Good first impressions lead to increased retention and productivity, which is obviously good for a company’s bottom line. Employees start building first impressions the minute they make contact with a company, so it is important to start the onboarding process as soon as an offer is accepted. You need to make absolutely sure that your new hire feels welcomed, valued and prepared to do his or her job. To ensure your company gives new hires the best first impression possible, you should:

• Be ready for the new hire – What kind of impression will employees have if when they show up on their first day nothing is ready? Email isn’t set up; their new workstation is a mess; or paperwork they need to sign isn’t ready to go; all of which will leave a bad taste in their mouths. Make sure everything is ready on day one when your new hire starts. It not only helps in forming a positive opinion about the company, but also helps them become productive members of the team faster.

• Automate the administrative end of the onboarding – What’s even better than having paperwork ready for employees to sign on the first day? Having no paperwork for them to sign. Automate the process and go paperless, this way new employees can fill out all paperwork before the first day and hit the ground running.

• Immerse your new hire in the company culture – Get new employees feeling excited to be a part of your team. Let them know about the company’s policies and rules, and introduce them to co-workers that can help them get a better understanding of what the company is about.

• Make new employees feel welcome and valued as key players on the team – Make sure your new employee is included on meetings and is giving material to familiarize themselves with your business. Make a plan for someone to eat lunch with on the first day so they start feeling they’re part of the team and walk them around the office.

• Give them time to get situated and familiar with their new jobs – Don’t just go throwing new employees into “do or die” situations. Ensure they are giving proper training and not left feeling overwhelmed or confused.

As the saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a great first impression. Don’t miss your opportunity to engage your new hire and secure a loyal employee.

We would like to thank Jon Holden, Director at Silkroad this great guest blog.

This, shall we say, ‘incident’ of misrepresentation is happening every day in your organisation. Employees, current, former and future are taking the opportunity to share their opinion on you as an employer amongst their network.

An innocuous enough event you may feel, but what are they saying about you? This uncertainty about the message, style and tone is what creates horrors for employers.

This is not a new phenomena; Ambler and Barrow in 1996 started talking about the concept of the employer brand. A direct recognition that the way in which your organisation is perceived does require some careful management. So what’s the point?

Back to Apple. Maybe the recent incidents in China are a reminder to us all that in the age of technology, ubiquitous supply of information and social media, sometimes the basics will still come to haunt us.

Organisations globally are working extremely hard to put values at the hearts of their businesses in order to try to meet the demands of growth, scarcity of skills, changing markets, increased competition etc etc etc. Aligning talent programmes to business goals, with people the key to achieving short, medium and long-term ambitions, leaders have had to live and demonstrate values like never before, with their most critical business partner; HR.

On September 14th Ochre House hosts its annual symposium at Wentworth and this year it covers the topic: “Re-defining Business Value through a Talent Centric Approach”. For the first time we have business leaders joining with HR leaders, as the two have come to work inextricably in those organisations that are leading the way in aligning business strategy and talent.

We have heard that Newspapers have struggled, are perhaps outdated with the advent of the internet, but is it such an archaic industry that the leaders can behave like luddites? I think not, and I sincerely hope the NI staff vote with their feet.

We already all know the reasons why direct hiring is key- protecting your brand, managing candidate experience, improving retention, reducing costs of resourcing… I could go on! But we also know that you can’t do without good agencies that work as partners and are still an essential channel in attracting new, niche, external talent. Your PSL is a key partner relationship so manage it carefully, within clear parameters, with clear communications agreed. Or risk paying the ultimate price!

This got me thinking – how is it that Facebook can be used to reach out to specific groups using what would normally be viewed as ‘off limits diversity’ information? How is it that we can not advertise for ‘experienced’ people on the grounds that it may show a bias towards age whilst I can quite happily base an ad on Facebook targeting 18 – 23 year olds?

And what is to stop people using this same data, consciously or sub consciously, in their evaluation and selection of potential candidates? Does the fact that the individual has chosen to put this information ‘in the public domain’ (and believe me people – it really is public!) make the information any less sacrosanct?

I would be keen to know if anyone had any examples of where Facebook had been cited in a discrimination context… Can of worms anyone?

An “identified patient“ is a psychological term referring to a family member — often a child or a teenager — who gets scapegoated for behaviour that is actually just a predictable response to dealing with an unhealthy family. In this sense, Tony Hayward is BP’s identified patient.

BP is a great example of an organisation in the grips of a leadership crisis because it has suddenly found itself with an “Identified patient”. Whether this is because of leadership failure or because the US administration “wants some blood” is a point for debate. However, it is clear that few organisations are immune from this potential risk. This therefore poses some interesting questions for those in charge of planning succession.

Typically, leadership succession processes are designed to fulfil three objectives:

Build a “talent pipeline” that is full of the capabilities required in the future organisation
       – Plan for future leaders in specific roles
       – Be ready for a sudden change in plan

It’s this final objective that organisations are frequently poorly prepared for. Whilst BP is one example, the Saga at ITV  last year just underlines the point.

My observation is that whilst strategic leadership planning seems to happen relatively smoothly, scenario planning for shorter term changes tends to be overlooked. So a question for you all? If you had an unidentified patient in your organisation, would you have an answer?

We recently ran a survey to assess the actual take up of social media in the recruitment context in the lead up to our webinar for HR Professionals to discuss this emerging recruitment medium.

The results were compelling with over 80% of respondents stating that social/professional networking was a part of their attraction strategy.

Yet what we found was that the majority of organisations are still reviewing their strategy, with a lot not quite knowing when or how to join this exponentially growing community.

The main barriers preventing full scale adoption of Social Media for recruiting seem to be a lack of time, resource and knowledge of available tools. Just 14% of respondents had a full-time resource dedicated to managing social media. 50% of respondents ‘Always’ use LinkedIn (the clear leader in professional social networking) – but does this represent a social media strategy that 80% of respondents claim as part of their attraction strategy?

Turning the terms of trade against some of the most talented (and mobile) people in the UK workforce can only in the long run make the country and companies doing business in it poorer. Our job has therefore become suddenly much bigger, not only do we need to seek creative solutions for our clients, but we must work hard to educate the lawmakers.

What is new however is the ability to measure what people are saying about your organisation; and ‘what you can measure, you can manage’.

Many consultancies (ours included) are now working with clients to help influence the message appearing about their organisation online, hence ‘employer reputation management’ Think about the power of this for a minute… An online community of millions (350m on Facebook alone) all singing your praises….That something to aspire to.

Never has it been clearer that you cannot afford to ignore the power of social media. Whether this was a protest vote or not, it is proof positive that with the right message you can reach a vast market quickly, directly and cheaply. And once again, you can only fight the battle for your brand if you enter the debate and try to influence it head on. If you stick your head in the sand, don’t embrace it as part of the “new norm”, then the opportunity cost be enormous.