In the last few years, employers engage prospective employees during the timeframe between offer acceptance and joining. The engagement happens in the form of –
1. Sending flowers, chocolates, and gifts to candidates along with a lovely welcome letter
2. Invite the candidate for team dinner/lunch to get to know their colleagues
3. 1:1 Coffee meeting with leaders
4. Creating email id, access for the yet to join candidate, and engage in work-related conversations
The idea is celebrated as benefiting the company in the following ways –
1. Improve the company’s brand image by providing a great onboarding experience
2. Get the employee to start understanding their role in detail so that they can pick up things faster after they join
3. Influence the employee to join (and not ditch the offer)
However, the bigger benefit I see is, it helps to ‘reduce the time to decline an offer’.
How?
When you start engaging with the candidate, a form of “gratitude effect” kicks in. Even if you are not spending money on gifts, just investing time to continuously engage/converse with the candidate makes them feel invested and thankful (sometimes unconsciously).
Some of those who are not inclined to join your firm would feel very uncomfortable with these gestures. They would accelerate their alternate options and inform you of their decision earlier than otherwise.
This gives you back the valuable time you lose between offer acceptance and a no-show that you would have used to hunting other candidates.
