Get on the right track with executive onboarding

Get on the right track with executive onboarding SYSCO Foodservices had a clear and urgent need: to develop Canadian talent to assume senior leadership roles in their Canadian facilities as they continued to grow. To meet this challenge, SYSCO hired a leadership coaching company to introduce an executive coaching component into their newly developed Leadership Development Program. Although they didn’t call it by name, onboarding was a critical part of SYSCO’s leadership development plan, which involved long-term employees and leaders newly integrated after an acquisition.

What is onboarding?

Most organizations offer some level of orientation for new leaders. But without a well-defined plan for integrating the new leader, the risk of poor performance and failure is high. Executive onboarding has grown out of traditional orientation to provide a more comprehensive and systematic plan for helping executives transition into their new role.

The term “onboarding” is typically used for leaders who are hired from outside of an organization, but is equally important for supporting internal transfers and promotions in any new management role. Take, for example Russ Jones. With his employer for 21 years, he suddenly found himself launching a commercial division and managing the company’s new role as a sponsor for the 2010 Olympics. Russ credits the onboarding coaching he received for helping him manage multiple projects and navigate the complex decision-making processes in his new division, and for his new sense of focus and balance.

Onboarding reinforces conventional orientation and training programs with highly focused one-to-one leadership coaching, targeted skills development, and timely objective feedback. The goal is twofold: first, ensure that new executives find their footing quickly and avoid costly missteps; second, help them build effective alliances with their direct reports to ensure continuity and cooperation in achieving organizational goals.

Why use onboarding?

The costs of not having an effective onboarding program can be high. A study by Kevin P. Coyne at the Harvard Business School shows how changes in a company’s leadership can cause havoc. His study, conducted between 2002 and 2004, found a turnover rate of 17% in large companies. According to Coyne, a change at the very top can trigger significant turnover among existing executives: up to 22% for organizations that hire new CEOs from outside, and up to 33% for those that promote CEOs from within.

And the trend shows no sign of abating. The July 13, 2006 issue of The Economist reported a 6.9% increase in executive turnover between the first half of 2005 and the same period in 2006.

Companies invest a great deal of time and money in recruiting new executives. When they fail, as the statistics show they often do, the effect on the bottom line is devastating. Some estimates peg the costs at 200 to 250% of an executive’s annual compensation. That figure does not include indirect costs within the organization, in the form of lost productivity and diminished morale.

So how can onboarding turn things around? It gives an organization a planned process to integrate the new executive while maintaining continuity and retaining key team players. It’s like an insurance policy – organizations that invest in onboarding can ensure they get the results they expect from their new executive.

What’s involved in onboarding?

Onboarding addresses the critical areas where executives tend to have weaknesses. An effective onboarding program can help new executives:

- maximize the skills they need most in their new role - align leadership style with the culture of the workplace - begin developing effective relationships with other senior people and direct reports - understand the who, what and why of the decision making process Onboarding is a combination of functional performance training, conventional orientation, intensive, highly focused coaching and performance feedback. All aspects of onboarding are important, but it is the coaching component that sets it apart from traditional efforts at orientation and creates the greatest leverage from training.

Benefits of Onboarding A key objective of onboarding is knowledge transfer. This is one area where coaching takes centre stage. Clearly, training is a key part of knowledge transfer, but coaching complements training, ensuring that learning becomes a new behaviour. Coaching helps new executives create concrete plans for implementing what they learned and applying their recently acquired knowledge in their new role.

Translation: coaching supports and reinforces training. As reported in the Training and Development Journal, a study by Xerox showed that without follow-up coaching, 87% of the knowledge gained from skills training is lost. Coaching ensures that learned skills are retained and put to use.

Coaching also addresses issues that orientation and training cannot. They say it’s lonely at the top, and it is especially so when you are new to an organization. Onboarding coaches provide objective support for new leaders, offer themselves as a sounding board, help them work through stress, and discuss any pressures the executive is feeling outside of the workplace.

The result? Executives who can handle the pressure of their new position and succeed. Just ask Andrew Miller, Director of Training for SYSCO Canada. In the last three years, seven of the 28 participants in his executive coaching program have been promoted to EVP or president and three to more senior positions. They expect continued success in this manner.

Onboarding programs are valuable tools for HR professionals. Although these programs include an executive coaching component to ensure long-term sustainability, they also incorporate critical pieces related to the application of learning and the support of people in new and challenging roles.

What about “postboarding”?

After an executive is successfully on board, what comes next? Does the support they relied on simply vanish? Not necessarily. For many organizations, including SYSCO, onboarding evolves into continued executive development, supported by coaching.

Andrew Miller has plenty of evidence of the benefits of coaching, both before and after a new leader is in place. Miller states that the executives in his company who continue to work closely with coaches “… are more disciplined and are having faster cycle times in achieving results.” He feels that coaching “… has been instrumental in heightening their awareness, helping them learn faster, and change old habits.”

HR departments can ensure their leaders start off on the right track with effective onboarding, and stay on the right track with continued coaching and leadership development.



Get on the right track with executive onboarding - To learn more about this author, visit Cassandra L. Gierden's Website.

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