Episode 179 

Welcome to episode 179. And today we’re continuing the recruitment conversation from episode 177, which was two weeks ago. And with that episode, I talked about hiring before Christmas and how to move quickly without allowing that.
Deadline to push you into a rushed decision.
So today, let’s assume that you’ve done all of that. You’ve advertised the role, you’ve shortlisted, you’ve interviewed, you’ve checked references and made the offer. And thank goodness they’ve said yes. And this is probably the point where most of us take a fairly big breath and think, oh, that’s done.
I know I have before, because recruitment takes a lot of time. Even when we’ve got a good process, there are still applications to review, diaries to coordinate, interviews, decisions, references, offers. And particularly at this time of year, you know, we’ve got 300 other things happening in the business as well.
So when that signed contract comes back, it’s really easy just to mentally tick recruitment off the list and to move on to the next thing. But of course, the person hasn’t actually joined the business yet. Maybe they’re not joining for another four weeks. And one of the things that I’ve noticed is that businesses put a lot of thought and time into recruitment, but maybe more thought as well into onboarding, but not much into the actual time period in between. So that time from when you give the offer, when the person actually walks into the business. And actually from the candidate’s point of view, quite a lot’s going on in that period of time. They’ve accepted, but they’re still in their old workplace.
And once someone accepts our offer, the next thing they might need to do is resign from their current role.
And depending on the relationship they have with their current employer, that can be pretty straightforward or it can be super uncomfortable. You know, possibly their manager’s really disappointed, their colleagues are surprised. People start asking, well, where are you going? Why are you leaving? And sometimes, of course, their current employer says, okay, let’s find a way to make you stay.
So while you’ve got the signed contract and you’re thinking, excellent, that’s sorted, I’m so excited, they’re still sitting in the other business. They’re still seeing their colleagues every day. They’re still finishing those projects. They might be having conversations with their manager about what it would take for them to stay.
So it’s worth remembering that people can feel really differently about a decision that they’ve made from one day to the next. Maybe they sign the contract on Monday and they’re really certain that they’re ready to leave. And then on Tuesday, they have a really nice lunch with their team. Someone says, hey, we’re really going to miss you. Their manager tells them how much they value. They start feeling a bit emotional.
You know, all of this is really quite human. There was some research from Robert Half this year where 88% of Australian employers they’d surveyed said they’d experienced at least one candidate declining a job offer in the last 12 months.
Now, of course, it doesn’t mean that 88% of job offers are falling over, but it means those employers experienced it somewhere in their recruitment during that year. And it’s a useful reminder that an accepted offer isn’t always the end of the story. And in separate research, 85% of Australian employers surveyed said they’d made a counteroffer to an employee who’d received another job offer.
So if your new employee is sitting in their current workplace serving out their notice, there’s a reasonable chance that their employer is having some conversations with them about staying. And that counter offer isn’t always money. It could be flexibility, it could be a new title, a promotion. It could be that their manager says, you know what, I’m going to fix that thing that’s been driving you crazy over the last 12 months. Now, whether those promises actually happen is another conversation altogether, but from the candidate’s point of view, there can be suddenly quite a lot to think about.
So this is where it helps to look at that period from the employee side rather than from ours, because businesses tend to think about the time in between the offer and the start date in a pretty administrative way. Got to get the payroll information, the super details, we’ve got to get a laptop, get them in our systems, all super important.
But there’s still a person sitting there wondering, you know, what’s this new workplace going to be like? Changing jobs is exciting, but it can also be really nerve-wracking. They’ve made a decision to leave something that’s familiar and move into something they don’t actually know yet. And they probably don’t know how their new manager works. They don’t know the new people in the team. They don’t know the little things that make up everyday life in the business. So if they hear nothing from you for four weeks in their notice period, that uncertainty is probably going to creep in. Now, I’m not saying you need to call everybody in a couple of days and keep telling them how excited you are. They’re not going to like that either. But there’s quite a difference between giving someone space and disappearing completely.
