High turnover of new hires
We’re having trouble in hiring and maintaining the loyalty of our key personnel. This is due to many factors rooted in the employees’ dissatisfaction level with so many things, mainly caused by our highly pressurized work environment, including our toxic bosses requiring people to work overtime even during weekends and holidays. Our HR manager suggests that we always emphasize both the advantages and disadvantages of working in our organization to applicants during the job interview process. Is he correct? — Troubled Mind.
Your HR manager is absolutely right. But let me put it this way. The best possible orientation of new employees should be done during the hiring process, and not on the first week, if not the first month of on-boarding. Otherwise, it’s already too late for the new employee to back out as he may have already resigned from his current employer.
That’s the essence of “realistic job previews” as opposed to the traditional hiring process where the emphasis of hiring managers and everyone in the organization is to sell the positive side of the organization while at the same, ignoring or keeping under wraps the real work situation.
This approach creates unrealistic expectations on the part of the new hires that could cause costly turnover, not to mention the wasted time, effort, and some money in the hiring process by the employer.
Sometimes, prospective employers exaggerate the benefits of working in their company, in the hope of getting new employees on board at the soonest possible time. The trouble is that, the sooner the new hires got to know of the real work situation, like experiencing first-hand the management style of a difficult boss, they become dissatisfied faster than the ink drying on their employment contract.
Ultimately, the employer and the applicants both become losers without realizing what hit them. As one example, the individual employee suffers career disruption and lost income in between jobs, while the employer bears the cost of lost productivity, and the additional burden of having to recruit again.
The “realistic job previews” when done objectively by a prospective employer to job applicants for key positions and sensitive posts is one solution to solving the high turnover rate of new hires. Here are some ideas that you can try for size:
One is to arrange for a plant visit and office tour for a group of applicants for different positions. This is much more objective and far more realistic than the videos or audio-visual presentations done by actors and actresses, instead of employees. To see is to believe. The plant tour is also current and there’s no need for management to offer a flimsy excuse that the video is outdated.
Two is a short interview with the union president and other labor officials. This approach is beneficial for everyone to discover their satisfaction or dissatisfaction level of employees with the organization. This is helpful if you’re hiring for the vacant post of the head of human resource department or other key department heads. It is best to arrange a “meet-and-greet” opportunity with union officials so that the applicants may decide if such job vacancy is worth pursuing.
Three is to arrange for all department heads to conduct a wolf-pack interview. It is a form of a job stress interview where the applicant or applicants are subjected in a simulated win-lose debate on the best possible answer or actual action or solution to a similar management issue in the organization. No, this approach does not include asking about the weaknesses of an applicant, but uses scare tactics like yelling and other intimidation techniques on the applicant.
Once again, these techniques may only apply if you’re doing the hiring process of applicants for key positions. You don’t have to do this in the case of entry-level positions and those jobs that are easy to fill-up.
When people join an organization, they must learn the ropes quickly and become familiar with the way things are done. That’s why the first six months of employment are often crucial in determining how well some new employees are going to fit and perform the job in the long term. The “probationary” employment is the time when the original expectations of the new employer and new employees are tested for long-lasting work relationship.
However, most of the time, six months is too short for some people. And to maximize learning the potential of an excellent work relationship, such must be verified during the hiring process.
ELBONOMICS: “Stressed” when spelled backwards is “desserts” that must be enjoyed by anyone.
