a new job has levelled off, a strong cultural match remains and expectations about the company and the job are being met.

Improving Employee Retention

Keeping great employees is all about engagement, the list of what new employees feel important to their settling in is primarily a list of the different ways you can connect and engage with them. The more time you can invest in these activities, the greater the chances of building an enduring long-term employment contract.

Your new employee is unlikely to want to go through the stressful and time consuming activity of finding another job if at all possible, so building in the scope to identify any early problems and put things right will also ensure improved retention rates.

How It Works

Helping businesses like yours to not only recruit but retain great people starts at the very beginning: Establishing job mission, core competencies and outcomes required; Finding candidates through a network of referrals which improves the standard of candidates as they are mostly recommended and Selecting against a rigorous process which builds confidence in the final decision.

With 73% of the people we place still in post two years later, our focus on reducing the risk of recruitment for all our customers is proving successful, although as the economy continues to improve, greater mobility within the employment market is anticipated.

The Things New Employees Value The Most

Notwithstanding having a formal induction and training process, new employees overwhelmingly prefer getting to know colleagues, their new boss and their new environment in an informal way. Structured meetings, appraisals and organised social functions were considered far less important. This suggests a culture of getting to know one another, rather than a system to enforce this, is far preferable.

Summary

With the right open, friendly and participative culture, a clear definition of the values you expect from a new employee and a rigorous way to test this at interview, helping new employees settle in and stay longer shouldn’t be too difficult. Being aware of the importance of helping people to settle in and having the scope to do so will reduce the cost of having to make repeat hires and will increase your chances of successfully building a world class team.