Employee Experience Starts Before Day One: An HR Best Practice from Infinite Computer Solutions

By Archita Kapoor, HR Auditor, Top Employers Institute

As part of Top Employer Infinite Computer Solutions commitment to creating a world-class employee experience—one where every candidate feels valued and confident in their decision to join the organisation—the India team introduced an innovative pre-onboarding initiative: the HOPE Team.

At the heart of the HOPE Team’s mission is a commitment to delivering a seamless, engaging, and supportive candidate experience. From the moment an offer is accepted through to an employee’s first day, the team ensures candidates remain informed, connected, and excited as they transition into their new role.

This specialized core team at Infinite Computer Solutions plays a vital role in the hiring process by ensuring candidates stay informed, engaged, and supported throughout their notice period.

This is just a snapshot of Infinite Computer Solutions innovative best practice; you can find the entire practice in our HR Best Practices database, which is exclusively available to Top Employers. Get inspiration and insight into the approach, challenges and learnings experienced by certified Top Employers. Access it now via the Top Employers Programme if you are Certified or learn more about it here!

Why the HOPE team was needed

HOPE stands for HR, operations, prerequisite, and engagement. In the fast-paced and competitive IT industry where candidates typically have a 90-day notice period, it’s crucial to keep them engaged and committed to their new opportunity. The HOPE team was created to maintain constant communication with prospective new hires/ candidates, addressing their concerns, and providing timely follow-ups.

Their team’s dedicated focus on consistent engagement, query resolution, and proactive communication makes all the difference in ensuring that top talent is retained and successfully onboarded.

How the HOPE team came together

The HOPE team consists of five full-time employees, including a team lead, who all have a background in talent acquisition, so they truly understand the recruitment process involved. Infinite Computer Solutions smartly allocated the team members according to business units, so that the team can support onboarding for 250-300 candidates per month.

From the moment the candidate successfully clears the HR interview, the team steps in to build a strong relationship with each candidate. They initiate discussions about the offer, answer all candidate questions, and provide the necessary guidance to help candidates decide and accept the offer.

Once the offer is accepted, their role does not end. They continue to assist candidates by guiding them through the onboarding documentation process and ensuring they are fully prepared to start their new journey at Infinite Computer Solutions

Key touch points for the HOPE Team:

Candidate Engagement from the start. The Hope Team gets involved with candidates right from the moment they clear the HR interview establishing a strong, ensuring that every candidate feels valued and informed.
Offer to Acceptance. The HOPE team offers guidance once an offer is extended; they immediately step in to guide candidates through the offer- acceptance process ensuring that all candidate concerns are addressed.
Regular Follow-ups. During the candidates’ notice period, the scope of the team’s work lies in keeping candidates engaged during this 30 to 90 day period by ensuring timely follow ups, Hiring manager check ins, instant query resolution.
Onboarding Process. The HOPE team offers support after the offer is accepted and continues to play an active role in helping candidates through the onboarding documentation process, guiding them and preparing for their first day within the organization.
Ensuring High Offer-to-Join Conversion. One of the primary KPIs for the HOPE team is ensuring a monthly conversion rate of at least 70% from offer to joining by proactively supporting and nurturing candidates to make sure they follow through on their commitment.

What HOPE team achieved

Post implementation, the HOPE team got credibility not just as a follow-up team but as trusted advisors who ensure that every candidate’s experience is smooth, transparent, and enjoyable during the crucial pre-joining phase. Key results were candidate excitement while joining the company, high offer to joining conversion rates, and reduced offer drop-off rates.

Quintessential Take-Away

For organizations recruiting in markets or countries with a long notice period, bulk hirings and high candidate dropouts, this is a great example to keep candidates engaged and building candidate trust while continuing to focus on Employee delight.

If you’re in HR, the HOPE Team is an inspiring best practice that demonstrates how a thoughtful pre-onboarding experience can strengthen candidate engagement, reduce the risk of offer drop-offs, and create a lasting first impression. It’s a reminder that the employee experience begins the moment a candidate says “yes”—not on their first day.

