Do you keep hiring new staff only for them to quit after a couple of weeks? This can be incredibly frustrating for employers and it can have negative impacts on your company’s productivity and reputation. By getting to the heart of the problem, you can stop this high turnover. Here are just several reasons why new employees may be quitting in the first few weeks.
You’re rushing the hiring process
It’s possible that you may be hiring the wrong candidates as a result of rushing the hiring process. Delivering a more thorough recruitment process could help you to hire more reliable employees. This means doing more advertising, reading more applications and doing more interviews. If you don’t have the time for this, you may be able to hire a recruitment company. You can also try making use of AI in HR. This will be more costly, but it could be worth it for the better quality of candidates.
You’re providing no training or introductions
Another reason new employees may be leaving so soon could be because there’s no onboarding process once they’re hired, leaving them to feel neglected. Make new employees welcome by introducing them to the team and helping them to understand what’s going on. You should always provide training – even if they’re experienced, there may still be specific company methods that need to be taught as well as health & safety/security protocol.
The job isn’t what they signed up for
It’s important that new recruits are being given the job that was advertised and discussed in the interview. If you take on someone to work as a waiter in your restaurant, but they end up in the kitchen doing pot wash, they’re not going to stick around for long as this was not the job they wanted. Make sure that you’re also giving them the salary and benefits that were promised.
You’re expecting too much from them too soon
New employees may need time to adjust. Whilst you may want to challenge new recruits to see what they’re made of, be wary of piling too much work and responsibility on them from the beginning. Allow recruits to get comfortable before handing them the hard stuff to do so that they don’t get put off.
Your other employees are scaring them away
It’s possible that your older employees are scaring new recruits away. Older employees can sometimes form cliques and may make new employees feel as if they’re not wanted. There could even be belittling or bullying going on. Try to observe the team dynamics to see if this is the case – you may need to give your older employees a stern talk (but not too stern – you don’t want to scare them away too).
On top of your employees, realize that you yourself may be to blame. Are you making an effort to make new recruits feel welcome? Do you find yourself taking out your frustrations on new recruits regularly? If so, it’s possible you too could be scaring them away. Being more tolerant and accommodating could help to improve employee retention.
