Hey there! This week, we're focusing on onboarding and retaining employees and why it's important. When employees don't have a good onboarding experience, it can affect their confidence and motivation in their new job and make them even more likely to leave for another opportunity. So, it's definitely worth taking the time to ensure your onboarding process is top-notch! Let's get started.

Good reads

The Key to Retaining Young Workers? Better Onboarding.Insights from Donald Tomaskovic-Devey and Reyna Orellana

Employers are struggling to hire and retain young workers due to labor shortages and wage expectations. To reduce turnover costs, employers should focus on developing mutual respect and trust. Here are the 10 lessons to improve hiring and training practices that workforce specialists suggest:

Create career jobs: people expect more than just a slightly higher pay than minimum wage, as good jobs promise a future and make young people feel valued through living wages, predictable hours, etc.
Communicate opportunities for career progression: what may seem obvious to an employer can be a mystery to a young employee, and the lack of clarity may cause them to leave prematurely for another job they see themselves growing into.
Build positive relationships before hiring: consider outreach methods such as mock interviews, workplace tours, and job shadowing to communicate employer values and help candidates envision themselves in the role.
Ensure a positive first day reception: first impressions are a crucial factor in retaining new hires; ensure that they feel welcome and introduce them to colleagues and supervisors.
Assign new hires a mentor: provide the necessary support to new hires so they can learn job skills and gain a better understanding of the company's culture.
Communicate and explain expectations clearly: establish clear expectations from the beginning so that everyone is on the same page.
Create a culture where young workers can ask questions: encourage employees to ask questions and create a culture where it is normal to do so.
Understand non-work lives: each employee encounters distinct challenges beyond work; acknowledge this and demonstrate empathy towards it.
Foster a climate of respect and dignity for everyone: address toxic behavior in the workplace instead of excusing it.
Create a racially equitable workplace: foster respectful relationships among supervisors, coworkers, and employees.

10 Ways to Attract and Retain the Best EmployeesInsights from Skye Schooley

Simply offering a large salary is no longer enough. Comprehensive salaries and benefits, inclusive company cultures, and career development opportunities are important to job seekers. Here are 10 things to be mindful of when attracting and retaining employees.

Write good job descriptions: job descriptions should go beyond just listing responsibilities and include information about the company culture, salary, and benefits while being written in a tone that matches your brand and formatted for easy readability.
Be intentional with your hiring process: a strategic recruitment and onboarding process can reduce high turnover rates by helping new employees feel connected to their roles.
Offer competitive compensation: consider other forms of compensation, such as employee retirement plans, bonuses, paid time off, and stock options to attract top employees.
Build a comprehensive employee benefits package: offer a comprehensive package to attract the best and boost employee satisfaction and productivity.
Provide employee development opportunities: create individualized career development plans, set goals, offer training, mentorship, stretch assignments, and promote from within to retain valued employees.
Recognize your employees: create an employee recognition program to make employees feel valued. Use a points system and survey employees to personalize incentives.
Prioritize company culture: create a diversity and inclusion training program to help employees understand what is and isn’t acceptable in the company.
Monitor employee engagement and burnout: employee engagement is crucial for retention. Encourage open communication, avoid burnout, and bring in temporary professionals to ease workloads.
Communicate your company mission and vision: share the goals and values of your organization to attract and retain employees who identify with them.
Train your management staff: equip your leaders with practical training to optimize team management and retain talent, fostering a thriving and efficient workplace.

Employee Handbooks for StartupsInsights from Max Freedman

A new employee's essential guide is their handbook, as it clearly explains the company's rules, encourages productive work behavior, and helps align them with the company's goals. Offering a detailed handbook from the beginning allows the company to save time, lessen stress, and preserve a consistent approach within the team. Here are a few key components every handbook should include:

Company policies
Cover at-will employment if applicable in the company
State that policies may change
Share company history
Should include the company’s mission statement
Should outline the onboarding process

Tools insight

Did you know that Notion has analytics?Yep, you can gain valuable insights into how your team members and collaborators interact with Notion on both the page and workspace levels. This empowers you to make informed decisions on user engagement, content consumption, and overall collaboration effectiveness.

Some features of Notion's analytics include:

Page views: this metric shows the number of times a particular page has been viewed by users in your workspace.
User activity: this feature displays the total number of edits, comments, and other interactions made by each user in your workspace.
Popular content: by tracking engagement metrics, you can identify which pages and content are the most popular among your team members, helping you prioritize and improve collaboration.
Workspace usage: workspace analytics summarizes the total number of pages, databases, and other content created within the workspace.

Learn more about Notion analytics here

Productivity inspo

Image by Lizand Mollie

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