So we want to keep candidates engaged without smothering them because the purpose of keeping in touch isn’t about creating lots of activity. It’s about reducing uncertainty. And that can be really simple. So when the contract comes back, the manager gives them a call. Don’t get the recruiter or the HR person to do that or send an automated e-mail. Have their actual manager, because this is where we want to start getting connection with the manager. So, you know, it can be really simple. Just say, look, thank you so much. We’ve got everything back. Really looking forward to having you join us. How did the resignation go? Is there anything you need from me at this point? So, and that could be where you tell them when they’re going to hear from you. Again, if they’re not starting for another four weeks, perhaps you just check in again the week before they’re starting. If you’re having a Christmas event and it makes sense to invite them, then do that. You know, maybe introduce them to someone they’re going to be working closely with. So it doesn’t need to be a big formal process. It’s just making sure the relationship doesn’t suddenly stop just because the contract has been signed.
And I’ve talked about this before in episode 67 and 68, and also with a guest about emotionally connected onboarding. And one of the things I like about that idea is that it reminds us that onboarding doesn’t start at 9am on someone’s first day. The new person has been forming an impression of your business
well before then. You know, it started when they saw the job ad, they got the emails, the interviews, you know, that’s where they noticed. Did people come to the interviews prepared? Was I kept informed through the recruitment process? Did I do what I said I was going to do? So from an HR point of view, we might separate all of that into recruitment, pre-boarding and onboarding, but that’s what’s
going on in the employee’s mind. They just experience what it feels like to join your business. Because if the recruitment process is warm and responsive and organized, and then as soon as they sign the contract, you disappear for four weeks, they will notice that difference.
Equally, if the recruitment process has been fantastic and they turn up on day one and no one knows that they’re coming, that becomes the same part of the experience for them. They don’t think, oh, recruitment was good, but onboarding wasn’t. They think, oh, this is what it’s like to work here. So for me, candidate experience doesn’t end at the accepted offer. It is the whole journey.
into your organization. So it’s thinking about what should happen before day one. Now pre-boarding is one of those HR words that can make something quite simple sound a bit more complicated, but it’s really just the period between accepting the job and starting it. And there were three things going on in that time. The first one is that administration. So all of that paperwork, equipment, payroll, systems access, et cetera. So, you know, we know that we’ve had to start a job and spent the first two days waiting for a password. You know, it matters. So all of that is really important. The second part is certainty. So what time are they starting? Where do they go? Who do they ask for?
What’s happening on day one? What does their first week look like? Especially now, are they working from home? Are they working in the office? Is there a dress code, parking, lunch? You know, we don’t want to give them a big long list of things, but it’s just removing some of the things that they might otherwise be wondering about.
before they start and even sometimes lying awake at night the night before.
And then there’s connection. So has their manager been in touch? Do they know who they’re working with? Do they get the sense that people are actually expecting them? We’ve got another episode called Standardising Onboarding with Three Tools, which is episode 29, where I go much further into what on good onboarding can look like once someone joins. So I’m not going to repeat that.
But I do think some of the groundwork can start before day one. And one thing to be a little bit careful about is getting a bit too enthusiastic during pre-boarding. I’ve sometimes seen businesses sending someone lots of things to read, videos to watch, training to do, and they haven’t even started.
So there is a line. There’s a difference between here’s a little bit of information about our business and saying, here are 6 modules that you need to complete before you start. Because if it’s work that you’re requiring them to do, then you need to think about, you know, should that actually happen once they’re employed and being paid? So pre-boarding is just about making day one easier. It’s not about moving day one forward by three weeks. And then of course, Christmas makes all this slightly more complicated because the offer to start period is just one thing at another time of the year. At Christmas, there are more extra moving parts. You might have a shutdown. The current employer might have a shutdown.
Their notice period might finish at an awkward time. Their manager in your business might already have leave booked. Other people in the team might be away. And then you’ve got the public holidays sitting right in the middle of everything as well. So I know for this year in New South Wales, you know, Christmas Day is Friday, Boxing Day is Saturday.
Then there’s another public holiday on the 28th, on the Monday. So let’s say you’ve decided you’re a new employee starting on Monday the 21st, and they come into work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and there’s Christmas, the weekend, another public holiday. Quite possibly half of the people they need to work with are already on leave.
