As an employer, you may have interviewed job candidates who entered the conference room visibly nervous and eager to make a good impression. Once they’re hired, though, the tables turn. Now, you’re in the hot seat because your new employee is evaluating you. It’s your turn to make a good impression by meeting their financial wellness needs.

The harsh reality is that those new hires will look elsewhere unless you give them incentives to stay, such as financial wellness benefits. After all, people change jobs frequently, with the average worker holding 12.4 jobs between ages eighteen and fifty-two.

When Should a Company Hire New Employees?

To hire or not to hire? That’s the question. There are many reasons why a business might decide to go down the recruitment path. In days gone by, the primary reason would be that they have too much work to do and not enough people to do it, and it’s financially viable for the company to expand its workforce. However, more recently, widespread skills shortages following “The Great Resignation” have left many organizations hiring out of pure necessity.

But let’s take a step back and consider some of the more general motivating factors for hiring new employees:

Employee Capacity Is Limited

No responsible employer wants to overburden their people. Long hours and stress can lead to burnout, absenteeism, and a high staff turnover rate, none of which are good for employee morale or your bottom line. It’s a good idea to regularly gauge the capacity of your existing team to understand if you need to bring in new resources to ease some of the load. Talking to managers who oversee people’s day-to-day workflow is a good place to start.

Increases in Overtime

The data in your payroll system will provide you with clues that you need to grow your workforce. Specifically, review how much overtime you’ve been paying out over recent months. If people need to regularly put in overtime hours to complete their tasks, this could be a sign that they’re overburdened. Apart from affecting people’s morale, excessive overtime isn’t a financially efficient way for a business to operate, given that overtime costs you more than regular shifts. Creating a new role or role might be a more sensible way forward.

New Opportunities Emerge

If your business is going through a period of growth or diversifying its product or services lines, you’ll likely need to grow your staff to accommodate this expansion. It’s also possible that you find you now need different sets of skills and expertise compared to what you currently have in-house.

Hiring Employees Is a Step-by-Step Process

If you’ve decided to set out down the recruitment path, be mindful that it’s a complex and multi-step process. Here are our top 10 considerations for ensuring your hiring experience is hassle-free:

1. Determine Which Positions Require Filling

The first step is pinpointing the areas of your business and specific roles that need filling. The gap(s) could exist simply due to an employee leaving your organization, or it could result from business growth or expansion, as we touched on earlier.

2. Determine Your Recruiting Strategy

If you already have a recruiting strategy in place, spend some time reviewing it to ascertain that all the steps and processes are still required and fit-for-purpose or if any changes or updates need to be made. If you don’t have an existing recruitment strategy, this is the time to develop one. Essentially, a recruitment strategy defines how you’ll approach the hiring process. It should include considerations on the precise roles you’re seeking to fill, the geographical scope of your search, and the channels you’ll leverage for your recruitment efforts (employee referrals, online job boards, social media, recruitment agencies, etc.)

3. Create Job Descriptions

Now that you’re clear on the role(s) you want to fill and how you’ll execute your recruitment strategy, you need to define the ideal job candidate and clarify their duties and responsibilities. This all comes together in the form of a job description. The elements typically included in a job description are:

• Job title
• Duties and responsibilities
• Required experience, skills, and qualifications
• Your compensation and benefits package
• Location

4. Post Your Job Opening

If you’re considering hiring internally, you’d first want to post your job opening. You can use several channels and platforms to externally post and promote your job advertisements. These include online job boards (many of which are free), paid platforms, and social media.

5. Examine Applicants’ Resumes

Once your deadline for receiving applications has passed, the next step is to start sorting through the resumes you’ve received. Start by eliminating candidates who lack the required experience, certifications, and skills. Then, narrow down your qualified candidates until you have a shortlist of promising-looking ones. It’s worth noting here that while many organizations use applicant tracking systems, they’re not always effective if they’re not correctly configured. So, if you’re using one, work with your HR to ensure it’s using the right keywords to flag resumes.

6. Conduct Interviews with the Most Qualified Candidates

With a strong set of resumes in hand, it’s time to make direct contact with your shortlisted qualified candidates. At this stage, it’s vital that you do all in your power to ensure you make a great first impression on these potential candidates as a potential employer. Try to be flexible and accommodate your candidates’ schedules wherever possible. Make sure that all interviewers arrive at the interview on time and are well-prepared. You might also consider conducting video interviews – this lets you (and your applicant) save time, but it also gives you a good sense of job candidates’ communications skills.