Rethinking the Blue-Collar Employee Experience: Lessons from South Africa’s Leading Employers

The world of work is changing at an unprecedented pace. Across industries, HR leaders are rethinking how to engage and support employees in a way that goes beyond pay and job security. Nowhere is this more evident than in the experiences of blue-collar employees – often the backbone of operations, yet historically overlooked in organisational transformation strategies.

At Top Employers Institute, our Blue Collar Employee Experience Report highlights the urgent need to create more meaningful, connected, and future-ready workplaces for frontline employees. To bring these findings to life, we recently sat down with HR leaders from Sanlam and Tsebo Solutions Group in a podcast series that explores practical strategies for building purpose, engagement, and growth opportunities across the workforce.

You can watch the full podcast episodes on our YouTube channel and dive deeper into the research by downloading the Blue Collar Employee Experience Report here.

Why the Blue-Collar Experience Matters

Blue-collar employees represent a critical portion of the workforce. From frontline service staff to operational teams in manufacturing, logistics, and facilities management, they directly impact customer experience, business resilience, and brand reputation.

Our research shows that:

Only 55% of blue-collar employees feel that their pay reflects their value.
Yet engagement and retention rise dramatically when work feels meaningful and connected.
Employees increasingly look for flexibility, growth opportunities, and recognition, alongside fair compensation.

The implications are clear: organisations that fail to address the unique needs of blue-collar employees risk losing talent, productivity, and competitiveness. Those that get it right, however, can unlock higher engagement, stronger loyalty, and future-ready capabilities.

First episode with Sanlam – Bridging Blue and White Collar Workforces

In our conversation with Ayesha Davids-Bassadien, Organisational Effectiveness Manager at Sanlam, the focus was on creating a unified employee experience across diverse workforce segments.

Key Takeaways from Sanlam:

Connection & Engagement: Sanlam is actively creating structured opportunities for employees at all levels to build meaningful workplace relationships. These initiatives go beyond formal meetings and foster authentic collaboration across blue- and white-collar teams.
Purpose at Work: Employees are motivated not only by pay but also by the sense that their work contributes to something greater. Sanlam ensures that staff at every level understand how their roles impact both the organisation and wider society.
Safety & Communication: Operational resilience depends on clear, consistent communication. Sanlam invests in communication structures that promote both employee wellbeing and business continuity.
Preparing for the Future: As AI and digital transformation reshape industries, Sanlam is investing in skills training and career pathways that equip employees for long-term success.

Ayesha emphasised that flexibility is emerging as a powerful driver of engagement, often rivalling financial incentives. By balancing operational demands with employee needs, Sanlam is building a more resilient and motivated workforce.

Episode 2 with Tsebo Solutions Group – Empowering the Frontline

Our discussion with Elanie Kruger, Group CHRO at Tsebo Solutions Group, highlighted how blue-collar employees can thrive when given purpose, community, and growth opportunities.

Key Takeaways from Tsebo:

Purpose Beyond Pay: While compensation remains important, Tsebo recognises that engagement increases dramatically when employees feel their work is meaningful. Initiatives that highlight impact and contribution play a crucial role.
Community & Belonging: For many blue-collar employees, the workplace is their primary social environment. Tsebo fosters connection through team-building, recognition, and initiatives that build community on the frontline.
Flexibility & Retention: Providing greater control over schedules and work-life balance, while meeting operational needs, has proven to be a critical retention tool.
Future Skills: As frontline roles evolve, Tsebo is redesigning the employee experience to ensure staff remain motivated, skilled, and ready for the future of work.

Elanie also underscored the importance of sharing practical HR lessons. By focusing on connection, purpose, and development, HR leaders can unlock higher engagement and reduce turnover in blue-collar segments.

The Bigger Picture: Building a Better World of Work

The stories from Sanlam and Tsebo align strongly with the findings of our Blue Collar Employee Experience Report. Together, they paint a clear picture:

Engagement is no longer about pay alone—it’s about connection, flexibility, and growth.
Organisations that empower frontline employees with skills, purpose, and community will be best positioned to thrive in the future of work.
HR leaders must actively design experiences that are inclusive of all employee groups, recognising that blue-collar employees are critical drivers of business performance and resilience.

