Part of the Recruiting, Onboarding and Retaining People series
So you found the perfect candidate, negotiated a package and now you’re tapping your foot waiting out the eight weeks of mandated notice period. Stop obsessing over how stressful this is for you. Put yourself in the shoes of that shiny new (almost) starter. What are they feeling right now?
They’re excited. Probably relieved that they made it through the gauntlet and have secured their next role. They’ve already started mentally and culturally disconnecting from whatever they were doing. With the best will in the world, the most dedicated, ethical employee, once they’ve handed in that resignation notice, will find that the landscape has shifted and priorities and allegiances started re-aligning. Re-allegieng? 😜
This is a dangerous period. A few things could happen:
Cold Feet
The reality sets in: “I’m really leaving this place”.
“What the hell am I doing? I’ve been here ages, I know everyone and what they do. It took me ages to get this competent. Do I really want to start all over again?”
Fear of the unknown can be a powerful internal voice. It’s a natural, human reaction. Don’t ignore it. Address it.
Counter-Offers
All too common, despite extensive and repeated research which has shown that once an employee has resigned, counter-offers only work as a short-term fix.
Despite their ineffectiveness, they happen so often that it’s likely your chosen candidate will have to deal with this.
Hoping it won’t happen doesn’t help. Hope is not a management strategy. Prepare for this.
Poaching
It’s happened to all of us: a week before the start date, you get the call.
“Sorry XYZ-Corp just made me a better offer, so I’m going there instead.”
Despite probably having already signed a contract with you, the candidate remains at high risk until they actually start work.
So what can we do about it?
The prescription for all three of these diseases is the same: interactive, ongoing engagement. From the day they said “Yes” through to their first day in role (and beyond, but that’s another story for another day), all sorts of worrisome internal dialogues are happening within your new recruit’s mind. External factors (counter-offers and poaching), peer pressure from their colleagues once the news is out there, and so on, add to this noise.
That exciting, sticky engagement won’t happen by itself. It’s hard work and you need a plan. In fact, you might need a few plans to deal with differing lengths of notice periods.
It helps to think in terms of The Engineering Question ™: “What problem am I trying to solve?”. An answer might look like “I need my chosen candidate to continue feeling that this is the right role.”
Sample plan for an eight-week notice period:
Have two targeted, impactful contact-points every week. One of these will be a live conversation with the hiring manager.
If there are any social events planned for the period, don’t forget to invite the new recruit and (gently) encourage attendance. If there aren’t any planned events… maybe this is a good time to plan some!
Day One:
Hiring manager: Send (in the post – remember the posr?) a hand-written congratulations card, re-iterating why you’re excited to start working with them.
Week One:
Hiring manager: phone the candidate for a chat. Have a list of talking-points to hand, a good mix of company news, team news and personal-touch stuff. Start getting to know the candidate as a person. Start building a relationship. Get to know each other. Learn about their life, interests, family, pets, whatever!
Week Two:
Hiring manager: phone the candidate for a chat. Introduce the new starter’s nominated onboarding buddy (who should send the first bio as per below), and set up a comms channel for them to start chattting.
Hiring manager: email a photo of the team they’ll be working in, with visible names. Explain what each person does and how the new recruit will be interacting with them.
Weeks Three to Seven:
Hiring manager: phone the candidate for a chat.
Hiring manager: email a summary of what the team’s been doing recently, and mention something they’ve celebrated.
Team member: email a Bio. Have a little fun with this. Be a bit quirky!
Final Week:
Hiring manager: phone the candidate for a chat. Walk through what day one and week one will look like. Be very specific about first-day processes. Pre-empt as many questions as you can, so that your new recruit is better equipped to have a relaxed experience. Where to go, how to get there, where to park, what time to arrive, who to ask for at reception, dress code (does anybody still have these?), and so on. Don’t forget to explain what people normally do for lunch; should they brown-bag it? Follow this up with an email detailing it all. Your new starter may be feeling timid and not wanting to ask “stupid” questions. So answer them first.
Email a group video of the team. If it’s an office environment, have a short virtual walk-through to the new starter’s desk. Introduce anybody you meet along the way. Explain what’s been (or is being) prepared for them: workspace, laptop, etc. Send the clear message that you’re excited to have them start and can’t wait to begin working with them.
In Summary
If you put the effort into actively engaging your new recruit, it’ll pay off. Not just in terms of reducing sign-to-hire attrition, but also with having a much more team-integrated starter who already has relationships with the people around them. Just imagine how much more at home and relaxed they’re going to feel. It’s priceless, and well worth the up-front effort.