How a Welcome Email Can Stop New Hires Ghosting You

It’s a well known fact that candidates aren’t adverse to ghosting companies and disappearing into thin air during the application and interview process.

Even worse, some new hires change their minds after accepting a job offer even before they’ve made it through your door and may also vanish like the proverbial puff of smoke.

But how big of a problem is new hire ghosting? Surely people rejecting job offers is a rare occurrence? Can there really be that many candidates looking a gift horse in the mouth? Well, you might be surprised as according to an article from CNBC News they found that:

Research from recruitment firm Randstad US suggests that as many as two-thirds (66 percent) of U.S. managers have been snubbed by candidates who initially accepted a job offer, only to retract it.

Conclusion: Yes it’s a problem. A big problem.

And if it’s a problem that’s happening to your company, you need to take steps to nip it in the bud. Ghosting costs companies time and money and it can make your job in Human Resources a lot more stressful and frustrating than it needs to be.

Read more: How to Nail Your Hiring & Onboarding Process in 8 Easy Steps

So what can you do to ensure that your new recruits not only turn up for their first day, but become valued and productive members of the team long into the future?

Having a new hire checklist so that you can make sure you’re hitting all the right notes when you’re onboarding new people is crucial but you can also increase the chances of your latest hire actually turning up to start work before your onboarding process even really begins.

How a welcome email can stop new hires from ghosting you

Sending a welcome email is one simple yet effective way you can help to prevent a new recruit from turning into a first day no-show. Your new hire checklist probably already covers ‘bigger and more important’ steps - such as explaining your vacation allowance and leave policies, and introducing your new employee to their workplace buddy.

But don’t overlook the power of a genuinely friendly welcome email.

A warm and sincere ‘welcome to our company’ mail will engage your newbie even before they’ve officially started.

It will demonstrate that you’re a caring and employee-centric company to work for, and it may well push any recruits that are teetering on the edge and wondering whether to follow through on the offer over the right side of the fence.

It is also an excellent way of making sure your new employees have all the information they need to help their first day at work go as smoothly as possible.

How to write an employee welcome email

There’s no right or wrong way to write an employee welcome email and you’ll probably want to take your cue from your company culture and the way you’ve structured your onboarding process.

And while you will most likely want to use a template for a welcome email, as this will save you a lot of time, you may want to consider writing a couple of templates for different types of hires.

For example, your onboarding new hire checklist for interns and therefore your welcome email is likely to be very different to your onboarding process and email for full time employees.

Just as your onboarding and welcome email for senior management will be different to your new hire checklist, onboarding process and email for remote workers.

But whoever you’re reaching out to, the point is to create engagement and excitement with your new hire to therefore minimize the likelihood of them ghosting you. Here are a few pointers:

• Open by saying how excited you are to welcome your new employee to your company.
• Reinforce the positive impact you foresee them having on the business.
• Include a couple of lines about your company culture, mission, history and values.

As previously mentioned, you can also take advantage of this email to provide a new recruit with some information to help them prepare for their first day and to help it go without any issues.

Although as this could end up running to a fair amount of text, you may prefer to break this down into two emails: Your employee welcome email which includes the above info, and then a follow up ‘what to expect and important info’ type of email.

Whether you decide to just send one overall employee welcome email or you’re going to break it down into separate messages, here are some more things to include in an email to help an employee feel valued before they actually start work:

• The name of the person they should get in touch with if they have any questions before their actual start date. (It would be a good idea to copy this person in on the email too.)
• How their team and/or department is structured as well as the company as a whole.
• Any links or login information so that they can join whichever platforms your company uses for internal communication.
• Their contract and any paperwork that needs reading or signing so that the focus on their first day can be on getting to know people and learning the ropes.

The last two points in particular are designed to make them feel like part of the organization already - meaning they will (hopefully) be less likely to ghost you.

Employee welcome emails: a conclusion

It is always worth bearing in mind that just because someone you have sent a job offer to has accepted it, they might still be considering other offers.

You can’t afford to be complacent as your potential new recruit might not want to be putting all their eggs in one basket. Indeed they could even be playing job offers off against each other!

And that’s precisely why a genuine, friendly, helpful and warm employee welcome email is an important part of your candidate engagement and employee retention strategy.

It will make new employees feel like part of the company right from the very start, it will help them connect with your organization and people, and it might well just prevent any candidates who were considering ghosting you to realize that they’d potentially be making the biggest mistake of their career!