Organizations and Onboarding: The 5 Biggest Mistakes

(Our story continues with Alex still trying to navigate her new organization and role, without much support from her manager or Human Resources. If you missed the first 2 installments, see blog entries below.)

As Alex begins to have more meetings with the key stakeholders in the organizations, it is clear that they were not prepared to talk with her. Most are polite and ask about her “former life” and work, how she likes the organization, her team, etc. Some have a few complaints and issues that have carried over from Alex’s predecessor, and want quick resolution. Others do not have much information to share and are very unclear as to why Alex would have them on her list as a “meet and greet” because they have very little interaction with each other. The meetings are scheduled in the first few weeks, and Alex knows very little about the organization and cannot ask meaningful questions. It is difficult for her to discern which of these stakeholders may be the ones with whom she needs to build strong relationships.

Frustrated, Alex meets with her manager to get some sense of how she is doing and what her priorities should be for the coming weeks and months. Her manager is late for their meeting and distracted by his email and other messages. He tells her that she is doing fine and that everyone “takes awhile to figure things out here”. Alex asks him for some additional clarification on her role and the objectives for her next 3-6 months. He tells her to “keep doing what she’s been doing” and “keep the customers and the employees happy”.
He says that he will be talking with his boss in the next couple of weeks to get a better picture of what the whole function is going to look like and he will get back to her.

He doesn’t, and Alex is gone after only 7 months on the job.

Did Alex fail or did the organization fail her?

What often happens in situations such as our case study is that the organization blames the turnover of the position on a “bad hire” or a “non-fit” to the organization and takes little or no responsibility for the failure of the individual. The assumption is that the full responsibility is on the individual for her transition and that part of a new leader’s job is to “figure it out”. Our experience and work with clients has proven that a more holistic approach which blends the responsibility of the new leader and the organization yields the best results. Both must have clear roles and actively participate in the new leader’s onboarding process for maximum results.

Summary

Organizations that avoid these 5 biggest onboarding mistakes are the ones which will have new leaders who integrate better and experience smoother transitions. Even if other parts of the onboarding process are not executed properly or activities are not timely, if these 5 critical areas are addressed, the new leader will still experience a higher level of success than he/she would have if they had been ignored.

As a result, organizations can still experience some level of onboarding success if they pay attention to a few critical details,the "5 biggest onboarding mistakes" even if they are lacking a complete and consistent process.