Recruitment teams spend considerable time getting someone to commencement.
Sourcing. Screening. Interviews. References. Compliance. Offers. Contracts.
Then the new employee arrives for their first day and, from a recruitment perspective, the vacancy is filled.
But from a workforce perspective, the job is far from finished.
The first 90 days are where the expectations created during recruitment meet the reality of the workplace.
For residential aged care providers, this period matters.
A new employee is learning the residents, the team, systems, processes, clinical expectations and culture of the home. At the same time, they’re deciding whether the opportunity they accepted is one they can see themselves staying in.
That’s why commencement shouldn’t be viewed as the end of recruitment.
It’s the beginning of retention.
A successful hire isn’t simply someone who starts
Recruitment metrics often finish at commencement.
- How many vacancies were filled?
- How long did it take?
- How many offers were accepted?
- How many people commenced?
These are useful measures of recruitment activity.
But consider two different outcomes.
Candidate A accepts an RN position, commences quickly and resigns six weeks later.
Candidate B accepts the same position, completes onboarding, becomes established within the clinical team and is still contributing strongly 12 months later.
Both may appear as a successful placement in a recruitment report.
From a workforce perspective, they’re very different outcomes.
A more meaningful definition of recruitment success considers not only whether someone commenced, but whether the appointment worked for both the employee and the organisation.
The first 90 days begin before Day 1
The employee experience doesn’t begin when someone walks through the door.
It starts during recruitment.
Every conversation creates expectations.
- The job advertisement.
- The interview.
- Discussions about the roster.
- Salary and benefits.
- Descriptions of the team.
- Promises about orientation and support.
- Conversations about workload and responsibilities.
- Information about the organisation and its culture.
By the time a candidate accepts an offer, they’ve formed a picture of what working with you will be like.
The first 90 days test whether that picture was accurate.
This is why realistic recruitment matters.
There’s little value in overselling an opportunity to secure an acceptance if the employee discovers a very different reality shortly after commencing.
Retention starts with an honest recruitment conversation.
Between acceptance and commencement: maintain the relationship
Once a candidate accepts, it’s easy for communication to slow down.
But depending on their notice period, there may be several weeks between signing the contract and starting.
During that time, the candidate may still be finishing with another employer, receiving approaches from recruiters or even considering a counteroffer.
More importantly, they’re preparing for a significant change.
Simple communication can make the transition easier.
Confirm practical information before commencement:
- Start date and time.
- Where to report.
- Who will meet them.
- What their first day will involve.
- Uniform requirements.
- Outstanding documentation.
- Onboarding requirements.
- Who to contact with questions.
A check-in shortly before commencement doesn’t need to be complicated.
It simply demonstrates that the organisation is prepared for their arrival.
Day 1: someone should be expecting them
Few things undermine a first impression faster than arriving at a workplace where nobody seems to know you’re starting.
The manager is unavailable. System access hasn’t been organised. The team hasn’t been told. There’s no orientation plan. The new employee spends the morning trying to work out where they’re supposed to be.
None of these things individually determines whether someone will stay.
But collectively they communicate something about how organised and supported the workplace is.
In residential aged care, a strong first day should begin helping the employee understand both the workplace and the people within it.
For an RN, that might include:
- Meeting the Facility, Care or Clinical Manager.
- Introductions to the clinical and care team.
- Understanding the layout of the home.
- Systems and documentation access.
- Medication management processes.
- Clinical escalation pathways.
- Key policies and procedures.
- Orientation to resident care requirements.
- Understanding who to approach for support.
Experienced employees still need orientation.
Knowing how to be an RN doesn’t mean knowing how to be an RN in your home.
Week 1: onboarding is more than compliance
Aged care onboarding necessarily involves compliance.
- Mandatory training.
- Policies.
- Systems.
- Documentation.
- Clinical processes.
- Work health and safety.
- Organisational requirements.
All important.
But completing an onboarding checklist doesn’t necessarily mean someone feels onboarded.
By the end of the first week, a new employee is also trying to understand the unwritten parts of the workplace.
- How does this team communicate?
- Who actually helps when things become busy?
- Can I comfortably ask questions?
- How does my manager respond when something goes wrong?
- Do people work together?
- Does the reality match what I was told during recruitment?
This is where a meaningful check-in matters.
Instead of simply asking: “Everything going okay?”
Try:
- Is the role what you expected so far?
- Is there anything you feel you haven’t been shown properly?
- Do you know who to approach when you need support?
- Is anything different from what you expected during recruitment?
Specific questions are more likely to produce useful answers.
30 days: when expectations meet reality
By the one-month mark, the honeymoon period is largely over.
The employee has experienced real shifts. They’ve seen busy days. They’ve worked with different colleagues. They understand the systems. They’ve experienced the roster. They’ve had interactions with residents and families.
And they’ve had enough exposure to leadership to begin forming an opinion about the workplace.
This is an important point to compare expectation with experience.
- Was the roster described accurately?
- Does the role reflect what was discussed at interview?
- Is the workload what they expected?
- Is the clinical support actually available?
- Have they received sufficient orientation?
- Are they developing confidence?
- Are there barriers making their work unnecessarily difficult?
Small issues at 30 days can become significant frustrations by 90 days if nobody asks about them.
60 days: don’t mistake silence for engagement
Around the two-month mark, something often changes.
The new employee isn’t particularly new anymore. Formal onboarding has finished. Managers have other priorities. Check-ins become less frequent.