At Top Employers Institute, we believe that certification, benchmarking, and shared best practices provide organisations with the insights they need to continuously improve the employee experience. Through our global community of certified Top Employers, we see how forward-thinking HR strategies can drive both organisational success and employee fulfilment.

The challenge for HR leaders today is not just to retain talent but to create environments where employees—blue-collar and white-collar alike—feel connected, valued, and prepared for the future. As Sanlam and Tsebo Solutions Group demonstrate, organisations that prioritise purpose, engagement, and development can transform the blue-collar experience into a powerful source of resilience and growth.

👉 Watch the full podcast series on our YouTube channel
👉 Download the full Blue Collar Employee Experience Report here: Rethinking Blue-Collar Employee Experience At Top Employers Institute, our mission is to help organisations grow as recognised employers of choice -because when people thrive at work, businesses thrive too.

Top trends in employee engagement for 2025

Employee engagement strategies are changing rapidly as organisations navigate shifting workforce expectations, hybrid models, global political changes and purpose-driven cultures. While the employee engagement definition once centred on satisfaction and productivity, today’s organisations recognise that engagement is deeply intertwined with wellbeing, belonging, and growth.

Employee engagement is, according to Gallup, ‘the involvement and enthusiasm of employees in both their work and workplace.’ It is this enthusiasm and involvement in their work that enable highly engaged employees to outperform less engaged employees in businesses that are critical to an organisation’s success. Gallup found that in 2024, 21% of employees across the globe were described as engaged, down from an all-time high of 23% in 2023. That only highlights the continued importance of prioritising and implementing practices and policies that for

In our World of Work Trends 2025 report, we found that transforming the employee experience is crucial for blue-collar workers in a way that had previously been underestimated, highlighting that employee experience is more important than ever.

In this article, we explore the top employee engagement trends shaping the future of work and how leading companies are utilising more holistic employee engagement models to drive performance and maintain employee retention.

What is employee engagement

Understanding the definition of employee engagement is essential before exploring the trends that impact this critical metric. Employee engagement is when employees feel a strong, emotional connection to their work and the company. It is more than just being happy or content in their work; employee engagement relates more to how deeply an employee feels invested in contributing to an organisation’s overall business success. It is with this deeper connection that we see an employee’s emotional commitment, cognitive focus and behavioural dedication to their workplace.

Purpose and meaning are at the core of it all

The desire to work for an organisation with a clear commitment to creating a ‘positive impact’ on the world is not new. In our 2023 World of Work Trends report, we found that employees are no longer driven solely by financial rewards, but rather by a sense of purpose. Harvard Business Corporate Learning also found that 52% of job seekers would not accept a job offer if they did not agree with a company’s values or purpose.

High employee engagement is increasingly linked to a strong sense of purpose, and organisations have taken this information to help them rebuild how they communicate their values to potential and current employees. Employees who believe their role makes a positive impact are significantly more likely to be committed and motivated. Organisations are embedding purpose into everyday work through values-driven leadership, transparent communication, and societal impact initiatives.

Aligning purpose with performance is a key differentiator in today’s employee experience and engagement strategies.

Flexibility is no longer negotiable

The last five years of work have been marked by disruption, with many organisations rethinking how they allow their people to structure their time. The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new era of flexibility that employees readily adopted, as evidenced by their increased employee engagement scores. When employees have more flexibility in their schedules, they tend to be more engaged.

Employees who feel they have control over when and how they work report higher employee engagement, improved wellbeing, and stronger performance. Yet, poor employee engagement often correlates with rigid scheduling and a lack of autonomy. In response, many companies are reimagining roles, workflows, and expectations to increase adaptability.

While flexibility may have seemed like a pandemic-era trend, its impact on employee wellbeing proves that it is untrue. It is no longer a perk but a necessity. Flexibility is not just about remote work; it’s about trust, choice, and designing roles around people, not just processes.

Wellbeing as a strategic pillar

The impact of wellbeing extends beyond how people feel, encompassing the number of sick days a person takes, their performance at work, burnout, and the likelihood of leaving the organisation. Wellbeing is interlinked with employee engagement in a way that should not be underestimated.

