Today must be HR day for blogs. Tom Peters company asks, “Is your company adequately prepared to meet your company goals and objectives this year?” One point it makes is that while Hiring the Right people is important, retaining and motivating that talent is just as important.

There is a large cost to acquire an employee. Some say as much as 1/3 the salary. So hiring is an expensive proposition. And many companies fail at on-boarding. What is that? That is the process of bring the new employee into your company – everything from training, to first day schedule, to meeting the department, to being ready for the new hire with PC, desk, phone, passwords. Some employees do not get past the bad taste of a mishandled on-boarding. It is the first impression that you give the new hire about how you treat employees.

“Time, money, and effort can be spent hiring the right person, but if the same amount of energy is not put into creating and sustain the right culture, it is like playing a slot machine-you waste a lot of money trying to get a few wins.” [tom peters]

“What if you started acting like the VP of Talent? Understanding that talent is hard to find and not obvious to manage. The VP of Talent would have to reorganize the department and do things differently all day long (small example: talent shouldn’t have to fill out reams of forms and argue with the insurance company… talent is too busy for that… talent has people to help with that.)” [seth godin]

When you treat your employees like clients, your employees will treat your clients like employees. And everyone wins.

1. 30% of all business failures are due to employee theft and related forms of dishonesty.
2. The average award in a negligent hiring lawsuit is $1 Million.
3. 51% of all resumes, applications and references provided by applicants contain inaccurate information
4. The direct & indirect average cost of employee turnover is 1.5 times the annual salary of that open position.
5. 7% of applicants have had a criminal record in the last 7 years.

provided by ADP

“Onboarding is more than assuring new hires they have material resources to perform. It is also about socialization. New employees need to learn quickly how things are really done and whom to go to. Studies show that retention, engagement and productivity are affected by onboarding more than any other factor.”

Onboarding is the process of bringing a new hire on. Is his desk ready? His biz cards, logins, laptop, cell phone? His job description and paperwork (like I-9 and W-2)? His desk and chair? Is there a meeting planned to introduce him to the rest of the company? Remember that you can only make one first impression. Set the right tone for his career with your organization.