What if the biggest reason new hires leave isn't pay, scheduling, or workload, but the experience they have during their first few weeks? In this episode of Contributor Wednesday, Cara Silletto explores how senior living leaders can dramatically reduce costly early turnover by rethinking onboarding as an "on-ramp" rather than a one-time orientation event. Drawing from conversations with senior living HR executives and retention leaders, Cara shares practical strategies to create stronger connections, improve training, identify flight risks early, and build loyalty during the critical first 100 days.

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Key Ideas:

- Why onboarding should be viewed as a long-term "on-ramp"

- The connection between early turnover and inadequate training

- Why new hires represent the highest retention risk

- The importance of the first 100 days of employment

- How leadership communication impacts retention

- Protecting new hires from negativity and toxic workplace behaviors

- Professionalism expectations and generational workforce differences

- Building effective onboarding and training checklists

- New hire surveys and identifying flight-risk employees

- Mentorship programs that improve employee retention

- Why organizations must give employees reasons to stay

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Meet Our Contributor

Cara Silletto

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Learn more about the Employee Retention Ecosystem

employeeretentionecosystem.com 

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magnetvault.com 

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Watch More BTG

https://www.btgvoice.com/shows

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00:09 - 05:16

Cara Silletto

Welcome to the Bridge the Gap podcast. I'm your contributor. Host, Cara Silletto. And if we haven't met yet, I'm the president and chief retention officer over here at Magnet Culture. We are a firm dedicated to reducing unnecessary employee turnover, specifically in the senior care space. And I'm the creator of the employee retention ecosystem model. So today we are headed back to the leader level of this ecosystem framework.

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And we're going to focus on the area called Give Guidance, which is about the new hire experience, bringing our newest team members on and keeping them. We have got to reduce this 30, 60, 90 day costly turn that is happening at so many of our buildings. So we're going to run through a bunch of strategies today and some new insights on how to make that new hire experience much more effective across your organization.

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Now, I'd like to start with an analogy here of if you have ever driven a car in a city that you don't know and you maybe stop to get gas, you're getting back on the highway and you come around that big circle entrance ramp, and when you get to the top of the ramp, you think, oh, this on ramp is not as long as I thought it was going to be.

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And I am not quite up to speed yet. So you realize you have to be pushed into full blown traffic a lot faster than you anticipated being pushed into. Right? You were kind of thrown out there, and maybe you're even in a rental car that just doesn't have the giddy up that your car has. And so you were not prepared to enter that highway at that full speed.

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Well, that, my friends, is how our new hires feel when we push them out on the floor. Who quickly. And it is still happening. You know, years and years ago we used to have a long on ramp. We used to have shadowing and buddy systems and a lot of training and reinforcement. And then over time, I've seen it with my own eyes.

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It has shrunk. It has absolutely gotten smaller and smaller and smaller. That on ramp, the length of the on ramp. And of course, when we get really desperate or really short staffed, then we say, well, we just need them on the floor. So we do only the compliance checkboxes on that gets us into trouble, because then those folks do not connect with us.

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They don't really know who we are, what we expect, and they certainly don't then have the competence and confidence to fully do their job independently. And of course, with all of our staff running around so busy underwater, some new hires feel that they don't have anyone to turn to. They have nowhere to go with their questions and they don't want to bother folk.

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All right, so you may hear me use this term throughout the podcast today of On Ramp, because I think it's a better analogy and a better word than the generic word onboarding, because a lot of people think onboarding is just maybe the first day or the first week or the first month. Now, some also would call that orientation.

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You might have different terminology in your organization, but really the onboarding process of getting someone truly onboarded into their role, the company, the the people that we serve, you know, the rules, the systems, all of those things. That takes months. It takes months and months and months. And yet most leaders that I talk to and work with, they don't always think about onboarding, as in a six month or more process, which it absolutely is.

