TAKING CARE OF NEW HIRES

Economic Times recently published a report that said that Bad Hiring was costing Indian Companies Rs.2460 crores .

Pressure and urgency to fill up positions, wrong bench-marking, poor screening, non-competitive hiring team, lack of reference checks and fake identities/resumes were given as some of the major factors that led to wrong hires.

While such challenges will continue to exist (and several companies are getting creative with the solutions), it has become very critical for companies to focus on having an extremely robust grievance management system especially for new hires.

New hires most often are excited and charged up when they join a new company but end up becoming disgruntled and lose faith when there is an expectation mismatch. It becomes critical for companies to identify these expectation mis-matches early in the life cycle to address/resolve these issues.

A good grievance management system should have these components:

It has to be a 2 way mechanism – The employees have a specific number that they  can call when they have an issue and the organisation proactively has a team ( best outsourced) to call the employees at regular intervals over the first 90 days to ensure that the employees feels they are being taken good care of .

Maintains Confidentiality – Employee feedback should be treated with utmost confidentiality (when it’s not a specific individual/personal concern). Focus should always be on the issue – What was said & Why and not on Who said it?

Offers Resolution – All grievances raised have to be addressed in the shortest possible time. Speed is of essence.  The Manager or committee overseeing the grievance should execute the decision quickly,. After implementing the decision, a follow-up must be there to ensure that the grievance has been resolved completely 

Taking care of new employees will always have a long term positive impact on any Organisation 

ARE YOU AN EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT ADDICT ?

In the recent past most conversations that I have been having around employee engagement & retention revolves around how to keep employees engaged during the first 60/ 90 days. More often than not Managers are very happy to blame the quality of hire and the recruitment team tends to take the beating.

Now, I am not for once saying that there isn't a problem there. Recruitment teams definitely need to spend more time in assessing the candidates and should not be in a tearing hurry to fill the positions. Agreed but hey now these guys have already been hired so now what? Do we raise our hands up in the air and thrash recruitment or do we fold our sleeves s and say let’s do something about the people who have joined.

Based on researching a whole lot of data from several exits interviews and Early engagement surveys we have conducted there are some key elements that we have identified which will improve early engagement:

COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY & BUILD TRUST WITH THE NEW HIRES.

Trust is the most important factor in building relationships. It’s important to be honest with the employee about his role, salary, targets etc. Leave no chance for guesses. Having an effective communication channel and building trust will also mean that the employee will reach out to his Manager or the HR team if he has a query and that in itself will reduce discontentment to a large degree. ‘Transparency at the work place ‘is one of the most important values that employees look for in an organisation. Every manager is faced with situations where the truth is bitter, however, it’s always better to communicate this to the employees and the sooner is always better.

MAKE EMPLOYEES SEE THE BIG PICTURE

Treat employees with respect. Haven’t we heard the old adage ‘Give respect, get respect’? Employees need to be told how their contribution helps the company. Let the employee understand his /her importance and how they add value to the overall growth of the organisation.

Share organisations goals and growth plans. It saddens me immensely when Managers feel that employees won’t understand. They do and they care!

ENCOURAGE EMPLOYEES TO HAVE FUN

Considering that employees spell close to 10 hours a day at work it’s important they have fun at work. While data suggests that fun necessarily doesn't make employees stay back in companies, the lack of it could make them look out. The most important part of fun activities is that it should be as sustained effort and should not lose momentum. Managers need to encourage participation and encourage employees to take time off to participate in these fun events.

RECOGNISE, MOTIVATE & INSPIRE  

All employees like to be recognised. Recognition can be in the form of awards, trophies, certificates, vouchers, or even a pat on the back. The type of award is not always important; however it’s always best to appreciate the employee at the earliest .In my personal opinion appreciating an employee is best done in public. Let the rest of the team know that the employee is being appreciated and the success should be shared.

Motivation is the continuous process of stimulating people to actions to accomplish their goals. One of the most important functions of management is to create willingness amongst the employees to perform in the best of their abilities. Therefore the role of a leader is to arouse interest in performance of employees in their jobs.

True leaders will inspire employees to perform and the most reliable way to inspire is by being a perfect role model. Managers need to remember that they are being watched and employees tend to follow their leaders

SHARE THE GROWTH PLAN.

Employees need to know their respective growth plans. Be honest about the time frame. Share feedback with them and let them know what they need to do to improve. Assist, mentor & Coach Employees .Employees should never feel they are doing a bring job, make it exciting for them.

Work with them to identify their career plans and help them achieve their goals. Show them that you care about them too.

I can say with reasonable confidence that you will definitely see a challenge in the way your employees feel, behave and respond if all Managers practice all of what has been mentioned above.I am sure you agree it shouldn't be difficult.

Share with me if you think it has worked or hasn't, I will be happy to hear from you ….

IS IT THE END OF THE ROAD FOR BPO's ?

Is it really the end of the road for BPO’s in India? More and more people I talk to seem to think so. While I would like to beg to differ,  I hope I am not being overly optimistic.

A good friend recently pointed to me that the quality of people joining has definitely deteriorated. Back in 2003 all companies would hire graduates, quite of few of them talented and also grew with the organization. However by 2009, companies were accepting pretty much anyone who could speak English.

