The one-year employment milestone
The one-year employment milestone is by far the most important, whether it’s the employees first or tenth job it still is the hardest. The constant feeling of being lost and out of place at times and having to remember the names of at least 20 colleagues can be difficult.
As much as the first employment year is difficult for the employee, it’s not a walk in the park for the company either. Investing time and money to train or orient the new employee (or team member) without being certain of the outcome is a risky bargain.
But among all the benefits of digitalizing the company processes with HR applications, is how it’s changing the first year employment experience for both employees and companies.
Here are some of the challenges employees face during their first 12 months:
- Knowing the people
To achieve social success, an employee needs to be familiar with at least their team members by the end of the first year, and by knowing them we mean beyond name basis, one must know a little about each one of them for example if they play tennis, golf, or if they are coffee or tea people. While socializing in the middle of a busy work day can be difficult, having an HR mobile app with a chatting feature like Purple Bureau makes it easier to familiarize yourself with others and gives the employees a chance to share pictures with their colleagues to know each other better. This increases employee satisfaction and company loyalty.
- Know the right person for the job
Nothing is worse than being the new person and not knowing how to get around the office. Like for instance, who to call when the stubborn printer refuses to print, or when they need to schedule a meeting with a lot of people and having to verbally make sure everyone is free, and who to approach first dilemma. Purple Bureau gives employees access to call, message, or chat with other employees without knowing their phone number. And as far as scheduling meetings goes, through Purple Bureau an employee can view their peers’ and managers’ shared calendar and schedule meeting for them.
- Information requests
Every company has its own rules when it comes to vacations and salary, and being the new person that constantly has questions about Salary and vacations to the HR personnel will end up wasting everyone’s time. But again an HR Mobile application like Purple Bureau could save the day. Allowing an employee to view his/her salary information including additions and deductions on their phone without asking for help.
In Addition, the vacation information and requests are now a simple process with an application like Purple Bureau where an employee views their vacation balance, request a vacation on the app and their request will be sent to their manager for approval.
A communication and HR mobile applications like Purple Bureau is not solely concerned with the employee, the greater benefit goes back to the company that hires a new employee and starts investing in them. The company will be able to know if the employee matches the culture of the company or not. If he is engaged and communicating with his peers or not. All these indexes help the company evaluate the newly hired employee before it is too late.
- New Employee Vacations
There is a long debate on vacations of the new employees. Teri Hockett, chief executive of What’s For Work? A career site for women. Suggests that employees out of their fear that going on vacations during their first year of employment would negatively affect their one year performance evaluation, this makes them wait too long before taking their first vacation and risk burn out.1
While for most companies waiting a period of three to six months is acceptable for a new hire to request a vacation. The main key still lies in the employee’s approach for this vacation. Hockett also suggests that the best approach is for an employee to be straight forward and pre-plan the request in order to give time for their manager and team to delegate their tasks or schedule a replacement.
Through the digital vacation feature of Purple Bureau, employees digitally request a vacation that is sent to their managers and/or HR for approval. When managers receive their subordinates’ vacation requests they can accept or reject them with a click of a button. It enables managers to prepare for all their employees’ vacations and not just the new hires, by looking at their accepted requests they are able have a full view of when each team member will be on time off so they can avoid simultaneous vacations for same team members. Also they have access to their employee’s attendance and vacation transcript to help them when performing the attendance evaluation for them and specially evaluating the attendance of the new hires.
- Easy way to log outdoor visits
Keeping up with the field workers is a very difficult task for a manager to do, especially new hires that are still unfamiliar with the process. Managers needs to keep an eye on their new hired field workers to infer when help is needed and also to evaluate their efficiency in finishing their out of the office tasks. Purple Bureau created a feature for field worker employees where they can sign in using their when they reach the desired location and sign out when they leave. And during their working hours their managers can track their location and have information about the duration it’s taking them to get the job done.
- Educational gaming
Familiarizing a new employee with the company information, history, and their product details when done in a presentation form can be boring for the receiver and a time waster for the presenter. An application like Purple Bureau proposes trivia gaming and competition as a way to educate new hires with all they need to know about the company and its products in a fun and entertaining way. This feature allows employees to play one against the other in a game consisting of a set of questions every employee needs to know about the company, product, or general knowledge. If it is related to their work whether a service or product, managers can then view these results and determine the weaknesses existing in his team. A tailored training can be developed to match the needs of the team or even for a certain employee based on their score and area of knowledge weakness.
It’s no doubt that the first year is when employees brands themselves. And the company is faced with the truth about their hiring decision was it a wise choice or a total screw up that needs undoing. But these basic difficulties employees and companies face can be eased off with the help of an efficient digitalized HR system that’s integrated in the employee daily life to ensure both parties are informed and on the right track.
Purple Bureau HR application offers a variety of features like employee chatting, shared calendar, on the road tracking, serious gaming, vacation workflow, salary information, virtual attendance, and so much more. Visit https://www.purplebureau.ch/ to learn more and request a meeting.
References
Smith, J. (2014, July). Here’s How Long New Employees Should Wait Before Taking A Vacation. http://www.businessinsider.com/when-to-take-first-vacation-from-new-job-2014-7
4 To-Dos for Your First Year on the Job. (2012, September). https://www.forbes.com/sites/dailymuse/2012/09/17/4-to-dos-for-your-first-year-on-the-job/#5673d6f5520e
10 LESSONS NEW GRADUATES LEARN IN THEIR FIRST YEAR OF EMPLOYMENT. (2015, May). https://www.enterprisealive.com/connect-with-us/10-lessons-new-graduates-learn-in-their-first-year-of-employment/
