Employee turnover is detrimental to a company's bottom line. According to a 2015 Harvard Business Review article, the organizational cost of employee turnover is estimated between 100 and 300 percent of the replaced employee's salary. This is why it's critical to go through the right steps to make the right hires. And even when you do make a hire, according to the same report, 33 percent of new hires look for a new job within their first six months on the job. In fact, 23 percent of new hires leave before their first anniversary, according to the Allied Workforce Mobility Survey.

With such alarming statistics, it's critical to engage new employees as soon as possible. Yesterday, Promotional Consultant Today shared four ways employers can onboard new hires to ensure engagement and "stickiness," according to training expert Cordell Riley, president of Tortal Training. Today, we share four more of Riley's key strategies.

Within your budget, customize training for each employee. Riley points out that even standardized training can be enriched by creating individualized training elements for each new employee. You can evaluate the skills of your new hires during training and address them directly, for example, or help employees overcome anxiety about performing certain parts of their new jobs. Investing just a little time to give training extra value can go a long way toward getting new employees up to speed faster.

Stress and reinforce your mission statement, vision statement and strategic company plan. The onboarding period is a highly effective time to share the big picture about your company and to get employees to buy into your most important goals and priorities. Instead of waiting for employees to discover these critical priorities, start talking about them soon after new hires come on board. Help the employee understand his or her role and contribution to further create a sense of purpose.

Consider outlining a career plan for new employees. Spell out what they need to do to be successful in their current role and promoted to the next level. You could say, for example, that all salespeople can apply for management training after six months of employment, or that your company will provide technical training to help them move into their desired career path at your company.

Millennials, especially, are more likely to stay with your company for the long term if they know the ropes and understand what it takes to build a long-term relationship with your organization.

Evaluate whether you are acting like a great employer. This is something you should always do, but it's even more important when you are training a new class of employees. Take the time to benchmark your company's atmosphere, benefits, quality of work/life balance and other factors against other companies.

Retention ultimately starts with you, not with your employees. Unless you commit your efforts to becoming an "employer of choice"—a company that people talk about and would love to work for—you could be hurting your company's bottom line.

Source: Cordell Riley is a sought-after keynote speaker, owner and president of Tortal Training, a leading training development company he founded in Charlotte, North Carolina. He uses strategic engagement methodologies and specializes in developing mobile training platforms for organizations with distributed workforces. A recognized training expert with extensive experience in the service, automotive and franchising sectors, he has spent more than 20 years helping thousands of companies achieve outstanding success through training.