Employee productivity

Looking after new recruits increases employee productivity

Posted on 11. Feb, 2009 by admin in Employee productivity tips

In a new piece of research from the Aberdeen group carried out over December 2008 and January 2009 with more than 600 HR executives, onboarding (who made that word up)… let’s call it induction for now… is one of the real keys to increasing employee productivity.

Of the executives interviewed, after ‘retention’, ‘ensuring immediate gains in productivity’ was the key challenge to be addressed when a new recruit joins an organisation.

“Our department is currently implementing an induction process and we are learning that due to a lack of process until now, we have lost 35% of new hires.”

- North American Telecom services company.

IT was found to be one area which could really enable this induction process and make it more effective… Assessment tools, compliance tools, competency management tools, and automated email reminder triggers etc all help in making a new recruit feel wanted and ‘loved’. If this is an area you feel you could improve on,  here’s a great 5 minute video of how to deliver a cost effective way of delivering this type of automated induction process.

One of the easiest ways to make employee productivity gains quickly is to provide new recruits with a phone, email account and PC on the day they start! This is such a common problem – but came out as the second most important activity to engage employees in the survey. #1 was for a development plan to be put in place immediately.

The report is 31 pages – and we can’t possibly outline everything included as it’s extremely thorough – however we did want to make a final point taken from the excellent Seagate case study. How many companies do you know who actively aim to build excitement prior to a new recruit arriving, measure their progress over the first 45 days and track productivity over the following 90 days…?

Could your company honestly say it’s doing everything it can to get new recruits firing on all cylinders from their first day? You can gain access to the report for free for a limited time here.

Related articles

• If You’re Measuring Productivity In Hours, You’re Doing It Wrong (techdirt.com)
• ‘Onboarding:’ Crucial Feedback for Executive Hires (businessweek.com)

Image courtesy of sectionz

Tags: employee productivity, getting the most from your talent in the first year