The assumption can easily become: they’re still here, so everything must be fine.
But presence isn’t the same as engagement.
By 60 days, the conversation can move beyond orientation.
- How confident do they feel in the role?
- How are relationships developing within the team?
- Do they feel supported by their manager?
- Are there recurring frustrations?
- Is the roster sustainable for them?
- Are there areas where they’d like more development?
- What would make their job easier to perform well?
This is also an opportunity to recognise what is working.
Retention shouldn’t only become a conversation when someone appears unhappy.
90 days: ask a better question than “Are they still here?”
At 90 days, many organisations complete a probation review or similar process.
Often, the focus is understandably on the employee. Are they meeting expectations? Is their performance satisfactory? Are there concerns?
But the review can work both ways.
The organisation should also be asking:
- Has the role met the employee’s expectations?
- Do they feel supported?
- Do they understand what success looks like?
- Have they developed strong working relationships?
- Can they see themselves continuing here?
- What could we have done better during recruitment or onboarding?
One particularly useful question is: knowing what you know now, is there anything you wish we’d explained differently before you started?
The answer can provide valuable insight for future recruitment.
Early turnover is workforce intelligence
When someone leaves within their first few months, the natural response is often to reopen the vacancy and begin recruiting again.
Sometimes that’s all that’s required.
But repeated early turnover deserves a closer look.
If multiple employees leave the same home, team, role or shift shortly after commencing, that’s a pattern.
Consider tracking early turnover by:
- Role — are RNs leaving earlier than other classifications?
- Location — is one home experiencing more early turnover?
- Shift or roster — are employees recruited into certain patterns less likely to stay?
- Manager or team — are there differences between areas?
- Recruitment source — are some sourcing channels producing stronger long-term hires?
- Reason for leaving — what are people actually telling you?
- Expectation versus reality — were employees surprised by workload, roster, responsibilities or support?
The purpose isn’t to assign blame.
It’s to identify where the employee journey may need attention.
Recruitment and retention data should connect
Recruitment teams often hold one set of data. Operations another. People & Culture another. Agency usage may sit somewhere else again.
Connecting these can reveal much more.
For example: you may have a role with a relatively short time-to-hire. On the surface, recruitment is performing well.
But if the same position has been recruited four times in 18 months, the more important question isn’t: how quickly can we fill it again?
It’s: why do we keep needing to?
Likewise, strong application numbers don’t necessarily indicate recruitment success if offer acceptance is low.
And high offer acceptance doesn’t necessarily indicate workforce success if 90-day retention is poor.
Looking across the entire journey provides a clearer picture: attraction → recruitment → offer → commencement → onboarding → retention.
The hiring manager is part of the recruitment outcome
Recruiters can influence attraction, candidate experience, communication and expectations.
But once someone commences, their day-to-day experience is largely shaped elsewhere.
- Their manager.
- Their roster.
- Their colleagues.
- Their workload.
- Their access to support.
- The way concerns are handled.
- The culture of the home.
That’s why the handover between recruitment and operations matters.
Hiring managers should understand what was discussed with the candidate during recruitment.
- Were particular roster arrangements agreed?
- Was career development discussed?
- Were specific concerns raised?
- Was orientation support promised?
The smoother that handover, the less chance there is of the new employee hearing: “I’m not sure who told you that.”
Don’t wait for the exit interview
Exit interviews can provide useful information.
But by then, the decision has usually been made.
The first 90 days provide multiple opportunities to ask similar questions while there’s still time to act — before Day 1, week 1, 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days.
None needs to involve a lengthy formal process.
What matters is creating deliberate opportunities to understand how the employee is experiencing the organisation.
Sometimes a small intervention is enough: clarifying an expectation, providing additional orientation, resolving a roster misunderstanding, connecting someone with the right support, or addressing a team issue.
Having the conversation before resignation is far more useful than discovering the issue afterwards.
Measure the hire, not just the placement
Recruitment metrics matter.
But for organisations trying to build workforce stability, consider extending measurement beyond commencement.
Alongside time-to-hire and offer acceptance, look at:
- Commencement rate.
- 30-day retention.
- 60-day retention.
- 90-day retention.
- Probation outcomes.
- Early turnover reasons.
- Retention by role and location.
- Retention by recruitment source.
Over time, this can help identify not simply how successfully you’re recruiting, but how successfully you’re hiring.
There’s an important difference.
Filling the vacancy is only the beginning
In a tight aged care workforce market, significant effort goes into finding good people.
Once you’ve found them, it makes sense to put equal thought into what happens next.
Recruitment creates the expectation. Onboarding establishes the experience. Leadership, support, roster, culture and development influence whether someone stays.
The organisations that connect those stages are better placed to move away from repeatedly filling the same vacancies and towards building a more stable workforce.
Because the ultimate recruitment outcome isn’t simply: they accepted. Or even: they started.
It’s: they joined, they became part of the team, and they chose to stay.
How NurseGen can support
Sometimes the challenge is finding the right candidate. Sometimes it’s recruitment capacity. And sometimes recurring vacancies point to a broader workforce issue that needs to be understood before another advertisement goes live.
NurseGen works specifically within aged care, supporting providers with permanent recruitment, flexible workforce solutions and focused recruitment projects through Recruitment Sprint.
Our approach is not simply about filling vacancies. It’s about understanding the workforce requirement, finding people suited to the opportunity and helping providers build stronger, more sustainable teams.