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So I like to change the language here so we can get out of our old way of thinking and say, what does the on ramp look like for those new hires? What does that experience? How quickly are we pushing them up to full speed or out on their own? And does it make them the current on ramp we have?

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Does it make them want to exit immediately? Right. Hit the brakes, go to the shoulder. I'm not doing this. Or take the first exit ramp that's available to them because we want to eliminate that, right? So another big piece of information. Another big insight here to keep in mind is that new hires or our greatest flight risk. So when we talk about who's likely to leave the organization it's not about age.

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You know, I do a lot of generational work with our clients. It's not as much about age. It's about how deep someone's roots are. And that goes back to the framework of the ecosystem where everyone is a house plant. One size doesn't fit all. We have to treat everybody differently. And so if we think about who's the greatest flight risk, it's the new hires, because they don't have those roots yet that have settled into the organization and into their roles and into their teams.

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05:16 - 09:41

Cara Silletto

So just keep that in mind that every new hire who comes in is a flight risk, because they left their last company to come to you. And guess what? They will leave you to go on to the next shiny opportunity. If this on ramp, this experience is not what they're looking for. All right. So so much of our turnover is happening early.

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In fact, a lot of the retention clients I'm working with, we are laser focused on the new higher turnover and getting a grip on that, figuring out why they're leaving and and getting rid of those exit ramps, you know, really making sure that they feel comfortable and and want to stay. In fact, a friend of mine, Steven Tweed, who does a ton of work in home health if you don't follow him, he's brilliant.

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Been doing this for decades. And his book about retention of home care aides in particular, which is not far off of all of our resident aides and CNAs and and those folks he found in his research that 100 days is the magic number. So if someone is with you for 100 days, then that tends to be someone who is not going to leave all right, at least anytime soon.

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So that that was kind of the magic number. And in a little bit I'm going to tell you some insights I got from some senior care leaders. I was just on a call with about kind of that 100 day versus 45 day and, and where are some magic touch points and timing that help you identify who might leave or who might stay.

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All right. So for long time, Bridge the Gap listeners, you may recall that I did a monthly contributor series back in 2021, and I did an episode way back then, five years ago, about onboarding. And I'll tell you, so much is still the same, but so much has changed as well. So it's incredible that we're still talking about this issue, the new hire turnover being one of the biggest drivers of that cost for us, of replacing people that, you know, we'd rather not replace honestly.

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And by the way, if you go to the Bridge the Gap podcast website and put my name Cara Silletto in the search, it will bring up all of this year's episodes that I'm doing, as well as all of the past episodes from 2021, and the guest episodes that I've done with Josh and Lucas. So definitely check those out if you want some more insights after today's podcast as well.

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So for this episode, I'm excited to share insights from this recent conversation I had with several Senior Living Rose, the chief HR officers, and HR directors and got to tell you, I host a secret invitation only group of HR leaders in senior care every few months, and we just discussed this on ramp concept and ways to make the new hire experience better on our last call.

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So I've got so many good takeaways to share from their experience as well as, of course, the onboarding strategies we've been teaching here at Magnet Culture for years. Because this is not a new issue. It continues to evolve, but it has been an issue for a while, and we've got to continue our focus on it as well. First things first.

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Why do you believe people, whit? Why do they quit particularly new hires, if we're going to look at that group in particular today? And I think it is so amazing, at a recent two day retention retreat that I taught for a group up in Chicago, I started the entire two day program with this question, why do you believe people quit?

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Because I want to get a feel for do people take more ownership as leaders, or do they blame the staff or blame the company? And where do they sit on, you know, just those real reasons of why people stay and why people go. So folks went around the room, they go one by one, and they gave a lot of the typical answers, which I understand, right.

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They said things like, well, the job wasn't what they thought it would be, so they left. Some people didn't like their team or their boss. They don't feel fully supported or that sense of they found their people, right? Their group, some of them said the pay was not worth the level of difficulty of the job. Once they got in there.

