How to Make Your New Hire Poach Proof

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

It takes a lot to find the right ERP Consultant, Director of Project of Management, or Developer.  It costs a lot to train and onboard a new team member. We’ve helped many Acumatica, Sage and NetSuite partners find great new talent.  We have also helped to make sure those hires develop into long term, integral team members. In this article, we’ll go over our tips on the top 5 things you can do to make your new hire poach proof and that competitors aren’t poaching employees you’re investing in.

Before we dive in, you need to be clear on 2 points.  First, ensuring you find the right Candidate and guarding yourself against them leaving prematurely starts before you even begin interviewing.  Second, no matter how many steps you take to find the right Candidate, pay them fairly and give them a great work environment, there is no such thing as 100% poach proof.  Of course, let’s do what we can!

Fair Wages & Work Location

So where do you begin?  You’ve determined you need to hire a new ERP team member.  You’ve probably also decided how you’re going to look for that employee.  If not, check out our previous blog on the top 5 recruiting options for the ERP ecosystem.  Before you even start on the hiring journey, one of the first things to getting a great team member is to offer a fair wage for the position.  This fluctuates depending on the Candidate’s experience and location for the position. The 2021 Acumatica ERP Salary Guide can help you determine the position’s market value. 

Just offering a fair wage isn’t enough though, especially not with how 2020 changed the work-from-home situation.  Forbes recently cited a survey of 3,000 employees at top-tier companies.  64% said they would prefer to continue working from home instead of receiving a $30,000 annual bump in salary.  Before COVID, employees had to schedule around commutes, child care, gas prices, car maintenance and lives were planned around working in an office.  Now, it’s about the convenience and money saved by working from home.  It’s a new “norm” that you must take into consideration when making job offers to new employees.

Effective Interviewing

Interviews are an essential part of the hiring process, for the Candidate and the interviewer, and are the first step in creating a relationship with your potential new hire.  It’s just as important to learn about who the Candidate is as a person as it is to vet their technical Acumatica, Sage, or NetSuite capabilities.  It is vital that you are clear on the culture fit you’re seeking too.  Someone born & raised in New York might be perfectly qualified.  If the job is in Missoula, Montana,  however, they might not enjoy the lifestyle inherent with a move like that.  

There are many laws & regulations around what you can and can’t ask during an interview.  That doesn’t mean there aren’t very effective questions you can ask to learn more about the Candidate – check out our blog on interview questions you should and should not ask for help on this.  Remember, as much as the interview is learning about the candidate, it’s also the Candidate’s opportunity to learn about you and your company, so you want to make sure to make that clear.  

Job Offer

This is an exciting time in the search process – you’ve been looking for just the right Acumatica or Sage Candidate and you think you’ve found them! In additional to the things we’ve already mentioned, there are some important notes for this part of the process:

• Make it exciting.  Yes, it’s a formal document, essentially a contract, but it’s an invitation to a new member of your work family and the next big step in their ERP career.  Make sure to let the Candidate know you are excited to make them this offer.
• Be explicit in your offer.  The Candidate should have few to no questions about how much they’ll be making, how the bonuses work, when they start, what the work schedule looks like, what is expected of them, benefits, and anything else they need to know.
• Don’t waste time.  If you know this is the right Candidate, make them the offer.  Odds are, you aren’t the only partner interested in them.  Even if they prefer to work for you over another company, they might accept another offer just because they got it to them first.  

Onboarding and Training

There are lots of statistics to show how important this onboarding and training are to employee retention, but to give you just one – 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for 3 years if they experienced great onboarding.  Unfortunately that same article mentions that 60% of companies fail to set milestones or goals for new hires, which may be why almost 33% of new hires look for a new job within their first six months on the job.  This makes it very easy for competitors or other recruiters to be poaching employees you’ve trained up.  

Those are some sobering statistics.  Clearly, the onboarding process is instrumental in increasing your employee retention rate.  So how do you improve that and prevent someone from poaching employees? Well, some of the most important components of a successful onboarding program include:

• Consistency in execution and the organization of your onboarding process so everyone knows what’s expected when, and also so other team members can help support the new member at different points, because they’ve been through it before themselves.
• Getting other team members involved in the process both within their direct team and other areas of the company.  This helps the team member feel connected and supported.
• Setting clear expectations and specific goals for the new team member that are reasonable for them to achieve.
• Consistent follow-up with your new employee so there is opportunity for feedback in both directions.  Make sure potential questions or concerns can be addressed quickly.

Building Relationship Prevents Others from Poaching Employees

Now that you’ve gone through the process of ensuring a competitive wage for the role, effectively interviewing candidates, making a timely and fair offer to the right candidate, and successfully onboarding & connecting your new employee, you’ve set a great base for a strong team member.  The fifth step is building long term relationship with your staff, which is one of the key ways you can prevent someone from poaching employees you’ve recently trained.  There’s a lot to explore there though, so we’ll dive into that more in our next article. 

In the meantime, remember to keep those check-ins going past the onboarding process so that 6, 12, 24 months down the road you’re maintaining that connection.  This can help you pre-empt any potential reasons for them to look into exploring other opportunities.  If you have any questions about different parts of this, please feel free to reach out.  We realize we’re a recruiting & staffing firm, but we’re also happy to help you where we can – when the ERP ecosystem grows, we all grow!