Every business owner understands the importance of employee retention, but many still neglect a key piece of this puzzle. If you’re focusing all your retention efforts on what happens after your employees are hired, you’re missing out on a big part of the picture. Retention doesn’t only have to do with your existing and already tenured employees. In production workforces, it starts at the hiring process by ensuring you’re hiring capable people and creating the best overall hiring experience. Here’s some background on the impact new hires have on retention and how to go about hiring employees that are well-suited for long-lasting careers within your organization. The increased injury risk of new hires New workers represent a disproportionate share of a company’s injury risk. In fact, 40% of all employee injuries take place within one year on the job, while workers in their first 30 days have a 300% greater risk of injury compared to those with more than one year of experience. These issues occur for a number of reasons, but much of it boils down to many employees being hired for positions they’re not physically capable of performing in due to poor post-offer and pre-hire practices. Perhaps a prospective employee wasn’t put through proper testing, or maybe the written description of the job was inaccurate or incomplete in the first place. Whatever the reason, this increased risk makes hiring capable employees and ensuring they’re fit for success in their roles especially critical. Here are a few steps to begin that process. Setting new hires up for success Hiring the right workers starts with properly defining the needs and demands of their role and then ensuring they’re capable before pulling the trigger. Here are three key solutions to help your organization pinpoint and hire the right employees. Create functional job descriptions An employee won’t know if they’re cut out for a job unless they know specifically what the job entails – and neither will your hiring decision-makers. Crafting functional job descriptions starts by conducting an assessment of your roles and their ergonomic risks and demands. From there, you can create written descriptions that include manual material handling needs, common bodily movements and positions, and more. Taking time to create these descriptions leads to more successful hires and also tells your current and prospective employees that you’re invested in their careers. Implement post-offer testing Post-offer employee tests are conducted to make sure candidates are capable of performing in their roles without a high likelihood of injury. When an employee is offered a position, they are then asked to participate in a series of physical ability tests to assess this risk and readiness. Testing ensures your business isn’t hiring its next injury and increases retention by hiring employees capable of performing in the long term. The increased retention also has an impact on your bottom line . For every $1 spent on post-offer testing, organizations are able to achieve a return of up to $20 . Utilize a New Employee Training Camp You’ve now performed analyses, crafted functional job descriptions, and tested employees post-offer – but once they’re hired, the retention process doesn’t stop. A New Employee Training Camp from Fit For Work is designed to help your new employees successfully enter the atmosphere of your organization by reproducing the specific conditions in which they’ll be working. This takes post-offer testing a step further by working with hires in their roles to establish proper work habits, address any soreness from normal movements, and optimize workflow for both safety and productivity. Adding a training camp to your hiring process eliminates the feelings of shock, distress, or anger that can often be present in new hires as they experience fatigue and unfamiliar soreness from long days of work. These camps are tailored to suit your organization and to change the perception of the work from that of a daily grind to a healthy workout. Optimize your hiring process for employee retention with Fit For Work Fit For Work’s turnkey approach is capable of integrating with your processes to work exactly as you need it to. Contact us today to implement hiring practices that will increase employee retention throughout your organization.
Boosting Employee Retention Starts with the Hiring Process
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