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09:41 - 14:12

Cara Silletto

Some of them even said they didn't get enough training and that they just didn't feel like they clicked in that job. In fact, we have a two page list. Okay, if you're wondering why people leave, we have a why people leave when document that you can download at magnet because people have different reasons at different times. You know, new hires leave for different reasons than somebody who might leave after a year or 2 or 3.

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Right? Maybe that person is looking for more advancement or other opportunities, for example. So if you haven't grabbed that resource, jump into Magnet Volt and download that one. But the biggest stand out answer that morning at the retreat was one director who, when I got to him here, was his answer. He said, I don't think we give them enough reason to stay.

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Boom, my friends, drop the mic. Let's take that in for a minute, okay? He said. I don't think we give them enough reason to stay that that was just so I opening for the whole group that day because of course we're thinking, well, what what causes them, what pushes them out the door. But we also need to think about what heats them as well.

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Now, in other podcasts, I've talked about the carrots and the incentives that that we recommend putting out there. But for this one, you know, this director, he went on to say that everyone in their area, in their town is hiring hourly workers. And so these folks can go anywhere to get a paycheck. Why should they come back tomorrow?

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Why should they stay? What do we do to be more attractive? And he admitted that the company doesn't pay as well as other employers down the street. They can't let people work from home, which some employees are looking for. They can't offer super flexible schedules because we provide 24 over seven care 365 days a year. Right. And most of our leaders, he even talked about and we talk about this too.

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Most of our leaders have been hired or promoted into leadership positions without having been given the training and tools to successfully lead today's new workforce, especially from a generational standpoint. Has your organization talked about Gen Z specifically and how it's very different today, especially with those 20 somethings that we're hiring and mentoring and training versus the millennials like me?

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It's a whole different ball game, okay. In fact, many of these leaders, they don't even have time to properly onboard or check in with their people regularly. And I hear that from the leaders in my classes all the time. And then if we're lucky, the leaders get to give the new hires a 3% pay increase at the end of a full year of hard work, which, by the way, doesn't even keep up with inflation.

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So the leaders are telling me, instead of it being a happy day, that it's pay increase day, they have to almost apologize to their people. I'm sorry, it's not more I'm sorry. It's not enough for bread, milk and eggs anymore, you know. But here's your pay increase right there. It's not a joyous occasion like it used to be.

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And they have to almost prepare for people to be upset and maybe even quit if they get that budgeted 3% increase. Okay, so that's a whole other conversation about that. But I just want to put you in that leader shoes. Who that's a leader who's busy. They don't have access to more funds or more flexibility and things like that.

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So the conversation shifted then with our group of leaders to how attractive is the organization really now we can be attractive. And let me tell you, okay. I'm not bashing senior living at all. I think senior living is super sexy. Okay. Super duper sexy. Love the industry, think it's amazing. And if you're listening right now, you probably think that we're pretty sexy too.

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In this industry. You know that that people should want to come here. We have a great mission and great connection with the residents that we serve and the work that we do. Right. But we also need to acknowledge that the general workforce population doesn't think of us as their first opportunity, right. They're not typically growing up and saying, I want to go into senior care.

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14:12 - 18:40

Cara Silletto

That doesn't happen as often. In fact, over the years when I have asked people, how did you get into senior living? A huge majority. Now I don't have the numbers because these were just conversations and not not surveys, but a huge majority of the people I've asked that question to over, you know, more than a decade in this field, it comes down to because they had a family member who already worked in the field, so they were exposed to the amazing residents that we serve and the much needed work that we do.

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It was not a random job ad that drew them it. Okay, so we need to make sure that we keep the people we have, because it is harder for us than other industries to draw in candidates who want to work in health care in general, and especially in senior care in particular. Okay. So we have to teach them and show them that sexy side of the amazing work that we do.

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But it does make retention an even bigger priority when our candidate pool is much smaller than some other areas. Okay, some other industries. So back to my initial question of why do you think people quit? Remember, one size doesn't fit all. And so all of these answers are typically correct. And we're going to have to address those areas of pay and training and leaders and communication and for advancement.

