Organizational Onboarding Effectiveness Assessment*
How effectively does your company support the onboarding of new executive hires? How does your organization compare to world-class executive onboarding systems? This short assessment lets you rapidly evaluate your existing existing approach and provides a “score”, so you can benchmark your company relative to a sample of global organizations.
Enter the assessment*This assessment, and the research that supports it, was developed in collaboration with Mark Byford and Lena Triantogiannis, partners at Egon Zehnder.
It is described in detail in the Harvard Business Review article “Onboarding is Not Enough” (May/June 2017)
| Basic Orientation | Active Assimilation | Accelerated Integration | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diagnosing the business situation |
Operational plans for the business
|
Structured introduction to key business areas
|
Introductory visit to key company locations
|
Opportunity to sit in on critical business meeting before Day-One
|
Immersive experiences in unfamiliar areas of the business
|
Diagnosing the Situation Score
|
|
| Taking charge of the team |
Career histories for key team members
|
Performance and/or assessment data on team members
|
Briefings to provide confidential insight on team members
|
Briefings on team dynamics and history
|
Facilitated workshop with the team (e.g. new leader assimilation)
|
Taking Charge of Team Score
|
|
| Aligning with stakeholders |
Relevant organizational charts
|
List of key internal stakeholders
|
Introductory meetings with internal stakeholders
|
List of key external stakeholders
|
Briefings on stakeholders (e.g. their agendas)
|
Aligning with Stakeholders Score
|
|
| Understanding the culture |
Statement of company philosophy and values
|
Briefing on culture and ways of “getting things done”
|
Structured events to attend in order to understand culture
|
A "cultural interpreter" to provide insight
|
Assessment to highlight differences between current and former culture
|
Understanding the Culture Score
|
|
| Shaping strategic direction |
Business plans
|
Strategic plans for the business (e.g. vision and long-term priorities)
|
Planned conversations with key stakeholders on strategic challenges
|
Opportunity to participate in an off-site strategy meeting
|
Dedicated workshop on current strategy and plans
|
Shaping Strategic Direction Score
|
|
|
Basic Orientation Score
|
Active Assimilation Score
|
Accelerated Integration Score
|
TOTAL SCORE
|
||||
Your results
The average score in our sample of global companies is 14.2. Your company is among the bottom 10% of companies in our global sample. It is sink-or-swim for new hires. You may be at great risk of having your valuable talent fail or under perform. Your company is below average. Your company is above average. That’s a good start. Congratulations! Your company already has a world class system.
Your results below show how much your company supports each of the Five Core Transition Tasks. Take a look and identify your company’s strengths and weaknesses, then consider whether there are cost-effective actions you can take to address the weaknesses.
| Diagnosing the Situation = | The average score is 3.0. |
| Taking Charge of the Team = | The average score is 3.2. |
| Aligning with Stakeholders = | The average score is 2.8. |
| Understanding the Culture = | The average score is 2.6. |
| Defining Strategic Direction = | The average score is 2.6. |
The top 10% of companies had a score greater than 20. Companies at this level are serious about accelerating the integration of new hires, setting them up to rapidly achieve high performance.
To learn more about world-class onboarding systems, and to register for our May 4th Power Onboarding Webinar when Dr. Michael Watkins will share new data and key insights behind this assessment, visit www.genesisadvisers.com. (Please print off your results before navigating away from this page.)
Understand the Core Transition Tasks
Great onboarding systems provide the right support for the right activities at the right time. There are five major tasks that onboarding leaders must undertake in their first few critical months. These are the areas where they need the greatest support. Roll over each to learn more.
-
1
Diagnosing the business situation
Even with the best possible exchange of information during the recruiting process, every new hire will have an incomplete picture of the business, its strengths and weaknesses, its opportunities and threats. New leaders build credibility by learning rapidly so they can solve urgent problems quickly, and get some early wins.
-
2
Taking charge of the team
New leaders naturally focus on their direct reports early on—they know they must quickly confirm or adjust the team’s composition, roles, and goals. The window for making significant team changes does not stay open for long, so it takes focus and discipline to quickly gather the information needed to make good decisions.
-
3
Aligning with stakeholders
New leaders need to gain the support of people over whom they have no direct authority, including their bosses, peers, and other colleagues. Because they arrive with little or no relationship capital, new hires have to invest energy in building the right connections.
-
4
Understanding the culture
To have the right impact, new hires must gain insight the values, norms, and guiding assumptions that define “how to get things done” in the organization. They also must walk the fine line between working within the existing culture and seeking to change it.
-
5
Defining strategic direction
New leaders must quickly start to assess and potentially reshape strategy. If a new strategy is required, then corresponding elements of the organizational system—its structure and its processes for talent management and performance measurement—often must also be transformed to execute it.
Understand the Levels of Support
Many organizations think they are doing a good job of onboarding, when actually they aren’t. Given how critical the Five Core Transition Tasks are to new leaders’ success, the best way to assess your company’s onboarding system is to look at how effectively it supports executives in accomplishing them.
There is a spectrum of potential support, which is organized into three levels. Roll over each to learn more.
-
I
Basic orientation
This involves sharing information about the company, such as policies and procedures, strategy, organization structure, team member evaluations, and business results.
-
II
Active assimilation
At this level, the company proactively organizes meetings to accelerate transfer of deeper knowledge about the business, the team, the culture, and strategic priorities.
-
III
Accelerated integration
At the highest level, the company orchestrates a program of custom-designed experiences that enable new hires to integrate more fully and rapidly. These might include deep-dive discussions about the strategy and team-building workshops.
In order to start, please let us know more about you