As an Austin Retained Executive Search firm, I am often asked about what we offer in the way of on-boarding or an integration process with new executives who are hired by each company.
Great question because when new hires are fired early in their tenure, it is usually due to soft skills and not being aware of the cultural subtleties.
One part of our free client optional on-boarding plan is to have us, the recruiting company, sit down with the new hire and ask some very simple questions:
1) Who am I?
2) What needs to be fixed in the next 90 days?
3) What needs to be fixed in the next year?
4) What seems to be going very well?
5) How do you like to be communicated with?
Next, we sit down with the entire department that the executive will lead (without the executive). As a group, we facilitate a session that answers the same questions as above.
The last step is to bring the department and the new executive together to discuss the answers and findings.
This simple on-boarding exercise works well and gets the new executive and the department off to a strong start TOGETHER.
Generally speaking, the successful integration of executives depends on five critical factors: 1) ensuring role clarity, 2) developing key relationships, 3) learning about and adapting to cultural norms, 4) having early successes on critical business objectives, and 5) quickly developing industry and company knowledge (RHR-DHR 2008 Executive Summary, “Hiring & Integrating Executives-Research & Best Practices.”
Executing on-boarding right will avoid a potential train wreck for the new executive and the department he/she leads.
