Anchoring Your Talent
Onboarding & Retention: Connecting the Employee Experience from the Beginning
When an organization makes a successful hire, it's easy to think the talent acquisition process has reached its conclusion. The position has been filled, the offer has been accepted, and everyone can turn their attention to the next opening.
But the expectations that brought someone to an organization don't disappear when they become an employee. The promises communicated during recruiting, the relationships established through interviews, and the impression created throughout the hiring process all influence what someone expects when they arrive for their first day.
Anchoring Your Talent is the Northwest point of The Compass because it focuses on the relationship between recruitment, onboarding, employee engagement, and retention. It's about understanding how the experiences created before hiring connect to the experiences that follow, and whether those connections support the organization's ability to retain the talent it worked so hard to attract.
I believe organizations have an opportunity to strengthen retention long before an employee considers leaving. That opportunity begins by creating realistic expectations, supporting the transition into employment, listening to employees, and recognizing where the employment experience may need attention.
WHEN RECRUITING AND RETENTION OPERATE SEPARATELY
Sometimes the Problem Isn't Finding More People. It's Keeping the People You've Already Hired.
Imagine an organization that has been struggling to fill several important positions. Its recruitment advertising is generating interest, and the talent acquisition team has successfully increased hiring activity. Leadership is pleased with the progress, but a few months later, many of the same positions are open again.
The natural response may be to increase recruiting efforts even further. After all, vacancies still need to be filled, and the organization has business responsibilities that can't be put on hold.
But before recommending additional advertising or sourcing activity, I'd want to understand why those positions keep becoming vacant.
Are employees leaving because the work differs from what they expected? Are they receiving adequate training and support? Do managers clearly communicate responsibilities and performance expectations? Are there scheduling or workplace concerns that weren't fully considered during recruiting?
The answers could reveal a challenge that additional recruitment spending won't solve.
I've always believed there's an important distinction between having difficulty attracting candidates and having difficulty retaining employees. The two challenges may be connected, but they don't necessarily require the same solutions.
An organization might discover that its recruitment messaging emphasizes career opportunities that aren't consistently available. Another may find that new employees are entering the workplace without sufficient onboarding support. In some situations, turnover may be influenced by conditions unrelated to the original recruiting process.
This is why I believe recruitment and retention should share relevant information rather than operate as entirely separate functions.
When recruiting teams understand why employees stay or leave, they can make more informed decisions about candidate targeting, recruitment messaging, and the expectations communicated during hiring. At the same time, HR leaders and managers can use insights from recruiting to better understand the circumstances and motivations of new employees.
The objective isn't to eliminate all turnover. Employees will leave for many reasons, including opportunities and circumstances an employer cannot reasonably control.
What organizations can do is examine whether recurring patterns reveal opportunities to improve the employee experience, strengthen communication, and make better decisions throughout the employment lifecycle.
Sometimes the most valuable recruiting improvement begins with understanding what happens after the hire.
HOW ANCHORING YOUR TALENT CONNECTS TO THE COMPASS
The Final Point Connects Back to the Beginning
Anchoring Your Talent occupies the Northwest position on The Compass, but I don't think of it as the conclusion of talent acquisition. In many ways, it's the point that connects the entire framework back to the beginning.
Charting the Course helps organizations consider future workforce requirements, while Knowing Your Waters provides insight into the people they hope to attract. Flying Your Colors and Casting a Wider Net help communicate meaningful employment opportunities to relevant audiences.
Sounding the Depths helps organizations evaluate candidates' qualifications and capabilities, while Choosing the Crew focuses on making informed final hiring decisions. The candidate experience throughout these activities can influence the expectations people carry into employment.
The Navigation System supports those activities through the technology, workflows, communications, and information used throughout recruiting.
Anchoring Your Talent connects those earlier decisions to what happens after someone joins the organization. It considers whether the expectations created during recruiting are being fulfilled, whether employees receive the support they need, and what their experiences reveal about the organization's talent acquisition practices.
For example, an organization experiencing recurring turnover in a particular role may discover that its recruiting message doesn't accurately describe the position. That information should influence Flying Your Colors and potentially Knowing Your Waters. If employees are struggling with responsibilities that weren't adequately evaluated during hiring, Sounding the Depths may deserve further attention.
Likewise, when employee feedback reveals strengths that weren't previously emphasized in recruitment advertising, the organization may have an opportunity to communicate its employer value more effectively.
These connections are why The Compass is a continuous framework rather than a sequence of unrelated steps. Each discipline provides information that can strengthen the others, and the experiences of employees can help inform future workforce planning and recruiting decisions.
I believe organizations gain the greatest value when they understand those relationships and use them to guide ongoing improvement.
The goal isn't simply to hire more effectively or retain employees longer. It's to develop a talent acquisition function that learns from experience, adapts to changing conditions, and supports the organization's broader workforce objectives.
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BUILDING A STRONGER EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE
Are You Looking Beyond the Hire to Understand the Bigger Picture?
If your organization is consistently filling positions only to see many of them become vacant again, it may be worth examining what happens after new employees arrive. Recruiting more people can help meet immediate staffing needs, but it doesn't necessarily address the conditions influencing employee turnover.
You may be experiencing higher-than-expected early turnover, questioning the effectiveness of your onboarding program, or trying to understand why employees in certain departments seem less engaged than others. Perhaps you've collected employee feedback but aren't sure how to translate it into practical improvements, or you're wondering whether the expectations created during recruitment align with what people actually experience at work.
These are the kinds of questions I believe deserve thoughtful attention because the causes may extend across several parts of the talent acquisition and employee experience lifecycle.
At Storms Consulting, I can help examine onboarding practices, employee feedback, engagement and retention patterns, and the connections between recruitment and the experience that follows. Whether you're seeking a focused review of a particular challenge or want to understand how these issues relate to your broader talent acquisition strategy, I'll begin by learning about your organization and the circumstances you're facing.
For organizations that want a comprehensive evaluation, the Talent Audit provides a framework for examining Anchoring Your Talent alongside the other seven points of The Compass. If you already have a specific onboarding or retention concern, we can discuss that directly without requiring a larger consulting engagement.
I believe attracting the right people is only part of building a strong workforce. Organizations also need to understand what helps employees succeed, feel supported, and see a meaningful future with the business.
When those considerations become part of the larger talent acquisition conversation, employers have an opportunity to make better decisions from the very beginning of the relationship.
Let's look beyond the hiring decision and build a stronger connection between recruitment and retention.