New Start Documents can be downloaded from The People Toolkit here.

It is best practice to retrieve these directly from the toolkit each time rather than saving them locally to ensure you are always using the most up to date version.

The days of a “sink or swim” introduction into a company are (thankfully) beginning to dwindle. Why? The approach simply isn’t successful. In fact, the impact of the first few months of employment is measurable — 22 percent of turnover occurs within the first 45 days which is a costly statistic that can be easily avoided with the right onboarding.

No matter how prepared a new hire is for a role, change is hard. In the first few months, new employees have to meet their team, learn the ropes of their role, integrate into an existing team, and figure out our company culture, values and what is expected of them.

To be successful, they need the support of a well-planned and deliberate onboarding process. There are a few key things to keep in mind to ensure you make a great first impression.

If I told you:

• The average length of the job interview process in the UK is 27 days

• The average cost to replace a new starter is £3000

• Nearly 33% of new starters look for a new job within the first 6 months and

But

69% of employees are more likely to stay for 3 years if they experience great onboarding and a solid onboarding process increases new starter productivity by 50%, suddenly that time seems a bit more worth it.

Given the choice of investing the time to properly recruit, welcome and train an employee you will retain for at least 3 years, or repeating the same ineffective process every 45 days to 6 months, which do you think is really saving you more time?

Pre Boarding covers everything between the offer being accepted and day one.

“Why’s that important, they aren’t even working for us yet!” may be your initial thought.

You should start your employee’s journey with us as you mean for it to go on. If inspiring loyalty is important to you, it should be important from the start. Employee engagement is vital to our success and the time before someone starts with us isn’t exempt from this. If anything, this is when we need to ramp things up - it’s a short window in which you can impress with a taster of what’s to come.

Assuming that since they have accepted the offer you are safe, is naïve. It’s quite possible that your offer is being weighed up against others, or being used as a bargaining chip with a current employer so we need to use this time to show that working for us will be a great experience.

This is also the time for us to get our ducks in a row so we can make the very most of day 1 onwards.

During the pre boarding period we should:

•Keep in touch with the new starter if they are working a long notice period to keep them interested.

•Make sure they have received their new start paperwork and give them to opportunity to ask any questions they may have about the documents. Confirm the Right To Work documents they must bring and make sure they have all the information they will need to start such as what to wear and who to ask for.

•Sort their name badge so they have something that identifies them as a part of the team until their uniform arrives.

•Arrange a welcome token from the team. This can be a video or a card, anything at all to give them a little moment of delight and let them know we’re excited to have them on the team

•Speaking of the team… tell them! Let everyone know who will be starting and when. Prepare the team to welcome them aboard.

•Set up their user log ins on all systems they will be using such as Brilliant and Tabletop. While their FLOW log in will be generated automatically when they are set up on EPS and sent to the email they provide, you will need to set up their brand e-learning account such as IHG Merlin or Hilton Learning Lobby.

•Write their training plan.

You only get one chance to make a first impression! While the new starter has already begun to form an idea of what your hotel is like, today is make it or break it time.

Ultimately, the only aim for Day 1 should be to make your new starter feel welcome and to set them up for a successful and effective next couple of months.

Resist the urge to throw them straight into their department or you’ll soon find you have an employee who can pour a great pint, do a check in or make a burger that can’t find the toilets, doesn’t understand our culture, or makes a mistake that isn’t’ their fault because we failed to properly explain what is expected of them.

We have a terrible reputation in hospitality for throwing people in at the deep end on day one but it doesn’t have to be that way! Employees on their first day have no investment in your business, no emotional attachment to the hotel and no loyalty to the people. They don’t even have friends they would be sad to leave or feel bad letting down yet. So if that day is stressful, lonely, chaotic or unenjoyable, what motivation do they have to stay?

Your hotel could be the best place to work in the whole world, but an employee having a bad first day doesn’t know that - they have no positive experience to compare it to. If 100% of your experience of a place was poor, would you go back? What’s more, if you heard your friend was applying there, would you let them?