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You know, all of those things because we can give people reasons to stay. We can take good care of them, value their contributions, show that appreciation, give them opportunities for advancement which we know exist. You know, we can mentor them and communicate well. But if we're not there yet. We've got some work to do. All right. So in this recent HR group that I was talking about earlier, we had a few more hypotheses that came up as well.

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So one was that there's a gap between our expectations of professionalism as a company versus how these employees are showing up. All right. And it's funny, the coach I had years ago. All right. A long, long time ago, she said to me, you can't get mad at someone for doing something you never told them they couldn't do. It took me a minute as well, so I'll repeat that for you.

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She said you can't get mad at someone for doing something you never told them they couldn't do. And that is what I see happening all the time about professionalism. We have these unwritten expectations and yet we get mad that the staff misses the boat. Okay, so when we see folks kind of where the wrong thing or say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, we need to be more gentle in our correction of that behavior and really just more thoughtful and more effective in that conversation, because we've got a whole new generation joining us now that most of them were raised with a more gentle parenting approach, that many of us listening right now,

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we were not raised with that. Okay, now I as a millennial, I did get a lot of, you know, a lot of say in my household, and I wasn't yelled at a lot or punished or grounded a lot, but a lot of my Gen X and Boomer friends and even other millennial friends certainly had a because I said so parenting model and much more authoritarian or power play kind of parenting that happened.

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But a lot of today's new workforce that's coming in, they don't have thick skin. They can't take critical feedback or reprimanding like the previous generations could, because they weren't raised with as much of it. Okay. They didn't have the practice and the experience to build that thick skin of, oh, I did it wrong, I messed up, I'll try harder, I'll do better.

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And instead, when we go to reprimand today's new hires, a lot of leaders say, well, I'm afraid to reprimand them because they'll just quit. They just get mad at that. So I do recommend taking more of a mentoring approach instead of a boss approach, and that it's there's a fine line between that, but we have to kind of take them under our wing almost the way I think about it in my head.

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18:40 - 23:26

Cara Silletto

Not that I say this to other people, but almost like you're you're mentoring a little brother or sister, you know, not that you're the parent over them, but that you're the older brother or sister that's wise and has the insights and knows the unwritten rules and expectations so they can be seen in a better light by their peers and bosses.

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You know, you spin the conversation to what's in it for them. Some of you have heard me talk about my shoe story. At my first job at a senior care association. No one told me to wear my shoes all day, and luckily I had a mentor who didn't say, keep your dang shoes on, Cara. Instead, she said, hey, you would get better respect around here and people would see the good work you're doing if you kept your shoes on all day.

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So when we can kind of share with them those expectations of other people, right? The definitions of professionalism that other people have, we can help enlighten them to change that behavior. All right. So that's one thing that can help us reduce some of that new higher turnover is honestly teaching our leaders, especially supervisors and managers, right shift leaders, teaching them to be very careful and thoughtful and more effective, hopefully in that approach as well.

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All right, so this isn't about the staff needing to please us as an employer. Well, this is what we expect of you because we pay you. Well guess what. They can go anywhere and get a paycheck. So let's be nicer. Let's be more kind and clear and really teach them the ways that we want them to work. If there's a gap between that.

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All right. Now, I know some of you are mad at me right now. Please don't stop listening. I get it, some people are like, this is ridiculous. Look, they work for us. We should be able to tell them how to do things and we can. But this group of new hires, they were not that latchkey kid group, like my Gen X friends who learned to fix their own bikes when they were several blocks away from home because they didn't have a cell phone to call mom and dad.

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Okay, a lot of this also comes down to kind of the the figure it out muscle that some of us have and some of us don't in the workforce. And so we need to also help these new hires flex that muscle, strengthen that muscle because they're not. Right. The new hires coming in. Do not be fooled. They are not idiots.

