Hiring & Onboarding New Employees: Employee Engagement Is the New Bottom Line

Create demand in the talent market with a strong Employer Value Proposition (EVP)

It all starts with you. A competitive salary and benefits package isn’t enough to drive demand. It’s about the value you provide in a more holistic way (more on how to create an effective EVP here). According to Gartner, companies with strong EVPs win in the recruitment process in a few ways:

• They attract 20 percent more candidates to the application process.
• When job offers are extended, they increase new hire commitment by 29 percent.
• Finally, they consistently decrease turnover by 69 percent.

Promote your culture through job listings

A potential candidate first interacts with your internal culture through job descriptions. Showcase your culture, mission, vision, and a concise description of the role to attract candidates that fit your ideal profile. Integrate DEI initiatives at the outset with language that supports inclusion and sourcing strategies that reach diverse talent pools.

Prescreen for the best fit

Support candidates in their hiring journey by answering typical questions from the start. Give them ample information and tips on how to effectively interview for the role. Giving potential employees all the tools they need is a preview of their experience working at your organization. Be known as thoughtful, supportive, and thorough to attract top talent. Consider adding pre-screeners that establish a baseline of experience or knowledge to efficiently guide applicants to the right role.

Preview your employee experience with a remarkable interview process

The interview process is as much a test for candidates as it is for employers. Ensure that everyone on the interview panel has background information on the candidates and the open positions. Structure interviews consistently and in a way that both embraces and showcases diversity. Your interview panel should span a few different departments and backgrounds to get a more holistic view of the experience and culture fit. Give candidates all the background information they need to be successful, including the rubric you’ll be using to assess compatibility.

Engage and empower new hires with seamless onboarding

Make it your goal to not only train your new team members but also engage them from day one. Companies that miss this opportunity are more likely to lose new hires within the first year.  Combat this with integrated tools to make learning and assimilating seamless.

Enable both your employees and recruits with the right processes and tools

While the keys to hiring excellence may be the same for all organizations, the ways they are realized and supported vary widely by industry, organization size, and even opportunity. Advancements in technology have not only made streamlined and satisfying customer and employee experiences possible but can also facilitate new, more efficient hiring experiences for both candidates and hiring teams.

Optimizing hiring for candidates and teams requires an approach that considers the experience from both perspectives. Your processes and tools should support a positive experience that empowers effective decisions. Similar to the process we’ve outlined for Employee Enablement, the steps below will help ensure that you design a great hiring experience for both your candidates and employees.

• Explore your goals concerning candidate/hiring team enablement and do some baseline investigation around their current-state tools and processes, documenting known concerns and open questions.
• Get to know your candidates/hiring team members and learn about their relevant—and sometimes not so relevant, but illuminating—needs and frustrations (here, the easiest source of feedback on the candidate experience is recent hires and hiring managers, although this will inevitably provide biased feedback).
• Distill what you’ve learned into key insights and opportunity areas, accompanied by maps of candidates’/hiring teams’ current experiences if found useful.
• Generate ideas, imagining new possibilities to support your candidates/hiring teams as they navigate their parallel journeys (and for the hiring teams, as they complete related daily tasks).
• Sort, group, and prioritize these ideas into a recommendation and roadmap, framed as a vision for the future of your hiring process.
• Build support for your vision, as needed, and begin taking the steps outlined in your roadmap.

Reap the benefits of a compelling hiring process

By creating a positive employee experience, companies can gain a competitive edge in the talent market. A strong EVP, combined with an efficient and candidate-centric hiring process and a well-structured onboarding program can help businesses attract top talent, improve retention rates, and build a more engaged and productive workforce.

Photo Credit: Michael Dziedzic | Unsplash