Recruiting new staff is a minefield. But, once you have found the right person for your business, make sure that your office isn’t letting you down.
Employee expectations around their working environment have changed. People want to work somewhere that is clean, comfortable and inspiring. To win and retain the best staff you have to make a good impression from the very start, and your office plays a big part in their decision making. First impressions count.
Thankfully, however, you as an employer can put a few basic measures in place to ensure that all new employees feel right at home in your office environment from Day One.
Here are four great ways to make new office staff feel right at home:
Show them the ropes
It’s easy to forget how daunting even the smallest things are when you start a new job. If you’ve been working in the office for a while then everything will feel very familiar to you, but new starters won’t know these things and might be anxious about asking too many trivial questions. “Is the fancy coffee free for anyone to use? What is the policy on taking personal calls? Where are the toilets?”.
Thankfully, this is easy to sort by giving every new starter a welcome tour of the office. Show them where everything is and introduce them to key members of staff that they will be working closely with.
They might not remember every single thing and every single person on the first day, but it will make them feel more secure and welcome in your office right from the start.
Give them the tools they need to perform well
It seems trivial, but if they have to go hunting for a pen and notepad, paper clips and wifi passwords, this does not give a very good first impressions.
Invest in a decent laptop. People want to feel like they are valued, and for a few hundred pounds not only will they not be held back by a slow computer, but they will be proud of it and the investment made in them by their new employer. This way they will feel part of the team and more likely to engage thoroughly and give their best work.
Unless they already have tons of experience of a similar role in another office, it’s best not to make the first few days at work too stressful for new staff by throwing them in at the deep end.
Start new office staff off with light tasks for the first week or two so that they don’t feel overwhelmed and stressed by the workload.
They will settle in much more easily and feel confident from the outset.
Provide Them With A Mentor
Don’t leave new office staff to cope with everything on their own.
Think who would be a natural mentor for the new employee, someone who sits near to them and is of a similar age perhaps? and make sure that person is comfortable with their role.
Make sure that this mentor is one of the very first people you introduce your new recruit to, and do everything you can to make them feel comfortable asking for help or seeking answers to questions.
Make sure that their desk and the wider office is clean and tidy
No one wants to spend 8-9 hours a day in a dirty, tatty office. As we already mentioned, expectations around the workplace have changed, especially with younger people. Make sure that their chair and desk are not broken. Make sure that the kitchens and bathrooms are well maintained and that carpets are regularly cleaned.
It can sometimes be hard to recognise the slow deterioration of the fabric of your office when you see it every day, but by employing the right cleaning contractor, you can rest assured that this is all taken care for you.
On that note, why not give us a call. At CCS we take “Pride in Everything We Do” and provide a first class cleaning service for Bristol, Bath and the South West.