7. Perform a Background Check

Once you’ve completed the interview process and have settled on your preferred candidate, don’t forget to conduct a thorough background check and reach out to the candidate’s references before making an offer. Background checks are important to verify that applicants are who they say they are and won’t pose any danger to their fellow employees and your business. A thorough background check might include:

• Criminal record
• Credit reports
• A driving license (if applicable)
• Verification of work history, social security number, and qualifications

8. Onboard Your New Hire

Onboarding involves more than just showing your new hire to their workstation and introducing them to their colleagues. It’s also a mechanism through which newcomers are introduced to the company’s value system and are given the opportunity to learn about the desired organizational behaviors.

9. Notify Candidates Who Have Been Rejected as Soon as Possible

There’s always a chance that your most promising candidate will decline your offer, in which case you’ll need to consider extending the offer to your second-best or third-best candidate. However, once you’ve made your appointment, don’t forget to let the others in the running know that their applications were unsuccessful and wish them their best for their future job search. It’s simply good manners.

10. Ask for Feedback

Once your new hire has been onboarded and is settling into their new role, it’s a good time to ask them a few questions about how they felt about your hiring process. What did they enjoy or appreciate? What could you have done better? Take constructive feedback to your HR team and work with them on any areas that require improvement.

What to Look for After Hiring New Employees

Clearly, the hiring process requires significant time and investment from multiple stakeholders. The last thing you want is to lose a new hire shortly after they’ve joined the team. The cost of job advertisements, agency commissions, and brand marketing can quickly add up. And, every time you lose an employee, you also lose all the investments you’ve made (both time and monetary) in their onboarding, training, and development.

So, keep an eye out for the following signs that your newcomer is struggling or unhappy:

1. Your New Employee Doesn’t Know the Company

For you, expectations, company culture, and work processes are familiar. For new employees, everything is new. During onboarding, focus on clear communication of expectations, positive mentorship, and feedback; also, be sure to explain the benefits you offer. Companies with robust onboarding procedures can boost worker retention by 82%.

2. Your Employee is Deciding Whether to Leave

Yes, they just got the job, but 20% of new workers leave their jobs in the first forty-five days. You’re on probation. How much are you doing to make sure your employee stays? Fail to do enough, and you’ll pay – when you lose workers, you lose money.

3. Taking this Job May Have Put Your New Employee in Financial Peril

Many workers switch jobs because they want to improve their financial wellness, but ironically, they may have to spend money—buy an interview suit, access transportation—just to get the job. At the same time, they may also experience a gap in earnings in the period between their last day on the old job and the first paycheck at your company.

4. Your Payroll May be Making New Employees Wait

If an employee joins part way through a pay period, the payroll system may effectively hold that first paycheck until they have completed a full pay period, making the gap in earnings even worse.

5. Your Benefits are Mission-Critical

Workers rely on benefits. Medical and other benefits at their jobs can make the difference between meeting obligations on time each month and living a precarious paycheck to paycheck existence. If you can help improve workers’ financial wellness, you’ll also improve their quality of life.

More Successful Hiring Employees with Payactiv

When you hire an employee, you’re the one evaluating them. Once they’re on the job, though, they’re evaluating you, deciding whether to stay at your company. Remember these five things, and you’ll avoid having to start the recruitment process all over again.

To successfully pass your probation period with new employees, it’s vital to offer benefits like Payactiv that help your workers improve their financial wellness. Payactiv is helping employers enhance their levels of hiring success and build productive and engaged workforces.

We offer access to cost-effective and risk-free financial services that provide employees with a sense of financial wellness, help them remain focused on their jobs, and feel a greater sense of loyalty to their employers.

We also offer Earned Wage Access (EWA) – something many job applicants will find attractive. With EWA, your employees can quickly access the money they’ve already earned before payday. It can happen in several ways; the funds can be loaded onto a debit or prepaid card, transferred to their bank account, or even picked up as cash at Walmart.

Alternatively, Payactiv allows employees to use their earned wages to pay for services like Uber and Amazon and pay their bills directly in the app. One survey revealed that 81% of workers would stay with an employer because of this Payactiv benefit. Why wouldn’t they?

Learn more about Payactiv’s Service, or book your demo now.