Industry Insights

What started as an annoyance in the hiring process has now become a major problem for employers. Each year, the number of dropped connections increases 10-20%! So, how do you mitigate ghosting among your applicants and new hires?

Ghosting in the Workplace

After the 2008 Great Recession, employers were flooded with applications and only responded to the ones they were most interested in. Thus began the practice of ghosting in the workplace. Job applicants had no way of knowing if there was a problem with their application or if the role had already been filled. They only knew they weren’t getting any feedback.

Now, it’s a candidate’s market. Unemployment is at historic lows, and the shoe is on the other foot. Applicants routinely fall off the face of the earth – and even new hires don’t show up for work or drop out in the first few days.

Many of these ghosters are young and just don’t understand how rude it is to abandon the interview process without notifying the company. They don’t understand that this behavior will cause long-term consequences for their careers. Nevertheless, you’ve still got to deal with the reality of unfilled positions and the damage ghosting can cause your organization.

Fortunately, there are best practices and strategies you can employ to mitigate ghosting and reduce the havoc you face in hiring and retention. Here are some of the best tips to incorporate in your CRE organization to keep applicants and new hires engaged, responsive, and committed.

5 Tactics to Mitigate Ghosting

1. Don’t Ghost

It’s called the Golden Rule. If you don’t want applicants to disappear on you, don’t allow this behavior from your hiring managers. Follow up with everyone to build a culture of communication.

2. Exit Interviews

If a new hire fails to show up on Day 1 or leaves at some other point during their employment unexplained, reach out! While they may not respond, asking for an exit interview to let them air their grievances may provide valuable information for future risk mitigation.

3. Shorten Hiring Times

Long periods of time between the interview and job offer allow applicants to lose interest or respond to other opportunities. Working with a professional headhunter in the CRE industry will help you lesson this time period and snatch up top talent quickly while they’re still hot.

4. Get Onboarding Right

Approximately 20% of employee turnover occurs in the first six weeks due to poor onboarding. Don’t just sit your new hire at a desk with a stack of forms to fill out on Day 1. Perfect your hands-on onboarding process to ensure your new hire feels engaged, valued, and part of the mission from the start.

5. Do Your Homework

To mitigate ghosting in your hiring process, do your due diligence to find out if candidates have ever ghosted before. Search Glassdoor and LinkedIn for signs of ghosting in the past. If need be, weed out questionable candidates from your short list.

Remember, you cannot completely prevent ghosting. It’s becoming more and more common in the workplace and hiring process. However, following these critical steps can help minimize exposure and disruption. For a minimal investment, your organization can sidestep much of this problem and maximize engagement for those seeking to join your team

In trying times like these, employee retention is a huge concern for employers. This is especially true in challenged markets like commercial real estate. As workplace culture changes and the economy becomes more unpredictable, building a loyal employee culture is simultaneously more vital and more difficult.

But it doesn’t have to be impossible. Understanding the factors that lead to higher employee retention in the CRE workplace will give you the competitive edge to build and maintain a dynamic workforce intensely loyal to your company and goals.

Employee Retention Starts at the Beginning

The first and greatest way to reduce employee turnover is to hire the right people, according to the Wall Street Journal. A poor or shallow hiring process will produce a high turnover rate. People don’t tend to hang around when they are not closely aligned with the company culture, values, projects, or skill set requirements.

There are numerous costs associated with a bad hire, and a high turnover rate is one of the least talked about. Yet your company stands to lose a ton of revenue, productiveness, and even morale. To protect your bottom line, keep your employee retention high by hiring the right people for the right job. Your employee retention program should begin all the way at the beginning with a highly effective and thorough hiring process.

The onboarding process is also crucial to ensuring low turnover. Starting on Day One, give your new hire the right first impression. 54% of new hires report a mishap on the first day of a new job! To start on the right foot:

• Prepare their workstation in advance with the supplies and equipment they need (this may look different in a virtual environment, but remains important).
• Have a clear list of expectations and responsibilities ready and waiting for them.
• Immediately introduce them to the team in a sociable way, giving them a chance to start lasting relationships. This is especially relevant in a virtual work environment. The team needs to be able to understand who the new hire is and what capabilities they have to ensure the right training, management direction, and workload is provided.

Invest in Company Culture

While a competitive compensation package is important for employee retention, even more integral is workplace culture. Inspire your employees with a culture of inclusion and diversity. Clearly communicate to them the company mission and values and gather their buy-in as well. When your employees believe in your company, they won’t jump ship at the first opportunity to make an extra buck. Position your organization as more than just a workplace. Foster an atmosphere of family and cooperation.

Stephen Covey once called trust “the one thing that changes everything.” And building workforce relationships on trust can be the difference maker for employee retention. Here are a few secret ingredients for infusing trust into your company culture:

• Establish Competence: If your employees believe they work for the best company in your field, this will build trust and loyalty.
• Demonstrate Integrity: It goes without saying that honesty is the absolute best policy for building trust in the workplace.
• Be Consistent: If your division or company is always swinging from one extreme to the other in response to market changes, employees won’t be able to trust in your stability and longevity.
• Decide with Transparency: Your employees are your stakeholders; don’t leave them in the dark.

Become Your Employees’ Career Coach

It sounds counterintuitive, but taking an interest in furthering the career goals of your employees will result in higher employee retention. Employees must feel fulfilled and engaged in their work. Therefore, your job as a manager is to help them find their purpose and then align it with their contributions to the company. When they are thoroughly engaged and appreciated, they will be far less likely to roam.

Ask these key questions to help them connect with that sense of appreciation and fulfillment:

• What are you good at?
• What tasks do you enjoy?
• What are the most useful things you do here?
• What are you learning that will prepare you for future goals?
• How do you relate to others?

These questions will help employees better understand their role and unique offering to the company. In turn, they will better integrate with their teams, they will contribute more to the mission, and they will become more productive and skilled in their jobs.

Help your employees find meaning at work, closely align new hires with their strengths and pay attention to the role needed now and how that will grow, and create a vibrant and diverse culture they can believe in. Increasing employee retention – even in trying and difficult times – is really just a matter of inspiring them to achieve great things as an invested part of your team.