That’s why we are committing to protect that first day at all costs. Consistency in the experience we offer our employees is crucial to maintaining a strong employer brand and becoming an employer of choice.

We have developed the Kew Green Day One Timetable to ensure ALL our employees receive the same exceptional day one experience, no matter what job role they are undertaking, from East Kilbride to Portsmouth and everywhere in between.

And I know what you’re thinking!! Sometimes you just need people NOW. You can’t wait until next week. But let me ask you this: if you are hiring under that sort of

pressure, are you taking the time to make sure you’re getting the right candidate or are you looking for hands and feet when we really need heads and hearts?

And what if that candidate hadn’t accepted the role? You wouldn’t cancel your functions or out book your guests, would you? Whatever your back up plan would have been had you not found the new starter in the first place… do that! Trust me, if you have a busy function weekend and you just need a body on the floor, agency staff costs a lot less than starting your recruitment process all over again when you lose your new starter after one night.

It is important to discuss performance regularly with your new start to establish a coaching culture. As we all strive each day to improve, chatting about our performance and admitting when we need help or don’t know something needs to be no big deal.

Constructive, effective feedback is vital not only to efficient performance, but also employee engagement and motivation. Ongoing, informal coaching should take place throughout the new starter’s probation period and beyond to allow us all to keep growing together.

This must, however, be complimented by our formal performance monitoring processes in order to ensure we are doing right by our employee and protecting our business.

During the probation period, this takes the form of the 1, 6 and 13 week job chat.

These chats can be uncomfortable for both parties if not handled properly, but when well prepared and executed they are an excellent tool for helping the new starter feel supported, recognised and valued. For them to have a clear idea of exactly what is expected of them and for you to know exactly what they need for you.

For this to happen, a few things must take place:

•Preparation! Go into the conversation with a clear idea of what you want to say. Think about their performance every day, make notes throughout their probation of things you notice them doing well or making improvements in so you can bring them up formally in the chat.

•Coach continually – nothing you say in these meetings should come as a great surprise to them. This is your opportunity to formalise the things you are already telling them daily. If you have noted poor performance day to day and are dropping the bomb in a job chat, you have already left it too late.

•Have a clear idea of your expectations and goals. You should not be scrambling to pluck goals from the air while you sit together. Know what you want to see from them and by when well in advance of the chat so you can lay this out clearly for the new starter.

•If you need to address performance or behaviour which is out of step with a company standard, have that policy printed and ready to refer to so the employee can clearly see what they need to do to come in line with our standards. Remember – they don’t know what they haven’t been told, so this is a course correction, not a reprimand, and should be treated as such! You’re giving them a heads up, not a telling off!

•Don’t shy away from constructive feedback. People may like praise, but even more so they like to know where they stand. Everyone wants to be good at their job and clear, constructive feedback is how we do that.

•It’s a conversation, not a lecture! Ask open questions, listen actively and don’t be afraid of silence.

•Make it future focused. While time should be spent reflecting on the journey so far to celebrate success and highlight any challenges, we can’t go back in time and change it, so let’s focus on the future which we can change. Set some clear goals with achievable deadlines and discuss how you are going to work together to get them there.

•Most of all… be cool! People can sometimes feel uncomfortable talking about themselves. It is your job as the manager to set the tone of the meeting and to demonstrate that no awkwardness is necessary.

You must make sure these meetings are clearly documented and uploaded to EPS as you could need them down the line for future HR processes

We can be so focused on making sure our new starters have the skills they need to be successful at work, we can lose sight of supporting them to be happy there!

While it is widely accepted that “people don’t quit bad jobs, they quit bad managers”, the manager is one person in a team of many. And in many cases you are not the person they will be spending the majority of their time with day to day. Human beings are social creatures so if your new starter doesn’t feel like they’re part of the team then you could quickly lose them. In fact, a Canadian study found people are more likely to leave a job because they feel ostracized than victims of harassment.

