Clausen: First days on new job set the tone
- Success in retaining talent should start during the first few days on the job.
- Also%2C 90 percent of organization believe a new hire makes a decision to stay or leave within first year of employment.
- Gen X and millennial workers can expect to change jobs more than 11 times%2C according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Chances are I won't retire writing this column — and if you're one of the younger types reading this on the Internet, you won't retire at your current job either.
These days Gen X and millennial workers can expect to change jobs more often than their parents. Try 11.3 job changes for those 18 to 46, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Me? I've already worked 21 different jobs for 11 different employers. Dishwasher, short order cook, shift manager, reporter, page designer, copy editor, web producer, columnist, adjunct professor, section editor and now back to reporter, and some others.
That first job, part-time dishwasher, paid $5.50 an hour, required a special permit and was just down the street from my childhood home in the Sea Breeze neighborhood of Irondequoit. That was in 1990, and my first paycheck went to pay for a new pair of sneakers.
How priorities have changed — from sneakers for me to sneakers for my kids, a mortgage, day care payments, retirement and whatever else is needed.
And now as work life reporter/columnist for the Democrat and Chronicle, it's my job to get inside your business and write about it.
I still have a few years to get to 46, but starting a new job never gets easier. It's an upheaval of whatever came before, with new hours, tasks, deadlines and getting to know new supervisors and their expectations.
New workers — particularly younger ones — want to do incredibly well on the first day, but are just learning names when IT starts to get them going on a computer with email, and then HR arrives with forms to read and sign.
We can tell newbies to ask a lot of questions and take a lot of notes, work at building relationships with coworkers, and create some sort of plan for those first few days and weeks on the job.
Firms should focus on connecting with new employees on a more personal level instead of having them fill out paperwork or go to a three-hour new hire orientation with HR.
In fact, employers should focus on making a worker's first year as strong as possible. A 2013 study by the Aberdeen Group found that 90 percent of organizations believe a new hire makes a decision to stay or leave within their first year.
One year, that's it.
"The measures of effective onboarding are straightforward: high employee performance, satisfaction and retention. By these measures, the statistics aren't good," Barry Friedman, a lecturer at the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester, and a professor at the State College at Oswego, wrote in an email to me.
He pointed to a Society of Human Resource Management survey that said 50 percent of outside upper management hires fail within the first 18 months of taking a new assignments and 50 percent of hourly workers leave their new jobs within the first 120 days.
"Effective onboarding is part of a human resources strategy that translates into a competitive advantage," he said. "Onboarding new employees is critical for both the organization and the employee."
Onboarding is just the 2015 way of describing the new hire orientation process.
Friedman said all such programs need to be legally compliant, communicated so employees understand their roles and the company culture, and should establish relationships and connections with other workers.
Onboarding fails a majority of the time when someone doesn't own the process for the employer, according to Aberdeen. According to Aberdeen, other things that helps new hires include:
•Extending the process over a longer period of time.
•Assigning a coach or mentor.
•Clearly identify expectations.
•Build in some sort of gamification. Those that do, said Aberdeen, increase employee engagement but examples were not provided.
I'm not sure how I'd convince my bosses to make my new beat into a full-time game, but it will include weekly columns and features. So help make it fun by sending me your ideas because starting a new job — or starting over — shouldn't be as hard as chipping away at the sub-zero ice patches on the windshield.
It should really be about treating employees well and working together rather than what someone is reading out of a thick policy book.
TCLAUSEN@DemocratandChronicle.com
Meet Todd
Todd Clausen is the Democrat and Chronicle's new work life reporter. It's his job to get inside your business and write about it.
A lifelong Rochester-area resident and award-winning journalist, Todd joined Gannett Co. Inc. in 2004 and has held a variety of roles with the organization. You can find him as @ToddJClausen on Twitter,Instagram,LinkedIn, on Facebook at ToddJClausen1 and TJCRoc, and many other social networks. He likes getting email at tclausen@DemocratandChronicle.com, and calls to (585) 258-9883.