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And it's not even an issue of common sense when people say, well, you know, that's just common sense. They should know what the trash bag in the bin. If I ask them to take the trash bag out, they should put a new bin in the liner. Well what if stay with me. What if taking out the trash was not their chore to do at home?

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What if either their parents didn't make them do chores, which is on the parents, not the kid? Or maybe that was their siblings job. Maybe they did the dishes and their sibling did the trash, and so they don't know how to follow through on a full expectation you have when you only gave them one step, one instruction. Okay.

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It comes out real clear how poor our mentoring instructions are when somebody doesn't do it correctly. And a lot of times I blame the trainer, you know, that we weren't quite as clear as we thought we were. If the person didn't execute in the way that we expected. All right. So we want to make sure that we are not judging these new hires and especially not talking about them behind their back, because if they find that out, they're gone.

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Like that's pardon me, that's BS that people would not give good instructions. Let a new hire miss the boat, miss the mark and then go talk about them behind their back as if it was the new hires fault. Okay, so we've got to take this. That's just common sense. She should know better. We got to throw that out the window and say if they're missing the mark, we as the employer, as the leader of that person, of that team, we have to bridge that gap and communicate a lot more clearly.

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All right. So we have to think differently because today's new workforce is different. All right. And here's an approach I love to discuss with senior living executives. If we know that these new hires are wired differently today. Now, of course, I'm kind of focusing a little bit on this younger workforce right now, the 20 somethings. But a lot of this applies to even a 45 or 55 year old new hire.

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23:26 - 28:35

Cara Silletto

Okay. Guess what? New hires, when not read your mind, they don't know how you've done it or what those unwritten expectations are. But I am going to go down again to kind of this younger Gen Z new hire for a moment, because that tends to be the bulk of our new hires coming in. So if we know they're wired differently.

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Why not adjust our approach with the bar? A lot of companies out there are just throwing these new hires into the deep end. Art on the floor before they're comfortable, before they're confident, and then they watch them walk out after their break, you know, or their first day or first week or first month. What if we cook better care of our new hires?

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What if we broke the mold instead of they need to pay their dues? And because we said so and sink or swim and all of that, you know, just baloney from the past. Okay, I know it worked fine for Gen X, but remember, they were the figure it out latchkey kids. It was a different era. So if we know that the new workforce is different.

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Why don't we take better care of our new hires than their last employer? And then they're going to be wowed by us. Imagine the loyalty that could be built if we walk alongside them, and we help them get acclimated into their new roles. Instead of using that sink or swim model or throwing them to the wolves. Right? That is a way that we can reduce that turnover is the really walk alongside them.

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In fact, one HR exec that I had lunch with recently. He's in senior care and he said his goal, his goal for reducing turnover is to protect his new hires. That was his words. Like that was his exact phrase. It's my job as the HR leader, the people leader of this entire organization to protect my new hires. Okay.

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Now, he also said something that totally blew my mind and really is a way to think differently. And he said, real recognition. Cara, if you're going to really recognize your people and appreciate your people, it's not saying thank you to them. It is not putting up with a teammate of theirs. It's not pulling their weight or not hitting the expectations.

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That's what your new hires really want. That's what all your staff really want is. Don't let people be on their team that are not pulling their weight, or who are toxic and who are negative, and who do not do a good job, right. That's real recognition. When you say, look, I see you doing great work. I am not going to put up with people who don't.

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For your sake, right. I'm going to protect you. I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to make sure your team is as good as you are. And that was extraordinarily eye opening for me that he as high up as he is. Right. Chief people officer over HR, training, acquisition, you know, talent acquisition, all of that. And that is where he stands on what true recognition and protecting your people looks like.

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So we have to remove any toxicity that we find in our organization. Now I have this conversation a lot as well. You may have heard me say it, that you think somebody who does a great job, even though they've got a bad attitude or are not great trainers for the new folks, you think that they're helping our organization because they're dependable and they show up and the residents love them, but if they are a negative person that is doing more harm to your culture and your retention than they are helping you by staying because they are the reason that new hires are leaving.

