Talented new hires join the company and take your business performance through the roof. Everything seems to be going well. Then they resign. Why? The team is demoralised and managers have to decide whether to go through the recruitment process once more.
Recruiting is expensive, and your team has to pick up the slack of the missing person. New hires are linked to turnover, and are essential metrics to measure throughout the recruitment process. Unhappy employees leave. In fact, up to 20% of all new hires resign within 45 days of starting their role.
Understanding new hires’ attrition and retention rates will help you spot any weaknesses in your company’s new talent acquisition process.
What is the difference between attrition and retention?
- Attrition rate is the number of employees lost and not replaced
- Retention rate is the number of employees your business has retained
As you can see, these are crucial figures for your business. If you are growing or recruiting to replace employees thanks to natural attrition, you can’t ignore the turnover of new hires. New hires can be lost after accepting the job.
There are many reasons why new hires are lost, and it’s in your interest to discover why. They may include:
- Workplace policies don’t support work-life balance or create a hostile work environment
- No employee support
- The job isn’t what they thought it would be
- The onboarding experience wasn’t great
- No check-ins
- The new employee doesn’t understand the expectations of them
- Issues with management
- No career path
Dig into why employees stay with you. Create an anonymous survey to allow people to speak freely to get better results. Who is unhappy and why? What are their pain points? Why do they like their jobs?
The aim is to understand why your employees remain.
Next, work with new hires who are leaving or have left and interview them. This is your chance to learn what has gone wrong for them.
Let them be open and honest so you can get to the real reasons. Be prepared that you may hear things are hard or challenging for you as part of this process. And, fundamentally, be prepared to change what is needed to address these issues internally.
Gallup claims in its State of the American Workplace report that when employees don’t have the experience they were promised, they will likely show their unhappiness. Unhappy employees may start looking for new roles, or become disengaged in the workplace. This means they’re so unhappy they are undermining its performance.
Creating the right onboarding experience
Once you have the information, it’s time to make changes. Start with the onboarding process. New hires’ onboarding is a crucial aspect of any recruitment process. Begin engaging and preparing your new hires from the moment they accept your role.
Your people are your business from the start, which is why I develop bespoke onboarding programmes for businesses. A safe environment for open discussion is part of this so we can see what is working and what isn’t. Without trust, you have lost the confidence of your new employee.
The right onboarding experience will establish a support network, help them gain confidence and understand what is expected of them. The right aspects are put in place to help them succeed. When an employee is successful, then so is your company.
You can see the results in the attrition and retention rates and, crucially, on your bottom line.
Book your call and find out how you can improve retention rates of new hires.
