From Onboarding to Long-boarding: Keep top talent motivated for the long term
HR leaders know you can’t
afford to endlessly cycle through top talent: replacing an employee can cost as much
as twice that employee’s salary. Retention is the
name of the talent management game.
Many HR leaders focus their retention strategies on the onboarding process, hoping that a meaningful welcome period will sustain employees’ motivation well beyond their transition. The reality is employees want to feel consistently supported and appreciated for the long haul.
That’s where “longboarding” comes in. HR leaders need to continue to affirm employees long after the onboarding period to keep them excited about their work.
During the COVID-19
pandemic especially, frequently engaging remote teammates will boost morale
while in-person connection is not possible.
Here are three ways to
longboard your employees, either virtually or in the office.
1: Communicate Often
If an employee doesn’t dig into their real work
until the first few weeks or even months have passed, that’s by design.
Onboarding is a cultural orientation more than anything – it takes time to get
to know the values, mission, and people that make up an organization.
Just don’t wait until their annual review to sit
down and have the first in-depth conversation since they joined the company.
Longboarding is all about regular, constructive communication.
HR leaders should establish a regular timeline for new hires to check in with their manager or supervisor. And depending on the structure of your organization, it might also make sense for your employees to meet with someone on the HR team, too. If employees are working from home, these check-ins can happen at the same cadence through video conferencing.
Top performers want to know that their opinion
matters. During these check-ins, ask for your employees’ honest feedback about
how things are going. If they’re unhappy about something, odds are the problem
can be addressed. Make sure they know their concerns have an outlet, and that
they can have an active role in shaping their experience and workflow.
2: Development Opportunities
Employee development is a crucial component of
longboarding. According to a LinkedIn
Workforce Learning Report, a whopping 93 percent
of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their careers. In
other words, a top performer doesn’t want to be static in the workplace – they
want to grow, and they want to envision a future with your organization.
But small and mid-size organizations don’t
always have the budget and resources to offer a comprehensive development
program. Still, investing in current employees’ development likely costs less
than recruiting new ones. And the return on that investment is invaluable: when
an employee finds a sense of purpose, they’ll want to drive more change in your
company.
Every employee has different goals, so it’s a
good idea to offer a variety of career
development opportunities. Here are
three educational and training resources that are high-impact, relatively
low-cost, and remote-friendly:
- Develop soft skills. Employees with strong soft skills, such as communication and negotiation skills, are critical to the success of your organization’s culture. Peer coaching, manager feedback, and digital courses are all helpful ways to help employees improve their soft skills.
- Offer technical workshops. Top talent is always looking to broaden their skillset. Have workshops for hard skills like coding, graphic design, or social media, for example – skills that might not be specific to employees’ job duties but give them an opportunity to expand their capabilities.
- Offer leadership training. Top talent at the manager level should constantly strive to be better leaders. Sponsor leadership development programs or provide in-house leadership mentoring.
3: Frequent Recognition
When employees know the work they’re doing is
valued, they’re more inclined to stay and grow within your company.
A study
from Robert Half found that 66 percent
of employees would likely leave their job if they didn’t feel appreciated. And
in a Society
of Human Resources Management survey, HR leaders
agreed that recognition creates a positive workplace culture and employee
experience – and 68 percent said their organization’s recognition program
positively affects retention.
During the onboarding process, you prepare employees
to do good work. But what about once they’ve accomplished an important goal in
their current role? Or when they’re struggling through a difficult stretch? Are
you letting them know that you appreciate their good work?
Once you consider employees fully onboarded, come up with a timeline for when to recognize your employees’ contributions. Some of these points will be standard for everyone – such as hitting the six-month mark – but other points will need to be tailored to the employee’s individual progress, which means you’ll need to be in touch with an employee’s managers and teammates.
Here are a few meaningful occasions to show
recognition.
- A universal hardship. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenging time for everyone. Tell your employees how grateful you are to have them and show solidarity for what they’re going through.
- Hitting a milestone. When an employee lands a new client or wraps up a big project, for instance, celebrate them.
- Demonstrating grit. When an employee has to deal with a major curveball, or has been putting in extra hours, make sure their hard work doesn’t go unnoticed.
- An employee anniversary. Whether you start celebrating at six months or hold off until the one-year mark, anniversary celebrations should be ongoing.Now that you’ve decided when to tell your employees that you appreciate them, it’s time to figure out how.
One overall best practice is to make sure the
recognition feels personalized. You want to make each employee’s individual
contributions feel valued, and you can’t do that through an email template that
says “great job” with their name inserted at the top.
Below are several ideas for sending a gesture of
recognition.
- A handwritten letter. The most inexpensive gesture can also be the most personal. Pen a sincere note of gratitude for all your employee’s hard work.
- A meaningful gift. Ditch the generic company t-shirt or snack tin for something that shows your company’s values. Give a gift that also does good, like granola made by women who are survivors of abuse, wine stoppers hand-blown by teens impacted by gun violence, or artisan towels from a company that gives its proceeds to marine conservation organizations, for example.
- An experience. Consider giving your employee a voucher for an activity they enjoy, or a certificate to a restaurant.
- Time off. Nothing quite says “job well done” better than “go home and relax.”
More long-boarding less onboarding
It’s important to understand that a good
longboarding strategy does not replace the onboarding process. Rather,
it’s a complement: onboarding primes new hires for success, and longboarding
increases the odds that employees succeed.
When you commit to your employees’ growth in the
long term, they’ll want to return that love and strive to accomplish even more
within your organization – which means they’ll stick around. As you
improve retention, you can save the energy and resources you’d need to onboard
the next new hire and invest it in the incredible talent you already have.
The post From Onboarding to Long-boarding: Keep top talent motivated for the long term appeared first on HR Morning.
