Posts Tagged ‘Onboarding’

Are staff really your best asset?

In businesses large and small we will often hear the statements “our staff are our greatest asset” or “we couldn’t do it without our staff”

This is a widely held belief (or at least a widely stated belief), but is it true? And if it is (which I believe 100%) how does this relate to the process of hiring staff (and not surprisingly from my point of view, relationships with recruiters)

I’ve posted elsewhere some issues around retaining staff and onboarding (and will be following up on these with other posts shortly)

In this post let’s look at recruiting new staff.

The cost of replacing staff are said to be 30% – 50% of the annual salary of entry level employees, 150% for mid level employees and up to a staggering 400% for specialised executive level employees!

On that basis for every mid level member of staff with an annual salary £50,000 the cost to the business in terms of lost productivity and profit is £75,000!

It is also said that in the UK that 75% of new hires fail to meet expectations.

It is therefore essential to have an effective talent management process in place. This needn’t be complicated but it does take time and planning.

Think for a moment the process that your organisation would go through before a £50,000 software implementation.

I’m sure this would involve an RFP with a detailed requirements analysis and in depth selection process. Once this was in place each vendor would be considered with advantages weighed up carefully. Once a vendor was selected there would be an implementation team to work with the vendor’s implementation team and a project manager to work with the vendor’s project manager. Following this there would be training and maintenance / support contacts put in place. (This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list but I hope makes the point)

How does this compare to the last £50,000 employee hired?

Are staff really your best asset?

Written by Richard Morgan at Remit Resources

Large FTSE 100 companies will often have well established onboarding programmes (with differing degrees of success) designed to help new employees integrate into their new environment and become productive quicker

There is no reason why every company should not have an onboarding programme in place (it hasn’t got to be complicated, the best ones are well thought out and simple!)

4 Reasons why every company should have an onboarding programme:

• Recent study by Booz Allen Hamilton suggested that 90% of employees will decide within the first 6 months if they are going to stay with a new employer. Most make that decision within the first couple of weeks
• Another study shows that an effective onboarding programme can increase staff retention by 31%. The real cost of replacing staff can be 150% for mid level staff rising to as high as 400% for executive level or highly specialised technical staff
• Time to productivity can be increased by as much as 2 months for those employees who have received onboarding to those that haven’t. This is specifically true when dealing with technical IT staff where it is difficult to find specific and specialist technical expertise
• New staff who go through onboarding programmes feel part of “the family” quicker. They feel happier in their role, are more productive and able to provide a better quality of service quicker

In summary every company should have an onboarding programme! Why? Simple, it improves profit and it improves productivity.

Written by Richard Morgan, Remit Resources