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The new hires come in and have to work with that person. No no no, I am out of here. I am not putting up with that, and I'm not staying here to work with people like that. So we have to take a really good look at the toxicity and any negativity that's happening in our building and squash it all right.

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Now, another thing you'll hear me say over and over and over is do not let staff they're young. Okay? We know what this is. This is any kind of like hazing or making people pay their dues, and they got to do the grunt work first before we respect you around here. No way. Not anymore. That is an old thing that should have gone away with the 1900s.

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Okay, so we can't treat anybody that way. Remember? Who's the flight risk? A new hire so we cannot treat them in any negative way whatsoever. And another dear friend of mine, Renee Thompson at the Healthy Workforce Institute, has she just released her book again, a new edition around nurse bullying and how to eradicate nurse bullying. So definitely go look up her work about kind of enough is enough.

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28:35 - 33:37

Cara Silletto

She's a nurse turned leadership expert and specifically works on that nurse bullying side. So if that's an issue, she has specific tips and tricks and tactics and language and scripts that can help your nursing and clinical team get better on that front. Okay, so two big things here. One, help your staff understand your unique definition of professionalism and bridge that gap with better communication.

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And then to protect your new hires. All right. Protect your new hire. So let's go on to another issue that my crew friends identified. They said a lot of the directors don't take training their people seriously. And I get it. They're busy. Okay. But be your directors and managers. Understand that if they skimp on new hire training, it's going to cause them more work later because that person is more likely to quit even without notice, which then piles back on to that manager of being short staffed.

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So some folks said they they don't even have a formal new hire training plan in place. They let people kind of wing it. They only focus on the compliance. Right? Check the box, check the box, check the box. And then you get to go to your your team, your leader. So that's step one. If you do not have a formal training plan in place for your new hires, that's beyond just compliance.

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It's also about those expectations and professionalism. And you know how we want people to show up. Got to start there. We got to get a committee, a task force together to put some formal new hire training plans in place. But other people on the call said that they give their managers and directors a training plan. They have that training plan simply don't do it.

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So then chance that this is happening at your locations, right? Because first of all, we have to have an effective training plan, and then we need to make sure that all of our leaders are consistently using that plan. So checking in with them, even attaching it potentially to their metrics, their goals, their performance reviews. All right. Because that is very serious.

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Some managers have said things to me like, you know, well, why even bother? They're not going to be here in two weeks, okay. If we've got anybody who feels that way, they should not be. That person should not be in charge of training new hires anymore. They are too tainted. They are too upset about the previous historical burns that they've received, and they're not willing to give the new hire the benefit of the doubt and to pour into them like we need to do today, to build the trust, to build the loyalty and get those people to stay.

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Okay. So make your new hire training plan. Make sure your leaders are consistently following that and executing on that as well. Okay, now, if you don't have formal plans in place, quick model here is to create an organizational wide checklist of. This is what every new hire should hear about, know about, experience all of that. Then you go down the chain.

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You create departmental checklists for clinical and environmental services and dining and clinical, culinary and all the different areas. Right. Then you go into role specific checklists. So are an LP and CNA make those specific checklists of the systems and the processes and procedures that they need to know. And then I encourage every single manager, including yourself. You should have your own on ramp checklist for anybody who comes on your team.

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Because guess what? You have your own preferences. You have your own unwritten expectations and your own definition of professionalism. You even have some pet peeves that if you told staff when they were coming in that those are your pet peeves, they're less likely to upset you, right? And so we need to share those with our team members. And consistency is key.

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So don't just wing that conversation. Have that checklist, have it readily available. So every single new hire that comes in you can talk through A, B, C, D, E, F, g and cover those items so that later you don't think, well, I'm sure I told her that I must have. Right? I tell everybody that when in reality you never did, because maybe she started a week that you were on vacation and you never got that initial conversation with her.

