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Recruitment & Retention

Published October 2008

The Three Pillars of Executive On-Boarding

 

  Michael Watkins

In light of rising CEO turnover levels and the anticipated shortage of executive talent, on-boarding has moved to the forefront in discussions of HR strategy. Driven by concerns about weaknesses in internal leadership pipelines, anticipated growth and its talent acquisition implications, many companies plan to do a significant amount of outside hiring at senior levels.

Hiring is just the beginning of the story, though. Having expended a great deal of time and money to identify and recruit talent, companies can ill afford to have newly hired executives underperform or end up frustrated and decide to leave after a year or two. That's where on-boarding comes in. Done well, it accelerates the time to performance for new hires. It also contributes to talent retention by providing the executive with a warm welcome and a supportive environment in which to realize his or her aspirations.

On-boarding is receiving more attention, but many talent leaders still do not believe their companies do a good enough job to effectively transition newly hired executives.

A recent survey of 1,350 HR executives conducted through the IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, revealed 54 percent of respondents thought their companies do an inadequate job of executive on-boarding.

At the same time, 87 percent of these HR professionals agreed transitioning into significant new roles is the most challenging task any manager can face. Some 70 percent said they felt success or failure during the critical transition period — roughly the first six months — is a strong predictor of long-term success or failure in new positions.

More companies likely aren't doing a better job of on-boarding executives because there are still major misconceptions about what on-boarding is and how best to implement talent support systems. When creating and implementing a new-hire on-boarding program, companies must address three imperatives. Think of them as the three pillars of effective executive on-boarding:cultural adaptation, political connection and expectations alignment.

Pillar 1: Cultural Adaptation

Perhaps the most daunting challenge for a new hire is quickly adapting to an unfamiliar organizational culture. Doing this requires the on-boarding organization be open about its culture and able to communicate about it. The first hurdle can be tough to surmount because some companies don't want to be open about their cultures for fear of scaring away talented recruits who may not see themselves as a match. But the results of this often unconscious misdirection usually are harmful. New hires either conclude they have been misled or fail because they think they are operating in one culture, when in fact they are dealing with a completely different one.

Given a willingness to be open, the second hurdle can be overcome by effectively mapping the company culture through interviews and surveys. This provides a basis to create resources such as concisely written summaries of the company's history and culture, and informational videos with advice from those who successfully transitioned in from an outside organization.