You want the best company with a great culture and strong, hardworking employees. You know that means you need to get your new employees on board, understanding the company mission, and making a meaningful contribution, so the first day on the job is obviously an important day in your new employees’ lives. But, Adam Ochstein, founder and CEO of StratEx, a Chicago-based firm that provides HR services and software, says it’s not just the first day that’s important, the last day is as well.
Ochstein calls this “Bookends Culture.” “Oftentimes,” he says, ” the focus is on heavily retaining existing employees who may already be bought into the vision rather than helping new hires understand and get acclimated to the culture.”
On the other end, managers often make big mistakes when an employee resigns. Ochstein says, “One of the biggest mistakes managers make is giving a top performer the cold shoulder when they quit.” Why is that a mistake? Well for lots of reasons. Someone who has been a top performer for you will likely be a top performer for someone else. Your former employee could someday become your client or your vendor. Additionally, Ochstein says, “people associate with similar people, so top performers will know other top performers in their network.”
To keep reading, click here: The Two Most Important Days of Your Employees’ Lives
At old toxic company, on my first day they did not have a computer for me. That however was chump change. I had to find an offiice, grab tools from my car and dismantle the system furniture in my newly claimed office, move the parts into the hall then storage area, paint my office, find a local office supply store, buy my own furniture, arrange to have it delivered. My responsibilities included managing the whole USA but the company did not believe in having or bringing in people to do this when employees like me would need to do it anyway and we would stay late on our first day sucking it up, thus not costing the company anything. I even turned my good clothes inside out so that if paint splattered on them I wouldn’t ruin them.
There’s a reason I call it old toxic company.
Exit interview at software megacorp was fun. Because I was friendly w/ the HR person who regularly did the exit, I got her boss instead. When asked the inevitable, “Why are you leaving?” I said that I was tired of finding out via email who my next boss was going to be. As I had 8 bosses in 5 years, they had many opportunities. HR said, “Sorry this happened to you once.” I replied, “The last TWO bosses were ’email’ notification.” “It’s been nice working with you ‘Bob’,” he replied. There is no excuse for one, let alone two email bosses. btw, when you say you used to work for software megacorp no one ever asks why you left (or if you were fired).
I was a top performer at my last job, and worked there for many years. When I quit, i was committed to behaving professionally, but they took it poorly and behaved poorly, to the point where one of my bosses literally refused to look at me or speak to me, and the other one verbally berated me, even as I went out of my way to successfully transition my clients to new teams. I went from feeling like I mught someday return to the company to feeling bitter and resentful.
I moved past those feelings, of course, but two years later, my non-solicitation was up, and I recruited their employees and clients far more aggressively (and therefore far more successfully) than I would have otherwise.
Performance management and monitoring is one way in which you can ensure that new employees perform and for those exceptional performers will be rewarded.
Few days before I joined a Startup and I should say that the processes that they used on day made me love the company. They followed a digitized onboarding and I really loved it. They practice what they preach. One can read more about it here https://goo.gl/x2DIYH