“As soon as the contract is signed, we carry out meticulous monitoring of the new recruit.” This was the message from Fujitsu Luxembourg country leader 
However, this seductive approach is not yet completely accepted by employers, according to the 2024 edition of the Onboarding Barometer, commissioned by the Workelo HR platform from the Ipsos polling institute. The survey of 800 employees in France revealed that 50% of them had had a bad experience of integrating into a new company “at least once.”
Radio silence
Nearly one in five employees (19%) explained that they had heard nothing from their future company before the big day. This is unfortunate, given that 46% of those surveyed were in a state of stress the day before starting work. And the number of no-shows (recruits who don’t turn up for work on the day they start) has increased in recent years, particularly as a result of the covid crisis in 2020. This problem is all the more sensitive for HR teams because, as well as being felt as a vexation, it translates into a considerable waste of time (and therefore money).
In his book “Dream Team” (published by Marabout), consultant, entrepreneur and lecturer Ludovic Girodon recommends that employers communicate with the new recruit every fortnight or so, “to maintain the link.”
Visibility
What do new recruits expect? 80% of them consider it “important” to have some idea of how their first few weeks on the job are going to go, or to know a little more about the team they are about to join. 79% of them also want to be able to get in touch with their future manager or with HR services.
The risk of a no-show is not the only one highlighted by the study, which shows that a third of the employees questioned have already abandoned a post before the end of the trial period. For a quarter of them, it was because they felt they had been left to their own devices when they joined the company.
Another thought-provoking figure is that 36% of those questioned admitted that they had continued to look at job offers during their first few weeks at work. Almost two out of three (63%) felt that “a personalised induction experience” would be likely to encourage them to stay at least a year in their new company.
The importance of managers
Managers have a role to play in the induction process. 59% of those surveyed expect their manager to be “available and a good listener” during the induction process, and 57% to “clarify” tasks and objectives. Employees from Gen Z, on the other hand, are hoping for greater digitalisation, with 74% demanding that their first steps in the company should be accompanied by facilities such as online administrative formalities or videos, presentations and diaries accessible from a smartphone. What’s more, respondents from the 18-34 age group are the most likely to say they have had a bad induction experience (69%, compared with 42% for the 45-54 age group, for example).
In the end (although this figure may be stating the obvious), 97% of those surveyed consider a successful integration to be important, or even very important.
The magic formula may have been found by the American hotel and restaurant booking platform SevenRooms, which offers its recruits the chance to start their new working life with... two weeks of paid holiday. “We want the new members of our team to be enthusiastic about joining us and to approach their new assignment in the best possible conditions,” explains a manager of this company founded in 2011, quoted last year by the media outlet Courrier International. Why not?
This article was originally published in French.
