Get them while they are still new and in love with your brand

More recently, human resource or intellectual capital management experts have made a name for themselves, and respectable fortunes, in developing models on how companies can create a working environment conducive for optimal productivity. Studies are conducted on an annual basis grading the best companies to work for, regionally and globally.

Isn’t it interesting though that the top performers according to these rankings do not always come from one industry? One would have imagined that new economy companies in ICT would top the lists all the time as their offering requires cutting edge creativity that comes with highly qualified individuals who possess scarce skills because it will become almost mandatory for these companies to obsess about a healthier working environment in order to attract and retain these skills.

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The results are refreshingly surprising. An old economy company like Cadbury was ranked quite highly by one such study based on Fortune 100 Companies. Granted, Google came out on top of the list for two consecutive years running.

While I cannot speak with authority on all the things that Cadbury does right to attract and retain top talent allowing them to be ranked one of the best companies to work for, I am certain that the journey for them starts on day one of their new hires, arriving at work.

Induction for most companies is a box to tick, a compliance activity if you will-rather than an opportunity to inculcate organisational culture. I am alluding here, if you are still with me, to the fact that organisational culture is key in creating productive and high performance organisations.

We live in a digital world where just about any kind of information can be accessed, consumed and analysed on digital platforms. Face to face interactions are still important, however the new generation of employees would much rather “feel” you than see you! A combination of digital and person-to-person interactions would therefore yield better results.

The one thing that people dread is going through volumes of information on arriving at ABC Incorporated. For most large corporations with established processes, their compliance-minded HR specialists will be hard at work introducing you to this policy document followed by that policy document when you arrive on your first day of work. After a week of information overload, or more accurately - mental torture, only a small percentage of the information shared will be recalled by new employees, mainly information along the lines of when is pay-day, who do I complain to and how can I get a loan from the business when the need arises?

Companies need to create more impactful ways of allowing new employees to acquire, assimilate and learn the organisational culture. Digital platforms, much like the ones Rocketseed South Africa has introduced in their bouquet of solutions, can be harnessed and implemented without resulting in corporate policy fatigue.

You want your new employees to be enthusiastic about the decision they have taken to join your organisation, so make sure you take them through an interesting journey of discovery, not a mini Spanish inquisition-style welcome party!

Digital platforms offer some of the more flexible platforms to augment the journey to protect and enhance the brand-love that the new hires come with. It is counterproductive to shove copious amounts of information to new employees all at once and expect that they will remember everything they were told.

One of the advantages of a digitally enhanced induction process is that you are able to remotely monitor and measure engagement levels with the information being supplied to new employees, and valuable intelligence can be gathered enabling you to continually enrich the process.

It’s not rocket science, really! In fact it is by far one of the easier things that all companies should get right when it comes to nurturing that productive intellectual capital pool that today’s companies crave so much.