Start with Why is a best-selling book by Simon Sinek, a British-American author, motivational speaker and marketing consultant. It’s well worth a read if you haven’t come across it already. Essentially, Sinek postulates that having a purpose – and using that purpose to inspire your customers – is more important than the products or services you sell. And I agree.
When I started vi by Aderant over a decade ago, my goal was to help companies hire and retain their best people. And today I am proud to say that vi has 93% market share among AM 100 law firms – proof that we’re helping these firms overcome a major challenge.
We designed our software platform to help companies hang on to their best people by implementing best-practice strategies for integration, retention, diversity & inclusion, performance management and more.
And our goal, or manifesto, is more relevant today than ever, because retention is the #1 issue facing companies this year.
The true cost of attrition
Technology platforms like LinkedIn mean that your best performers are just a click away from being poached by the competition. And sites like Glassdoor.com mean that potential recruits have an inside view of what it’s really like to work at your firm.
Add to this the fact that 40% of employee turnover happens within the first three to six months of hiring, and that the average tenure of a millennial employee is roughly two years, and it’s no wonder employee retention is such a challenge.
vi by Aderant works with clients in all industries, but our roots are in the legal world, where losing a top performer (i.e. a senior partner) can cost $1 million – that’s a scary number!
The simple truth about retention
Obviously it would be much better, and more cost effective, if companies could work out how to retain their best people. Indeed, most firms have some form of employee reward or wellness program – but there’s more to it than that.
Retention starts the moment a new hire accepts your offer, because you never get a second chance at a first impression. Did you know that 22% of turnover happens within the first 45 days of employment, or that a senior employee typically decides within the first 30 days whether your company is home or not?
I recently wrote an article about the undeniable link between a robust employee integration program and retention. In the article, I explained that, if your company is like two thirds of organizations around the world, your new-hire process probably focuses more on getting through an administrative to-do list than ensuring new employees are given the best chance to succeed. After three to five days of inductions and IT setup, the ‘onboarding’ stops and the ‘retention’ starts. Unfortunately, retention activities often only crop up every 3, 6 or 12 months, by which time it’s way too late to change an employee’s first impression.
And yet a good integration program ensures that every new hire feels valued, supported and challenged every day – all of which have a huge impact on retention.
So, rather than bringing in new hires, giving them some training, and then hoping they’ll stay, HR teams should be ensuring they’ll stay – by giving them the access to the right people, tools and processes to ensure they feel valued over the long term.
A best-practice employee integration program (which comes standard with our platform) includes multiple steps, including connecting employees with mentors and coaches, ensuring that relevant people take the time to meet and welcome the new hire into the fold, conducting real-time 306° performance reviews, and inviting the recruit to appropriate diversity activities and affinity groups.
vi by Aderant: the platform that simplifies employee integration and retention
A company typically has a six-month to two-year integration plan. Our platform integrates with your existing software and comes with best-practice employee and executive integration paths. These are based on retention best practices that work. And can be used out of the box or modified.
vi by Aderant enables you to:
- Create the ultimate plan with every step laid out. Mentor meetings, meet & greets, strategic social events, stakeholder meetings, diversity & inclusion policy, etc. Create a buttoned-down process that ensures success.
- Get a snapshot view of how well your hires are doing. A color-coded heatmap of your entire organization allows you see which offices or practice groups are integrating more or less effectively.
Turn your biggest challenge into your biggest differentiator with vi by Aderant, by ensuring that every single hire integrates fully with the fabric of your organization.
Want to learn more?
We’d love to take you through a short demonstration of our Employee Integration and Retention solution. To book a time, just follow the link below and leave your details.