Let’s Develop Talent from the Moment of Recruitment! by Anne-Laure Pams

Blowing up your team’s turnover while throwing money out the window: this is the disastrous scenario many companies experience daily for failing to properly support their new hires. Even more crucial now that candidates are pulling the strings of the job market, the onboarding process can no longer be neglected. Better still: it can be secured thanks to a practice that is becoming more widespread—coaching.

It’s an absurdity that raises questions. Companies invest considerable budgets to source and recruit the right candidates. However, once these candidates are hired, they dedicate far too few resources to properly welcoming them through a structured onboarding process. The results are clear: one-third of permanent contracts are terminated within the first year, according to e-testing[1]. A colossal proportion, especially since in France, a failed onboarding costs between 100% and 300% of the employee’s salary when adding direct and indirect costs—about €7,000, according to Workelo[2]. Not to mention that failure comes with a twin: dissatisfaction. Since candidates now speak openly about their recruitment experience, the company’s employer brand risks being damaged. In these uncertain times, where power rests in the hands of candidates rather than recruiters, underestimating the importance of onboarding is a serious miscalculation. Designing a solid integration journey for new hires can, on the contrary, allow companies to stand out in this war for talent.

Coaching: an effective lever in taking up a role!

Increasingly recognized for helping individuals evolve their posture, coaching proves to be an effective lever in the context of starting a new role. With this approach, companies achieve two objectives: they secure the integration of their new hires while valuing and supporting them from the very beginning.

For employees, the benefits are numerous: coaching enables them to reflect on their new identity, develop the right posture, understand decision-making channels, identify power centers… in short, to create virtuous alliances that will help guide their future actions. Coaching—especially when systemic, i.e., focused on the employee’s interactions with others—helps them step back and better understand the elements of their new environment. It helps, for instance, to decipher the operating values that underpin the organization’s culture and to grasp its implicit dimension. Misunderstanding these aspects can lead to a lack of alignment and, therefore, a lack of engagement—potentially causing early departures. This is the well-known “graft rejection” that often occurs during the trial period.

A differentiator in recruitment

Coaching as part of onboarding remains, for now, a marginal practice, even though requests for coaching in cases of promotions or internal evolutions are on the rise. Some companies—more forward-thinking—already offer coaching programs dedicated to role transitions right from the recruitment process, alongside the salary package.

This is a smart strategy: in competitive sectors where talent is scarce, such an approach can be a powerful differentiator, particularly if it becomes a central element of the employer brand. The benefits? Lower turnover (and therefore reduced recruitment costs) as well as higher productivity—coached recruits are more engaged and perform better.

Plenty of reasons to cut short the objections companies often raise, particularly around budget constraints. Because in a candidate-driven market, competitiveness is no longer just about market share, but about the potential of the men and women companies are able—or not able—to develop and retain. Supporting talent development starts right at recruitment!

Opinion piece by Anne-Laure Pams, Director, Grant Alexander – Leadership Development, for Journal du Net

[1] https://dares.travail-emploi.gouv.fr/publications/plus-d-un-tiers-des-cdi-sont-rompus-avant-un-an
[2] https://blog.workelo.eu/les-chiffres-cles-de-lonboarding/