Interestingly while quality of hires deteriorated, expectations didn’t. Employees still wanted to get promoted within 2 years and would be disgruntled if they didn’t. This led to high attrition which complicated problems for recruitment teams as they could no longer afford to pick and choose the best.

It became one big viscous circle.

Meanwhile Clients started paying Indian BPO’s lesser and from an average of $ 15 Dollars it dropped to as low as $7 an hour. The Indian companies couldn’t afford to push back as they were not meeting deadlines, performance was poor and several SLA’s & KPI’s were being missed

Organisations then had to look at means to reduce cost to make the business continue to be profitable and then the emergence of B town cities took place. The challenges though have not gone away.

Fundamentally the BPO’s will have to start doing things differently; else it will only get worse.

One of the problems it appears is that there is this nonchalant attitude and everyone believes the problem is external and refuses to look within.

With any industry where the workforce is large, taking care of the employees should be on the top of the, Managements list.

These are some of the steps that companies could take to make a difference.

Create better Frontline Managers

Since 20 something's to manage 20 something's, it’s important that they are coached adequately and not set them up for failure. A proper leadership program for the TL's should be mandatory where the new Managers are coached on how to be effective people Managers.

Improve early experience

Since attrition is highest on the 0 to 3 month category, ensure that the employees are cared for right from the time an offer letter has been issued. Make an effort to make them feel warm & welcome from Day 1 and ensure that adequate support is provided. Most happy employees tend to meet their targets too

Communicate with the employees

Communicate and set expectations on career progression. Employees need to understand that there will be growth opportunities but it will take certain amount of time. It’s also important to share with the employees, the progress of the company. If there is bad news let them know as they directly contribute.

 Performance Feedback mechanism

Adequate, feedback on performance should be provided, not just at the end of the year (as part of the appraisal cycle) but on a continuous basis. Employees should know what they need to do to get a better rating or to be considered for a promotion. Transparency is a big value

Bring about changes in Recruitment process

Hiring profile to be re looked at. Maybe 20 year olds are not the best fit for this kind of a job.

Spend more time with each candidate at the time of recruitment to assess his interest levels. For some months it may appear that lesser number of employees are being hired but you’d rather hire the right profile that someone who will leave in less than a month.

Be Honest

Lastly take the clients into confidence. Be honest with them if there is a challenge. Most of them will appreciate it and perhaps help too.

At the end of it all it’s a maximum of 1:15 manager vs. agent ratio. So why can’t each manager do what it takes to keep his 15 team members happy?

If employee morale improves, they start performing better, if they perform better, they start achieving their targets and the projects meet their SLA’s. Companies can then go to clients and ask for a better dollar rate too. If companies can up their performance perhaps the clients won’t mind paying a little more.

Is this all easier said than done? 

First Day at School

My son started going to a new school a few  days back and was going through separation anxiety. He repeatedly kept telling us that he wanted to go home and that he could start the next day etc.
He was crying until we reached the school gate at which point one of his teachers took him from us and asked us not to worry. The teacher looked pleasing, confident and most importantly reassuring.
My wife and I waited anxiously till 1pm to pick him up and were very curious to see how he was faring, at 1pm we saw him walking out of school, towards the gate, holding his teachers hand and to our delight, with a big smile on his face. The teacher also told us that our son is a very good boy
Phew…..
What my son went through is am sure relatively similar to what every new employee goes through in his Day 1.  The question is does every employee walk out with a smile on his face??
The teacher paid attention to the smallest details, ensured hand holding and also gave a lot of positive reinforcement. So can organisations cant they?

Five simple rules to improve Day 1 experience:
1.Make sure that the  employee is welcomed on day 1 as soon as he/she enters the office building
2.Ensure that the employee feels warm and welcome as he is taken around the work place.
3.Introduce him/her  to as many of his colleagues as possible
4.Ensure that he/she is given company while he/she is having lunch on day 1.
5.One on One with the Manager

Pretty basic stuff but will go a long way in ensuring that the employee walks out with a smile at the end of the day and there is enough data that tells us that employees who have a great Day 1 tend to stay on at the organisation for a much longer time.

Increasing Joining Ratio

In the recent past I have seen that Companies are getting more creative and are looking at different methods to engage with employees much before they even join the company.
 This proactive approach goes a long way on ensuring that the new employees feel a lot more valued. It also reduces first day anxiety levels as employees are briefed on what to expect, whom to meet and also for outstation employees finer details like location of the office and how to get there etc. are informed in advance.

AceNgage currently assists companies by getting in touch with the candidates once an offer letter is issued and engaging with them until they join the company
The key objectives of this engagement are:
• Enhance Offer To Join Ratio
• Reduce Early (Zero to Three months attrition)
• Continuous feedback and monitoring of the outcomes at various milestones (Offer to 3 months)
• Provide a robust employee relationship monitoring and feedback model to identify issues, their root causes and provide immediate assistance to ensure high degree of responsiveness and resolution to issues specific to offers, joining and early engagement
• Reporting and Analytics to provide inputs for systemic corrections in people, process & policies framework in managing early engagement

Some companies also go the extra mile and in fact invite all new employees for lunch prior to them even joining the company to introduce them to their future colleagues.

While there is a definite and significant  cost saving when the Join ratio improves there are also tremendous intangible benefits of improving early engagement.