After interviewing and hiring exciting new prospects to join your company, the challenge of retaining them arises. ‘Onboarding,’ getting new staff trained and integrated into the work culture and environment smoothly becomes key.

You are probably aware that the cost of hiring and training new employees is a significant investment for any business. Surprisingly, a very high percentage of these new hires will often leave within the first ninety days!

Do you want to keep incurring this significant cost to hire and train every new employee? Let me provide you with 5 tips that might help reduce these costs.

5 Tips To Improve Staff Retention

1. Include Staff Well-Being Training During Onboarding

Within the first two weeks, show that your company cares about and values its staff; this will prove to be a very productive practice. Staff who feel loved tend to translate into an effective team who stay longer, are happier, and integrate into the company better.

To help instill this feeling of being valued into new hires, providing them with short courses focusing on this as part of the onboarding process can be a powerful technique. Subjects can include classes such as ‘Wellness at Work,' ‘Mental Health Awareness at Work,' and ‘Mindfulness in the Workplace’.

2. Provide New Hires with a Mentor

Another simple method for helping new employees to integrate better is to provide a mentor for the first month for the new hire to turn to for advice.

The mentor will generally be a source for helping the new hire with questions, including simple issues such as how to use the time-off booking system, joining company social events, etc.—having someone to turn to who is always available can be beneficial. Managers can often be too busy so that a mentor may work better.

3. Creating a 90-Day Plan

As mentioned earlier, ninety days is a crucial time for new employees because of the high percentage who tend to leave within that time. So making a 90-day plan for each new employee can be a great idea to guide them along the way.

This plan should be designed to aid the new employee to feel like a vital member of the organization and to be happy in their new job. It should also be prepared to ensure that person becomes a productive staff member who has been correctly trained in their job role.

4. Taking Care of the Paperwork

Through research I have undertaken regarding staff retention rates, it's common for new employees to get bogged down in negative thoughts because of issues that should be easily handled by HR.

Try to have a system in place for all new staff members to meet someone from Human Resources in person in the first week. Use this time so new hires can ask any questions regarding vacation time, pensions, benefits, etc.

Allowing a one-hour meeting or presentation between your HR department and new employees can make all the difference in helping new hires feel like they have access to any information they might need.

5. Pre-Planning Checklist Before the Start Day

I also found through my research that many new hires found themselves at a desk with no computer, ID card, or other essentials they need from day one, and they would have to wait days for such things.

This was a cause of frustration for many new hires and can leave a negative taste in the mouth of new employees when you, as the company, are trying to make a great first impression. Yes, you have hired the person, but you must keep them!

The best solution is to have a pre-onboarding checklist that includes things to prepare in advance of the new employee's arrival. It might be to set up a workstation, have any documents they need to sign, get them an ID card as soon as possible, and anything else that can be done in advance to improve their experience.

By following these onboarding tips, your employee retention rate should be higher than ever. As long as you make the employee onboarding process enjoyable, it's unlikely that you'll be wasting money hiring and training new employees.

About the Author:  Dr. Valeria Lo Iacono is the Director of Symonds Training, a UK based company who provide training course materials for corporate trainers and for HR departments. Valeria has taught at the University of Bath, UK, and also worked as a researcher at the University of Exeter, UK. Valeria is particularly interested in how we deal with new hire employees and how we train them. Valeria can also be found on Facebook | Pinterest | LinkedIn.