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Cara Silletto

So make sure that that is written down and consistent, okay? Now, a lot of buildings I work with have created microlearning videos to share about who they are and the cultural aspects of of what they believe in mission, vision, values and those kind of things. And then at the appropriate time, right. Maybe it's Bay one week, one month one whenever they share those videos along that learning journey.

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33:37 - 37:03

Cara Silletto

Okay, not all at once, but over time. And in fact, we created a series of two minute professionalism videos called Hit the Mark because so many leaders were telling us that they didn't know how to teach professionalism. They were like, I know it when I see it, Cara, but I really don't know how to mentor around that because I was just raised differently.

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So I learned it growing up and I don't know how to articulate it now. So we do have a few free videos. Those those two minute videos. There's five of them for free in magnet. Com and it's called the Professionalism Boost. So go download that. And it has a link to five of those videos that you can use for free.

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Get those out to your people. And if you want more, just reach out to me on LinkedIn or through my website at Magnet Culture. And we have a whole series of 26 of those videos that are very well received for managers as a tool to mentor and train their staff. In fact, my favorite video from that series is called Watch Your Mouth.

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So you know, you never know who can hear you around the corner when you're talking to a colleague, for example. So it's very relevant and applicable kind of tips and tricks of how to improve professionalism so you can make your own videos. You can make your own checklist for that, or you can go out and get external resources as well.

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So once you have training checklists in place, you also need to consider how often someone is checking in officially with the new hires. And we used to believe 30, 60, 90 days was appropriate. It is no longer okay. We cannot wait that long because how many people have we lost in the first 30 days? So I recommend checking in with new hires after 30, 60, 90 hours on the job.

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So after the first few shifts, after another few shifts, after another few shifts, so you're absolutely checking in more often, including 30, 60, 90 days. Those are great times to do that, but we have to also add a sooner tech in kind of cadence as well. Sending our new hires surveys throughout that time as well is really powerful, and most of you have employee engagement software that you can use, or even a learning management system that you could use to push out those kind of surveys.

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Now, two HR leaders from our little secret group, they said they told me about these these huge tells of who's the flight risk. I was shocked, I literally was speechless for a moment when they mentioned how they figure out who the flight risk is based on their new hire surveys. So you ready for this? All right. One, realize that anyone who didn't fill out their new hire surveys was more of a flight risk than the people who actually filled it out and gave negative reviews.

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And I have to believe that that's partially because the organization was then able to address the problems that were brought up from the negative reviews. And when that person back over, man, is that telling? If you send out a survey to to new hires, you know, after the first week, first 15 days, you know, something like that, they're not responding.

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37:03 - 41:21

Cara Silletto

That tells you right there they are probably a flight risk. So if people don't want to talk, they may have one foot already out the door. All right. So that was a huge tell. And then another HR leader said that she found at their 45 day survey okay. They specifically they did others as well. But she said specifically the 45 day survey meant everything.

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Their level of satisfaction on that 45 day survey told the organization if the person was happy with that 45 days they had found their home, they were not a flight risk. They were going to stick it out. But if the person wasn't happy at that 45 day mark, they typically were not going to stay much longer. And by the 45 day mark, there really wasn't much that they could save or fix at that point.

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That was going to make that person happy with the organization. So I'm not negating what I said earlier. It was more so. The first example is like the earlier surveys, you know, if they don't, if they don't fill it out there, a flight risk where this one was very specific to the 45 day survey and whether they were happy or not.

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Now, she was specifically talking about people who did fill it out. And at that 45 day mark, she just said a lot of the things that they're complaining about by then, because we have checked in with them multiple times and we've tried to fix it. If they're still not happy, they probably can't be happy. You know, at least not here, that something about the environment, the job, the team is just not going to be a fit for them.

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All right. So do you have these checkpoints in place. And here's an even bigger question for you. Are you 100% certain that your organization is clear on who is responsible for following up on these negative responses, missing responses to these new hire check ins and surveys? All right. That is a big one. So do you have those checkpoints identified and consistently used.

