Don’t Lose Your New Employees Their 1st Week: The Reality & Drama of New Job Remorse

Employers regularly hire me to conduct exit interviews when promising new employees leave their companies within the first six months. After conducting hundreds of interviews, I can document that newly hired employees decide what their employer is like and whether they will fit in and be successful during their first days and weeks.

When I was asked to write an article for employees on how to start a new job while working remotely (it posts November 30^th), I turned to what I teach managers.

Here’s what employers, managers and supervisors need to know about the reality and drama of new job remorse.

New employee churn

The new employee you hired may receive another enticing job offer after they join your organization. Other employers, desperate to land a quality employee, reach out on LinkedIn and other sites advertising attractive jobs. While your new hire may not be keeping an eye on ZipRecruiter or Indeed.com, a recruiter’s algorithms may still find your employee’s LinkedIn profile.

Worse, an unhappy employee on your team may pull your new hire aside and voice concerns. When this happens, most new hires hesitate to let their new employers know what they’ve heard, both to protect the informant and because they don’t want to admit that they listened. Either occurrence may lead to new hire remorse and create festering doubts.

Recent hires who feel uncertain about their manager, coworkers, or job assignments think about leaving. They also evaluate minor difficulties negatively, instead of brushing them off.

Counter this downward spiral.

Your job: prove to your new employee they made the right choice in joining your organization.

Build a strong relationship with your new hires and integrate them into your team.

Explain your plans for them and why they’ve made the right choice.

Outline how you want your employee to communicate with you and how you assess performance. Do you prefer emails, texts or calls? On what topics do you want to be briefed? Do you want your new employee schedule time weekly or to pop into your physical or virtual office whenever they hit a snag?

Also ask your new employee how they hope you’ll communicate with them.

In Managing for Accountability: A Business Leader’s Toolbox’s chapter 4, you’ll find fourteen sample expectations you can give your new hire to get them started on the right path.

You’ll also find a of ten “you can expect from me as your manager” statements you can provide you new hire to assure him/her you’ll be a good manager. These include “you can expect from me: honesty, professionalism, direct communication, fairness and leadership.”

Here’s a 70-second video that gives you more information.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like https://workplacecoachblog.com/2021/10/find-out-what-your-employees-want-before-you-lose-them/ ; https://workplacecoachblog.com/2021/10/making-hybrid-work-charting-a-new-playbook-for-a-future-ready-workplace/and https://workplacecoachblog.com/2021/05/no-love-lost-what-do-employers-need-to-realize-to-keep-employees-onboard/.