Hiring Process Significantly Impacts Retention

Professional services company Towers Watson recently suggested that employers can improve retention rates by avoiding presenting a false image of a candidate’s role, corporate culture, and expectations during the hiring process. Talent Management Director, Elise Freedman, said,

“With a realistic job preview, it’s about making sure that everybody in the process – from the recruiter on through the other folks interviewing the candidate – understands the job and how the corporate culture would impact the role,” Freedman said. “When the individual gets there and the reality matches what was communicated, you have a much stronger likelihood of being able to retain someone longer.”

Instead, Freeman recommends a more structured hiring process that identifies company values and key behaviors of a given role. The hiring manager should then develop questions aimed directly at evaluating a candidate’s ability to meet those exacting requirements.

She continued, “You’re hearing real examples of what they’ve done and how they’ve handled behaviors that are important in your organization,” Freedman said. “For example, you can ask the candidate to tell you about a time when they had to work with a team member who was especially challenging. You can find out the situation and what they did to make the situation workable.”

It is typically within the first three to six months that an employee decides whether to stay or leave a new role, suggesting that retention efforts should start from the beginning of the hiring process. The more realistically a job is portrayed by an employer, the more accurate candidate assessments will be and the more likely it becomes that an employee will be retained.