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And who is it that's doing it. Sometimes it's HR. Sometimes it's the managers of individual new hires. Sometimes there's specific people like an employee engagement manager or we call a position the retention specialist role, which we love to to help organizations implement. And so we've got to have somebody who can do that consistently, okay. And that they own it.

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All right. Now mentoring can be a big part of the new hire turnover solution as well. So does your organization encourage unofficial mentoring right. Do you elevate people and empower them to do that, or do you have a concrete mentoring plan in place? Do you have actual people that are identified as mentors and things like that? Because I've seen several groups put successful mentoring initiatives in place and one group I work with, they have an opt in mentoring training every year that staff and leaders, but but mostly staff.

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They encourage the staff. Hey, if you want to be a mentor, come to this training and they get kind of certified internally as a mentor for that year. And if they complete the training and take on mentors, then they get a pay bump, but only they only get that pay bump for as long as they have mentors under their wing.

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So it is a little bit more formal as far as they have to state who they're mentoring. And and they have a mentoring plan for them. You know, how often they check in and, and talk to them and sample topics to mentor on, for example. Now that program has been quite successful according to that leader of HR. So there's different models for mentoring.

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But do you have a mentoring conversation happening again? Are you encouraging people to do it informally, or are you working toward or consistently using a more formal mentoring program as well? Because today's new workforce, like it or not, they do need more hand-holding. And we can we can flippantly like, oh, well, they just need so much hand-holding like it's a bad thing.

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41:21 - 44:54

Cara Silletto

Or we can play the game and say, oh, that's what they want. We now know the game and we can play the game to our advantage, to where we are the employer of choice for those folks. Okay, so we have covered so much in today's episode. I know I keep throwing these long episodes at you with so much to talk about, but I'm going to wrap up by sharing just a few more resources for you at magnet that are all onboarding on ramp new hire related.

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So we recently created an on ramp revamp tech list. So if you don't have that or you want to go look and see if your checklists that you're currently using include a lot of the examples that we suggest, then go grab that. Or you can use it as a template to get started. We also have a get to know you sample sheet in there.

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Now you can use our template or you can make your own. Just use it for inspiration and make your own. But you want to ask folks when they join about their interests, about their hobbies, their priorities at home, right? Family or friends? Or what are they doing outside of work, as well as how do they like to be recognized when the time comes?

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So we can personalize that recognition, whether it is gift cards or just a handwritten note or a thank you in person, something like that. All right. So it is super helpful to have personalized appreciation efforts. Okay. That makes a big, big difference. Rather than the blanket thank yous and the generic gift cards that everybody gets the same. It really goes a long way when you know your people.

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Okay. So get to know them right out the gate. Okay? Now remember, lots of companies are hiring and would love to steal our people. Okay, let's be honest here. They want our people and we cannot afford to lose them. So we as leaders have got to create a place where people want to work. And new hires decide MCA than ever whether they plan to stay or go.

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So we've got to build that trust, build that loyalty, acclimate them in as quickly as possible so they do not feel. Remember that on ramp sensation of what it's on ramp is not as long as I wanted it to be right. We don't want anyone to feel that way when we know what we should be doing so we can play this game, we can extend this on ramp and we can be their favorite place they've ever worked.

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Okay, we can be their favorite boss they've ever worked for. We just have to be more intentional and continue to evolve with the workforce. All right, so on my next Bridge the Gap episode, I'm going to dive into more retention strategies, and I will continue this year to focus on different areas where we can improve to become that better place to work.

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But if you're impatient, you want more strategies. Now, of course, you can go back and listen to my other podcast episodes. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. You can go to our YouTube page and subscribe at youtube.com, and you can grab my book, Staying Power While Your Employees Leave and How to Keep Them Longer on Amazon, Kindle, or Audible.

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So if you don't have a copy, go grab that today. I'm Cara, and thanks for listening to this week's Bridge the Gap contributor Wednesday.

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