I was recently reading an article on ATD about Executive Onboarding: How to Hit the ground Running by Cheryl Ndunguru. It made me ponder on this and while everyone in the workplace has a part to play in the culture of their workplace, it is in my opinion, the people with official leadership roles who have the power to make an enabling environment and lead their people back to a great place to work. So with this in mind, I am thinking of developing a small onboarding framework, which I may package up.
By definition, for those that do not know, onboarding is a process to assist the transition of new employees into an organisation. It is known that organisations demand high performance. Management expects the new staff to become effective quickly, to deliver positive results and to integrate well into the culture of the organisation. New staff, in turn, need to devote time to understand their new company’s characteristics (strengths and weaknesses, resources, challenges, and capabilities) if they are to be effective and successful in the role. Obviously, new people must also have the skills and the flexibility to meet the requirements of their role and they must also adapt to the new culture, forge connections and ensure that they understand what is expected of them.
In most organisations, new staff usually take over their predecessors’ teams – people they have not been involved in selecting. But the personal success of a leader stands or falls on their team’s performance. From my research, I have thought of a seven-stage plan on a successful onboarding program. This would be done in a blended approach to help with the connection forming. Personally, I would see this best done as possibly a team game based approach, with game elements of a scavenger hunt or a choose your own adventure (CYOA).
- Preparation for the role.
- Expectation management.
- Setting the strategic agenda.
- Creating the right team.
- Forming alliances.
- Developing the culture.
- Effective communications.
I also created this presentation that may help for those interested.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1xHU9aoMuqP9UVfH3oEGR-nTxLtyqs2eTLpOA9vjGpfg/edit?usp=sharing
Campbell Craig 