5 Ideas for Keeping Your New Recruits Engaged

Benchmark are huge advocates of employee retention and work closely with clients to advise on the induction of new recruits. It is priority for Benchmark to ensure longevity in the workplace for the candidates they place. Ultimately Benchmark’s position is to find candidates a job that they love, and help businesses to grow by perfectly matching talent to their role. As such, Benchmark partners with like-minded businesses to ensure placements are long-lasting.

Recruitment campaigns can be very time-consuming and costly. Few people are aware that is costs employers around £30,614 to replace a member of staff (source – Oxford Economics). Benchmark wish to ensure managers are able to minimise the chances of their new employees making an early exit.

Here, Benchmark share five ideas to ensure your new recruits are kept engaged.

1. Providing a helpful induction programme

It’s likely you will remember when you started a new role that slightly floundering feeling in the first few days. At this point, you don’t really know the business you are working for, its culture or its processes, and whilst you undoubtedly have the skillset that the business needs, every organisation will want you to deliver slightly differently.
This is why Managers preparing a good induction programme for each new employee is essential. The induction should cover every aspect of their role that they need to know, but cannot do without training or guidance. As such, it can include anything from making sure they understand how to use the phone system, to providing training on software systems they will need to use.
To help new employees know what to expect, it’s a good idea to highlight what will be happening throughout their induction, and when. Think about hour 1, day 1 and week 1.

2. Make them feel part of the team

Not feeling like you are fitting in with your work colleagues is one of the biggest stressors when starting new role, so it is important that managers introduce new recruits to the rest of the team, and explain how they will be working together. Not only will this give the new recruit a sense of their fit in the business, it will also help develop those all-important workplace relationships.
Having a social aspect to work can also help integrate new employees. For example, if your organisation runs a number of social activities, such as sports or reading clients, but sure to do more than mention it; invite and involve them as much as you can. It is also a good idea to organise a team social for the first few weeks after your new employee has joined to allow them to get to know the team in a more relaxed environment.

3. Don’t let your promises drift

t is not uncommon for employers to promise all sorts of things at interview to get a new employee on board, only to let those promises drift once they start work.
Whilst it might seem fairly immaterial to an employee that they have failed to pay for promised training, or deliver agreed bonuses, it can leave an employee feeling quite disgruntled.
At the very best, this can lead them to be more inclined towards ‘presenteeism’; if they feel you have undelivered they might feel entitled to do the same. At worst, they may just look to ‘jump ship’ to another job that promises what they were looking for in the first place.

4. Empower your new recruits

It is a common place irony that many employers undertake a major recruitment drive and pay good money to attract skilled staff, only to micromanage them or ignore their advice.
Understandably, it can be difficult to let go and trust someone’s ability from the start. After all, you don’t know them and haven’t seen how they work. That said, it is important to temper your fears and be fair with your new employees.
Fail to respect their abilities and advice and you are basically telling them that you don’t believe they can do their job – and that is a real turn off for any employee. Give them space to blossom and they probably will – you hired them, after all.

5. Give feedback from the start

Every employee wants to be reassured that they are bringing value to the business. However, whilst you might be overjoyed with their performance, they may feel that the opposite is true if you don’t tell them.
This uncertainty can be even more acute when they are new to their job, so it is important to give them regular, informal feedback to reassure them.
Even constructive criticism is better than no feedback at all, as it provides a yardstick as to your expectations of that employee and gives them a sense of working with you towards shared objectives.
Also remember that new employees will have valuable feedback for you and your company, especially about how they found your hiring and induction process, so don’t forget to ask them.

Benchmark welcome you to contact them for further information and advice on recruiting, and retaining the best talent for your business.