Schwan: Why first days at work matter most

Four out of every 100 employees quit a job after a bad first day.

Most give it three weeks before they decide if they feel at home.

That's according to The Wynhurst Group, a Virginia-based human resources consulting firm.

Half of all hourly workers leave new jobs in the first four months. Half of senior outside hires fail within 18 months, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

That kind of data, combined with increasing competition for talent, has led more companies to focus on onboarding — the process by which new employees are acclimated and receive initial training.

I've held off writing about this topic for months because it has taken me that long to find the right company to feature.

So it's fitting that the "award" goes to a business that started by building trophies.

I wrote a profile in the Oct. 8 Sioux Falls Business Journal on JDS Industries, a company that has grown from a small family business to become the world's largest wholesaler in the awards and recognition industry.

But I had so much information to fit in the story, I left out what happens at JDS when an employee is hired. And it's worth sharing.

"No. 1 and most importantly, we want to be ready for you when you walk in the door and have as many of your anxieties removed as possible," said Mike May, chief operations officer.

That means your workstation is set up. There's something on your desk from your team – maybe a photo of them with handwritten notes welcoming you.

If you're working in a key position, you might be carrying a JDS coffee mug on your first day.

"We will make sure you have received a care package of JDS logo gifts, and again, it's a welcome package with notes in there from your teammates and maybe JDS literature in there, depending on the position," May said.

The first day, you're told not to worry about lunch.

"We will take care of you for lunch, and you will be dining with your teammates," May said. "We might cater in a group lunch and hang out and visit, or we might go out."

Many new hires already have met some of their co-workers. JDS often does team interviewing to give applicants get a feel for what the job entails. The key is to have new employees start with no surprises, May said.

If you're working in the company's global call center, you start six weeks of classroom training before you handle a customer call. It's done on a shadow system designed by JDS to duplicate a real-life call center environment.

"And we have our call center agents out shadowing in other departments. And helping and experiencing other parts of the company," May added. "That makes them much more well-rounded on the phone with customers, and they love that cross training."

The process is so unique that others in the industry have traveled to Sioux Falls to observe the training. A large customer from Florida did so just a few weeks ago.

"The thing that starts to wake most people up about the importance of it is when they do the math and figure out the cost of turnover," said Merit Gest, a Denver-based consultant who has been helping companies with onboarding for the past decade.

She remembered JDS from a seminar and said the company is doing a lot of things right.

"My first rule of thumb on day one is get them (new hires) connected to the people right away," she said. "That's much more important than the paperwork they have to fill out. Do the paperwork, but make sure it's people before paper."

Anything companies can do to lower the stress level of coming into a new environment will make a difference, she said.

"I just relay so many stories that the new person was hired, they showed up and the receptionist didn't know they hired anyone," she said.

"So in the first hour, an impression has been made. Or their boss isn't prepared, doesn't have anything planned for them, and that sets a tone."

Any company that hires more than 20 people annually should have an automated onboarding program, Gest said.

The Society for Human Resource Management did a report a few years ago that boiled down basic onboarding to four "C's":

■ Compliance, which involves teaching basic legal and policy-related rules.

■ Clarification, which means ensuring employees understand their jobs and expectations.

■ Culture, which introduces the new employee to organizational norms, formal and informal.

■ Connection, which refers to the important relationships and networks new employees need to establish.

The organization also profiled IBM, which refined its onboarding into an assimilation process that includes assigning new employees a coach and intensely monitoring the first 30 days to ensure all needed resources are available, along with additional follow-up during the first year.

"You only get that first chance to make a first impression," Gest said.

She suggests taking the first day to focus on the values of the company. If your business values teamwork, consider having the new employee join a work team. If your company values quality, show it with lunch at an upscale restaurant.

"That's a setting where you can talk about 'Here's why we came here. Our company is about quality.' So you can have a real teaching opportunity."

It's striking how fast the hiring equation flips. While job applicants must sell themselves to an employer, as soon as they walk in the door as employees, it's often as much about the business selling them on staying.

While I'll bet most of us can remember our first day on a new job, I doubt many of us had a first-class experience.

But when you consider everything else a business invests in an employee, a deliberate approach to those first days seems like it would have a pretty good return.