In previous blog posts, we’ve addressed an important topic for all organizations: hiring the best job candidates in the marketplace. That’s abundantly apparent by the titles of those two posts:

• “5 Steps and 5 Questions for Adding Top Talent to Your Organization”
• “5 Questions to Ask About Hiring Passive Candidates”

So while that topic is an important one for all organizations, there’s another topic that’s just as important. That topic is onboarding.

Why is that so important? For the simple reason that if you’re able to hire the best candidates, then it makes sense that you’d also want to bring them onboard in the best way possible. After all, this is talent that you believe is going to transform your company for the better.

And this is high-demand talent. That means more organizations that just yours is attempting to hire these individuals. If you don’t onboard them in the correct fashion after they accept your offer of employment, some unpleasant things can happen, including the following:

• They take a counter-offer from their current employer.
• They take another offer from one of your competitors.
• They simply fail to show up for work, and you don’t even know the reason why.

All of these things (and more) have happened to employers. However, the big question is this one: how do you prevent them from happening?

You prevent them by first assembling a comprehensive onboarding plan and then by executing that plan with excellence.

There are two main parts to an effective onboarding process. The first part mainly involves logistics. In other words, it involves what the person is going to need to start employment. That list includes the following:

• New employee paperwork
• Hardware such as their computer, laptop, etc.
• Software for their computer and/or laptop
• Training schedule for their initial orientation period
• Map of the building, security codes, parking permit, etc. (if applicable in this COVID world of ours)

This is the easy part, or it should be the easy part. The second part of an effective onboarding process is less about logistics and more about motivation.

The typical two-week period between when a candidate accepts an organization’s offer and when that person actually starts working at the company as an employee is a crucial period. That’s because the candidate must be reassured that they’ve made the correct decision.

To a certain extent, the candidate is vulnerable. As mentioned above, their current employer might make a counter-offer to them, or if they’re interviewing with multiple companies, another employer could make an offer. How do you combat this?

You combat this by making the candidate and future employee feel wanted. They want to feel wanted.

Consequently, company officials should make phone calls to the candidate to welcome them aboard and express their excitement about their hire. Even sending emails to the candidate will make a difference. Get as many people involved in the process as you can.

The bottom line is that hiring the best candidates means nothing if those candidates get away because of a lackluster onboarding process that doesn’t engage them and doesn’t continually entice them.

If you’re looking to hire exceptional candidates, then we invite you to connect with our team today and see what The Doepker Group can do for your organization.

We also invite you to click HERE to find out even more about the many services that we offer to employers.