To Retain New Hires, Make Sure You Meet With Them in Their First Week

Microsoft researchers conducted an employee survey to gain insights into new hires' experiences and first impressions of their company, reports the Harvard Business Review . "The little things matter most to new hires — like having a working computer and immediate access to the building, email, and the intranet on day one," the authors note. "Based on this, we pulled individuals together from payroll, IT, immigration, legal, global security, learning, procurement, recruiting, and HR to land on a common goal: Make sure new employees are productive on day one. Every member of the team contributed to the shared goal, and as a result all the organizational barriers were broken down. Now we review progress monthly, learning and sharing ideas and feedback to guarantee the success of all new employees." The investigators teamed with Microsoft's Workplace Analytics division to match anonymous calendar and email metadata with engagement data to better understand how early behaviors impact the new hires' engagement. Having a one-on-one meeting with a manager during their first week was essential, with early growth witnessed in the areas of internal networks and network centrality, higher-quality meetings, and team collaboration. "These and other insights are helping us shine a spotlight on the employee experience and guide us on where to adjust to make a new hire's experience even better," the authors write. "And this is just the beginning at Microsoft. We are now experimenting with other ways to improve the onboarding experience, with a focus on the new employees' network — particularly when the manager works in a different location."