Across industries, organisations are currently experiencing the great resignation – attrition among existing employees is on the rise, candidates holding an offer are courting more employers simultaneously and the offer drop rates are increasing. Infact, organisations are specifically targeting those candidates holding an offer, already on notice. Their strategy is to match or slightly exceed the offer in hand and poach the candidate during the notice period stage. Together these two trends create a huge pressure on staffing and the ability of any organisation to drive performance.
Once an offer is rolled out and accepted, the key to keeping the candidate committed to joining your organisation (despite holding multiple offers, equally competitive if not better) is to engage. When we say engage, we are focusing on a proactive, constant, high effort exercise of staying connected, talking often, providing support, responding on queries, creating a comfort and emotional connection that makes non-joining that much harder.
We have designed a process that covers a number of fronts – providing engagement, connect and information that will be interesting and relevant as a means to keep candidates invested.
Process:
One phone call of 15 mins each week (with a HR professional who is trained to engage with candidates and look for red flags)
Two-point agenda in each call
To check in – how is the candidate doing; any challenges; queries; support required; emotions etc
To engage:
share about the organisation, its future plans, career growth opportunities, successes, news and updates;
culture – what it takes to be successful here
introductions with the manager and team, schedule mtgs/time to catch up
about the leaders – their background, vision, 2-3 year plans, their stories
pre-joining online learning – recommended courses for the new role
Check for red flags – these could include
Avoidance: Calls are avoided, cut and no call back | no response to msgs and whatsapp | Missed calls go unacknowledged | Calls are picked up and disconnected
Disinterest: monosyllabic responses | lack of response | unsure/unclear | unwilling to speak freely | makes an excuse to end the conversation quickly
Report red flags – weekly report on all live candidates which will highlight cases where red flags are observed. The organisation will be requested for guidance on actions to be taken (which could include aggressive engagement, back up hiring etc)