How Effective is Your Company at Onboarding?
It is a well-supported fact that supporting new-hire onboarding dramatically increases time-to-performance and reduces failure rates by 50%. Based on Michael Watkins’ in-depth research into the vast array of HR onboarding programs employed by global organizations published in his article “Onboarding Isn’t Enough” (Harvard Business Review, June 2017), Genesis created an assessment to help you gauge how effective your organization is at onboarding executives in comparison with the global sample used in the article.
The Assessment framework is based on the Five Core Transition tasks outlined in the “Onboarding Isn’t Enough” article. In fewer than five minutes, and at no cost to your organization, you can pinpoint exactly how effective your company is at onboarding executives by taking our assessment and saving your results. The Assessment generates a numeric score for each of the Five Core Transition Tasks, as well as a total score indicating how serious your company is about onboarding new talent based on the following four-level spectrum of support outlined in the article:
Level 0 – Sink or Swim
Companies at this level do little more than provide a new executive with space and basic resources such as technology and assistants. Our research shows that about 5% of global companies offer this sort of minimal support.
Level 1 – Basic Orientation
This level involves sharing information about company policies, team member evaluations, organizational structure, strategy, and business results. Essentially, the company provides raw data, and the new leader studies and interprets it independently. If the executive is given anything more qualitative, there is no support to ensure that its significance is well understood. Our research shows that about two-thirds of all global companies still take this approach.
Level 2 – Active Assimilation
At this level, the company organizes meetings with key stakeholders to accelerate a transfer of deeper knowledge about the business, the team, the culture, and strategic priorities. At most, our research suggests, 25% of global companies have invested in this level of support. Although it goes beyond the bare minimum, without a shared understanding of major differences between an executive’s former context and the new one, it can be difficult to know how much meeting time will be needed. And without prior briefing, the executive may neglect organizationally sensitive issues that he or she should address.
Level 3 – Accelerated Integration
At this ideal level the company orchestrates custom-designed experiences that enable a new leader to integrate more fully and rapidly. These might include team- building workshops and deep-dive discussions about strategy. The organization helps the new executive identify specific cultural challenges to overcome, as the global communications company does with its questionnaire about previous ways of working.
Take our Executive Onboarding Effectiveness Assessment to find out how well your organization supports newly-hired leaders compared with our global sample and clearly identify what you can do to accelerate the integration of new talent today. Visit our Solutions Page for more information on how Genesis accelerates transitions and take cost-effective steps to get your leadership talent up to speed 50% faster.