When comparing employees who are engaged but not thriving with those who are engaged and thriving, Gallup found that those who aren’t thriving report the following risks:

61% had a higher likelihood of burnout often or always;
48% higher probability of daily stress;
66% higher likelihood of daily worry;
Double the rate of daily sadness and anger.

Research like this shows that burnout, stress, and mental health challenges continue to be critical issues affecting employee engagement. Companies that integrate wellbeing into their culture, not as a separate initiative but as a strategic driver, are seeing measurable improvements in retention and performance.

Organisations that aim to enhance their employee wellbeing efforts will adopt a holistic approach by examining career wellbeing, social wellbeing, financial wellbeing, physical wellbeing, and community wellbeing. This can be achieved through the offering of mental health resources, financial health resources, and more.

Wellbeing is being redefined as a business-critical investment, and organisations that are working towards improving their offerings are looking at it holistically, from psychological safety and manageable workloads to access to mental health resources.

Skills development and career progression

Career stagnation is a leading cause of poor employee engagement. A 2022 study found that 74% of employees feel they aren’t reaching their full potential at work due to a lack of available development opportunities, indicating that organisations that do not invest in skills development for their people may be losing out.

In contrast, companies that foster continuous learning, transparent growth paths, and internal mobility report stronger loyalty and discretionary effort, leading to enhanced employee engagement scores.

Organisations that want to integrate skills development into their workplace can consider microlearning platforms, coaching cultures, and cross-functional development experiences, as these have been shown to help employees see a future within the business, rather than outside it, thereby improving their employee engagement.

Final thoughts

Employee engagement trends are in constant evolution, and for forward-thinking organisations, this evolution occurs alongside the workforce. Successful organisations are investing in people-first, data-driven and purpose-led strategies rather than relying on outdated practices and policies. These companies are focusing on what matters most – their people, and this drives them to constantly improve their policies to build a work culture that is successful and sustainable.

Rethinking Blue-Collar Employee Experience

Blue-collar employees are the backbone of the global economy, and their output is critical for the success of many organisations. However, their needs and expectations have, too often, been overlooked in HR strategies.

But that is changing

Across industries, blue-collar employees are stepping forward to make their voices heard, demanding fairness, recognition, and a meaningful workplace experience. Organisations that fail to listen risk losing talent and competitive ground in an era defined by skills shortages, retention pressures, and operational risk.

We’re proud to introduce our latest report, Rethinking Blue-Collar Employee Experience. The report draws on data from 2,200 employees across 11 countries and provides an in-depth examination of the needs, challenges, and realities faced by blue-collar workers, offering a roadmap for enhancing the employee experience for this critical workforce.

Download the report to discover:

🔹 Actionable, evidence-based actions HR teams can take to drive belonging, retention, and engagement.

🔹 First-hand insights from blue-collar workers from different generations, industries and regions to understand the real-world challenges and needs of employees.

Key findings:

✅ Connection drives engagement: Blue-collar employees with strong workplace relationships are 51% more likely to be engaged, yet many lack structured opportunities to connect.

✅ Pay matters, but meaning matters too: While only 55% believe their pay reflects their value, employees who feel their work makes a positive impact are 74% more likely to be engaged.

✅ Communication impacts safety: 26% say their workplace safety measures are inadequate, underscoring the link between clear communication and operational resilience.

✅ AI brings anxiety and opportunity: While 73% agree AI is improving their industry, only 61% have received sufficient training, and just 25% say their current job aligns with their long-term goals.

✅ Flexibility is a silent dealbreaker: 64% value flexibility more than financial rewards, yet nearly a third report they have no control over their schedules.

Why it matters:

Blue-collar workers shape more than just operational outcomes. They play a prominent role in influencing your culture, productivity, and organisational success. Investing in their experience is not only the right thing to do. It is critical for your organisation’s success.

Download your copy now:

Unlock actionable insights to build a future-ready blue-collar employee experience that drives productivity, profitability, and sustainable growth.

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