7 Ways to Attract and Retain the Right Employees for Your Business

Attracting the right talents for your organisation is a tough job. But retaining the good ones is still in your hands.

About 70% of US employees admitted to thinking about leaving their jobs for a role that’s more invested in their career and development.

This means you have the potential and resources to provide them with the right environment and support to keep them engaged. Not just that, by creating such a nurturing workplace, you come across as the ‘fun place to work in,’ attracting more talents.

In this article, we’ll discuss seven different ways to attract the right talents for your organisation and retain them for the long run.

Let’s dive in.

1. Pay Attention to the Preboarding Process

Preboarding is the process of welcoming and preparing new hires before their official start date at a company. You help them transition into their new role smoother, help them feel engaged and excited about their upcoming job, and foster a sense of belonging to the organisation even before they physically join the team.

Effectively executing preboarding can have several benefits, including:

• Reducing first-day jitters and helping them adjust to the new setting.
• Improving retention rates as the new hires get to experience your warm welcome.
• Increasing productivity since the beginning.
• Helping employees feel more prepared and integrated into the company culture from the beginning.

Tips for preboarding new employees

• After accepting the job offer, send the new employee a welcome package that includes information about the company, its culture, values, and any essential paperwork.
• Share an introductory email with the new employee and the existing team members, encouraging everyone to reach out and welcome the newcomer.
• Offer access to any necessary training materials or online courses that can help the new employee get up to speed on their role.
• Clearly communicate the first-day logistics, such as start time, location (if applicable), dress code, and any necessary items they should bring.
• Kickstart the preboarding journey with a warm virtual welcome. Consider scheduling a video call with the team, offering a virtual tour of the office (if possible), or a personalised welcome message from the CEO or department head.
• On their first day, ensure a warm welcome. Make sure the onboarding process is well-prepared, and consider sending the first 14 days’ program to the new hire in advance.

2. Have a Killer Onboarding Plan in Place

Employee onboarding is the next critical step in welcoming new hires. It’s the process of integrating and orienting new employees into an organisation. 

The standard onboarding period for new employees is 90 days. However, it takes about 6 months for an employee to be 100% integrated into a new workplace. 

This doesn’t mean there should be 6 months of training and courses. However, it means you should plan a process that extends beyond the traditional 2-4 weeks. During this period, you must train them, help them get acquainted with the work culture and policies, ensure a smooth transition, and set them up for success in their new role. 

3. Make Efforts to Engage Your Employee

Creating a positive work environment can have many benefits for your team’s morale. It lifts up their spirits and motivates them to put in the work and stay productive. 

Engaged employees are passionate about their jobs, feel a sense of purpose and fulfillment in their work, and are willing to go the extra mile to contribute to the success of the company.

4. Help them set SMART Goals

Setting SMART goals is a well-known approach to goal setting that helps make objectives more specific, achievable, and measurable. 

The SMART acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. When you set SMART goals, you create a clear and actionable plan to accomplish your objectives effectively.

Objective and Key Results (OKR) is a popular goal-setting framework organisations use to align and track progress toward strategic objectives. 15Five OKRs management tool is an effective way to set your quarterly or annual goals and communicate and track OKRs to your team.

Here’s how you effectively set OKRs for your organisation:

• Start by identifying the overarching objective or strategic goal that you want to achieve.
• Identify the specific and measurable outcomes that will demonstrate progress toward achieving the objective.
• Ensure that the OKRs are aligned with the overall mission, vision, and strategy of the organisation.
• Focus on a few high-impact objectives and key results.
• Define the time frame for each set of OKRs.
• Regularly monitor and track progress against the Key Results.

5.  Address Employee Scheduling Process

Scheduling projects and tasks for your employees in advance can help beat productivity and performance issues. It’s a critical factor in managing absenteeism in the workplace. 

However, employee scheduling done in a haphazard and unplanned manner could turn out to be a burden for you and your employees and increase employee turnover rates.

There are tons of employee scheduling problems and solutions to discuss with your employees:

• Talk about effective record management to ensure that everything is stored in one place. Try centralizing all the information in one platform. 
• Employee overscheduling is often a big matter of crisis in organisations as it affects productivity and often ends up in no-shows. Keep a tab on the overtime hours of each employee to make sure it doesn’t happen.
• Make sure you never run short of employees, as not having enough resources at the time of work can cause some serious damage to your organisation. Always be open to outsourcing or hiring contract workers to take some load off your full-time employees.
• Create and publish work schedules for your employees in advance to make sure everyone is on the same page.

6. Offer Training and Upskilling Opportunities

Learning must never stop, and especially when your employees are working hard in their jobs to put in their best, it’s important that you support them. Help your employees advance in their careers, and in return, you’ll have more engaged employees with better skills to help level up your business. If the career advancement opportunities involve traveling abroad, you’re crossing a huge item off the list by finding a way to how to manage business travel more efficiently. Namely, these are the people representing your enterprise, potentially making the future of your business….

Here are some suggestions for you:

• Offer to reimburse for a course or program they’re doing. 
• Tie up with a course facilitation platform and offer them subscriptions for free or discounted prices.
• Conduct seminars and webinars within your organisation by calling in industry experts to teach certain topics.
• Encourage them to take up courses and certification programs that can help them do better at their job.

7.  Encourage your Employees to Share their Feedback

It’s always a good idea to gather feedback from your employees about your management style and onboarding process. In fact, make Onboarding Review a part of your process to make sure you get real-time feedback on the effectiveness of the process and can make improvements. These reviews help you get insights into where you should invest your resources to increase engagement and retention of your new employees.

• Send out survey forms and encourage them to fill them up as they go.
• Have one-to-one conversations with every new joiner to learn about their pre-boarding and onboarding experience with your organisation and ask for suggestions. Our Onboarding Fast-Track provides a specific report on the employee’s onboarding experience and focuses on the specific elements that are difficult. You can use the report to have a targeted dialogue and address the areas where your employees need help.
• Set up physical or digital suggestion boxes where employees can submit their feedback, ideas, and concerns anonymously or with their names.
• Conduct exit interviews with departing employees to understand their reasons for leaving and gather insights into potential areas of improvement.