Talent Management - October 2008 - (Page 17)

n light of rising CEO turnover levels and the anticipated shortage of executive talent, onboarding 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 onboarding 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 cul- I ture. 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. Companies also can designate cultural interpreters to help new leaders quickly assimilate to unfamiliar surroundings. This way, the executives will have a go-to resource for company culture questions and insights. Pillar 2: Political Connection Helping newly hired executives identify key stakeholders and forge relationships is the second on-boarding imperative. It’s essential that transitioning executives develop the right wiring as soon as possible. There is a natural but dangerous tendency for new leaders to focus on building vertical relationships early in their transitions — up to their bosses and down to their teams. Insufﬁcient time is devoted to lateral relationship building with peers and key constituencies outside their immediate organizations. In effective on-boarding, identifying the full set of key stakeholders begins before the executive formally joins the organization. Typically, a point person from HR takes responsibility for touching base with the new hire’s boss, peers and direct reports to identify a priority list of stakeholders. This point person also may encourage and support the transitioning executive in setting up and conducting these critical early meetings. If dedicated resources are not available to support this process, talent managers can provide hiring managers with a tool to create a top 10 list of people with whom the transitioning leader should connect early on, as well as a template to send introductory e-mails to these people. Companies also can provide new executives with October 2008 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com 17 http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talent Management - October 2008

Talent Management - October 2008 Editor’s Letter Contents Human Performance Leading Edge Foundations The Three Pillars of Executive On-Boarding Role-Based Assessment: Thinking Inside the Box Who's Going to Speak Up for Health Care? Obey the Push to Automate Managing the Star Performer No One Wants to Work With Adopting a Mutual-Funds Model for Talent Management Hewlett-Packard: Simple Talent Management in a Technical World Team Effort Pays in Talent at London Business School The Employee Survey: What’s in It for Me? Why Most Managers Are Stuck Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources Full Potential

Talent Management - October 2008

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