So I’m not saying it doesn’t mean that they should start, but it’s worth asking, what does that first week actually look like? Because sometimes we get really excited about the fact that we’ve got someone starting before Christmas. But the question is whether starting before Christmas is actually going to give the person a useful start. And for some businesses, a December start can be…
really good. So you don’t always need to wait until January. You know, for some people, December is quieter. The manager is still there. There’s still key people in the team there. And there might be someone to sit with them and explain the business, the systems, and let them settle in, which can be really nice. You know, I’ve seen businesses where the quieter period is really useful because people can really have that time to onboard and the actual new employee can get to know people properly before things get really busy in January. So if you have the right environment for it, starting in Christmas can work really well. It just needs to be intentional.
And sometimes it just doesn’t make sense. You know, the other versions that someone starts on the 21st, their manager finishes for the year on the 22nd, the person who’s meant to train them is going away, the laptop’s not there, the team’s working from home, the business shuts down. So technically you’ve got them started before Christmas, but you haven’t achieved anything. And from an employee’s point of view, that can feel very odd. They’ve left the workplace they know, they’ve walked into this brand new environment and they really have no idea what’s going on, who the people are, how things work.
So if you’re trying to decide between a December or a January start, I think about is your business actually ready for the person? Will that manager be there? Is there meaningful work they can do? Will they have equipment and systems ready? The other thing to think about is what happens over the shutdown, because this is where some very Australian practicalities come in.
Yeah, we all know in Australia between sort of the day before Christmas and the middle of January, it’s pretty hard to get in touch with businesses because most of them or a lot go into shutdown or just have skeleton staff.
So if you have a Christmas and New Year shutdown, don’t just assume the new employee knows that that’s going to happen. Yeah, annual leave starts accruing from an employee’s first day. But obviously if someone starts just before Christmas, they’re not going to have enough leave. And the rules around directing employees to take annual leave during a shutdown depend on the award or enterprise agreement that applies to them and there can also be notice requirements. So this is one of those areas where you really need to check what applies to that particular employee rather than assuming that the arrangement that you’ve always used is fine. And apart from the compliance side of it, there’s also just a really simple candidate
experience point, which is we don’t want it to be a surprise. Imagine resigning for your old job, starting a new one, and then discovering the business is about to close for two weeks and you didn’t know what that was going to be for your pay. So it’s not a great way to start the relationship. So have the conversation when you’re agreeing to the start date, explain what’s going to happen and make sure that they know what that means for them.
Now, I’ve talked in previous episodes about that emotional connexion in onboarding, and this is where this all joins up. People want to know that someone has thought about them arriving. Yeah, most things that make a good impression are actually really small. Just things like their manager knows they’re coming, their laptop works, someone’s there to greet them, there’s a plan for the first week, they roughly know
what they’re meant to do, and someone’s checking in on them. And I’ve also talked before about a new hire that I initially thought wasn’t working out. And when I really stopped and looked at what was happening, I had to acknowledge that we had onboarded her particularly well. She just didn’t have enough clarity or structure. So as we changed that, things changed for her as well. So onboarding isn’t just about whether someone feels welcomed, it also impacts on how quickly they can become useful and confident in the role.
So if you’ve just recruited someone heading into Christmas, then don’t overcomplicate it. Just once the contract is signed, don’t go into radio silence. Make sure that manager stays connected with them. Let them know what’s going to happen next. Give them the practical things to get organised before they arrive and think about whether starting before Christmas is really the right thing for them and the business, or that January is going to give a much better introduction. Also think about that shutdown question. Make sure there aren’t any surprises because you’ve done a lot of work to get to this point. And the last thing you want is for them to spend 4 weeks wondering whether they’ve made the right decision because they haven’t heard from anybody. So this does need a little more thought at Christmas than any other time of the year as well. But once you get that right, you can adjust it for that Christmas period. Thank you so much for joining me. If you receive value for this episode, I’d love it if you could leave a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so someone else can find the episodes to help with their business. Episodes are released on Mondays, so click subscribe and you’ll be notified of when the next one is available. And if you have any feedback, questions or ideas for future episodes, head on over to amplifyhr.com.au or connect with me on LinkedIn and we can start a conversation.