Does Your Company Have a “Pre-Boarding” Strategy?

According to USA Today (7-19-18) ” many business report that 20 to 50% of job applicants and workers are pulling no-shows in some form.”

It’s an all too familiar scenario.  You’ve met with a candidate, interviewed them, even wined and dined them and have all their paperwork ready for their upcoming first day of work.

A week later, you receive the dreaded phone call that they’ve accepted a counter-offer. Or worse yet, you are stood up by the candidate on their first day with no explanation at all. Unfortunately this very scenario is becoming very common, especially for senior level roles that are in high demand within the construction industry.

Let’s face it – finding top quality talent isn’t really the hard part.  Landing that talent and getting them tied into your organization and opportunity is far more difficult, especially in the commercial construction industry, where the term “labor shortage” is a vast understatement.

According to USA Today (7-19-18), “many business report that 20 to 50 % of job applicants are pulling no-shows in some form.” That’s a crazy number and it continues to climb in all industries.

Hiring without thinking through your pre-boarding process (and on-boarding, which we will cover in another post), is CRITICAL if you want to ensure that you convert your best candidate into a living part of your organization.

While executing a great pre-boarding strategy is not difficult, it tends to be overlooked since it’s not really an HR function.  Instead, it relies on the entire organization and team members to make their new hire feel like a part of their company from the day the offer goes out.

While we’ve included some easy-to-execute tips, the real challenge goes in making sure the entire team takes ownership of these tasks.

• Send a hand written thank you note after the offer went out expressing your thanks and excitement they will be starting with the team.
• Have their future team members invite them out for happy hour or dinner to meet the team before they start.
• Ask the entire staff to sign a congratulations card and send it in the mail.
• Show them you value their input by asking their opinion regarding an internal dilemma or decision.
• Make a weekly call to them – call to check in and see how they feel about everything. Do they have questions? How is the work wrap up going at their previous position?
• Offer to meet them for coffee so they can pick up their enrollment materials and fill them out before starting (which has the added benefit of making first day less about paperwork and more about engaging with the team).
• Give them an email account and get them involved with the team. This act of “trust” speaks volumes.
• Facetime them or record a video showing them their new office space (with a welcome gift on the desk) and express excitement that the team feels about them coming on board.
• Send them an itinerary for the first day with schedule of who they will meet, their titles, and preferably a lunch out with the team.
• Ask them to fill out a new hire survey that digs deep into their career aspirations and goals to show you are aligned with helping them develop their career.

This does not replace on-boarding by any means but will dramatically increase the ratio of candidates who will truly becoming thriving team members at your organization.