The world of recruitment and onboarding! Two key responsibilities that tend to be rushed however shouldn’t be due to their impact on your new starter and business.

Ensuring you have enough people in your team to manage workload is a common task for leaders. There may be times when you feel pressure to fill a vacancy quickly, however approaching this task too quickly may have negative consequences by hiring the wrong person. This has flow on affects for the team and a financial impact by wasting valuable time, resources and money.

A talent mindset when recruiting is key

On a previous blog, we discussed that a major element of your role as coach and supporting employee learning and development was to continuously be across your team’s level of skills and knowledge as well as the gaps. Armed with this knowledge, you are not only able to ensure employee training and development is effective, but it also allows you to make informed decisions when recruiting.

When the time comes to recruit, you can use this knowledge and ask yourself, what skills and behaviours you need to complement your team? Your approach is directed to support and strengthen the team and at times that may involve recruiting someone who isn’t the same as the employee leaving, or for that matter, several employees in your team.  

The Job Description – your super tool!

The defined skills and behaviours are included in the job description (JD) alongside the duties and responsibilities, which ideally is reviewed when you commence recruiting. Try to avoid generalised or aspirational duties and responsibilities, that is for your job advertisement. They serve different purposes and shouldn’t be used interchangeably.

A clear job description is your super tool – it serves so many purposes. Without one, what will you use as your guide when assessing and attracting candidates? It is also the ideal tool to assess a position and its future place in your team structure.

Lack of clarity around a position can influence a strong candidate to not accept an offer. Always best to spend the time to understand what you need in your team before you start.

Recruitment Support – Plan upfront

Upfront planning will provide key recruitment support to you. That way you can move through the stages at a reasonable pace provided you have your ducks in a row.

Other factors to consider include:

• Preparation for interviews – consider behavioural and cultural fit questions and how you will assess their responses.
• Participants during the interview process – have others involved in the process. A colleague or direct report if it is a leadership position.
• What candidate touch points and methods you will use to update them on their progress and keep them engaged.
• Method to make an offer and inform those who are unsuccessful.

Whilst you are assessing their suitability to the position, don’t forget they are assessing you and your business. This is especially relevant in today’s candidate driven market.

A well-planned onboarding program 

Starting a new job ranks in the top stressful situations a person may experience. Some people thrive in this situation, many others do not – imagine getting your head around who is who, remembering everyone’s names, how things are done around here and let’s not forget about learning all the acronyms!

A well-planned onboarding program is often overlooked in businesses. A positive onboarding experience allows your new starter to become familiar with the organisational culture and feel part of the team and business. Be effective in their role and contribute to the wider team / department and business. Make an impact.

A good analogy to keep in mind is to picture a washing machine. On their first day they hop into one and whilst they are adjusting to their new environment, role and stakeholders they are spinning through the cycles until they come out informed and ready to make an impact. The duration is influenced by how well they are inducted into their new organisation.  

Onboarding programs vary across businesses and positions. A positive program should take into consideration the following:

• Duration – many businesses focus on the first day or week. A more effective one goes beyond to a 6 or 12-month period. A staged approach where content and or experiences are delayed until the new starter becomes more familiar with their role and the business to strengthen context and add value.
• Consistency – every new starter enjoys a similar experience with slight variations for positions and or departments.
• Access to materials, tools and equipment (the office building!) – this is the one area where speed is required.
• Content delivery method / use of technology – a combination of mediums that engages a new starter, allows them to interact and serves as a learning and development tool.
• Putting it into practice – when providing information about your values, mission statement or employee programs keep in mind that passing the information is one thing, explaining what it means in practice is the key.

Understanding its effectiveness – continually reviewing your program to ensure it meets your needs and is a positive and effective experience for your new starters is essential. Whether you seek feedback from new starters or introduce specific metrics during key stages, you want to know your program is serving its purpose and be swift to improve any elements of it.

Call on the Experts

Our team of HR experts at LMHR can help you establish your recruitment support and build an onboarding program that suits your business. Our point of difference is that we are results-driven. We want to ensure that each client sees the unique solutions for their recruitment with immediate wins on the board. Contact us today and schedule your free consult!