Pay close attention to how your new starter interacts with their new team. Consider:

• Do others take their break together and leave the new starter to go alone?

• Do they talk with their colleagues about non work related matters?

• How is their body language and demeanour around colleagues?

• Do they avoid eye contact or stay on the outside of conversation?

• Not to forget the obvious… ask them. This can be during a formal job chat or even just a coffee catch up. As part of the wider conversation about how they’re getting on, ask questions about their relationships with colleagues. “Is there anyone you particularly enjoy working with?”, “Who do you have things in common with?”, “Is there anyone you particularly trust?” If they struggle to think of an answer to these questions, that could indicate a problem.

While ultimately people will like who they like and not everyone is going to be best buddies with the people they work with, friendly, professional working relationships and a sense of belonging are important. You can’t force people to like one another, but there are things you can do to nudge the dial to make sure nobody feels isolated.

Consider:

• Does your physical workspace encourage interaction? Where have you stationed your new starter? Are their duties early in employment creating opportunities for interaction?

• Are their shift patterns giving them enough time to build connections, or are they meeting so many new people on rotation they can only make superficial connections? If their location or shift pattern isn’t allowing them to build connections, can these be reviewed for a time?

• Have a look at how you communicate. If messages are shared via word of mouth or informal channels your new start has not infiltrated yet, are they missing vital information or feeling they are always the last to know? Inviting colleagues at 10@10 or handover meetings to share any good news from their lives or interesting things they have been up to can help your new starter learn more about their colleagues, share something about themselves and feel a bit more involved.

• What have you learned about them so far? Who on the team do you think they’ll get on best with if only given the chance to come out of their shell? Can you give them a project to work on together? This could be absolutely anything at all, even spending a shift cleaning out a cupboard! They may not love you for the task, but lifelong bonds are formed in the trenches!

• Have an objective look at your culture! Take a big step back and consider if you have cliques which your new starter could be struggling to infiltrate. If they are always left on the outside looking in, can you shake up working patterns to make it easier for them to be included? Or at the extreme end of this scale… do you have a bully in your workplace making it difficult for new people to integrate, which of course must be addressed quickly.

• And if all else fails, never underestimate the power of organised fun! Get a bit of buzz going with a themed staff lunch, quiz night or charity fundraiser to give them a chance to relax and spend a bit of social time with the people they work with.

As well as aiding retention with your new starters, helping new starters integrate into the team and encouraging inclusion within your workplace is just better for business. People make less "discretionary effort" when they feel isolated. They're less motivated to do more than the minimum. But employees who feel included are “much more productive, their performance is higher, they are more loyal, they are more trustworthy, and they work harder,”.

The Kew Green Probation Policy and supporting documents can be found on the People Toolkit here.

You can think of a probation period as a trial period of employment during which someone is employed only subject to satisfactorily completing this period of time.

Notice periods are often shorter on probation periods, to allow either side to terminate the contract within a shorter time period than a permanent employee if it becomes clear to either side that they aren’t a good fit. 1 in 5 employees leave their organisation within their probation period, so unless you really really enjoy recruiting, it’s absolutely key to make this time work for you and the new starter.

During this time, you will review the new starter’s performance and conduct after week 1, week 6 and week 12. These reviews must be clearly documented and uploaded to EPS. The expectations of the employee must be made completely clear and the line manager is responsible for providing guidance and support and for identifying and arranging any necessary training or coaching to help the new starter successfully complete their probation.

At the end of the probationary period, you should conduct a final review of the colleague's performance and suitability for the role. If we are satisfied with all aspects of the employment, the colleague will be confirmed as an employee in accordance with the terms of their appointment. You must ensure end of probationary review meetings are booked and actioned before the end of the review period. If you do not, the new employee will automatically pass their probation by default, entitling them to longer notice periods and potentially other contractual rights and benefits.

If you think there is any chance at all that the employee may fail their probation or that you may wish to extend probation, you must contact The People Team as early as possible for support.