Page 125 - Successful Onboarding

114 • Successful Onboarding

alert the mentor when, say, Allison makes a cultural misstep or, alterna-
tively, is fitting especially well into the new culture. Perhaps the most
important thing a company can do is involve senior leaders. Robert W.
Baird & Co. holds a Professional Development Forum at which senior
leaders moderate panel discussions and the CEO leads a question-and-
answer session for new hires. In breakout sessions, new hires learn about
communications skills and project management, topics that bear signifi-
7
cantly on any company’s performance values. As we covered earlier, Baird
also involves mentors, coaches, corporate HR, and the branch manager in
each new hire’s onboarding process. At Bank of America, the company
goes so far as to involve direct reports in the onboarding process of their
executive hires. Through a facilitated exercise by an onboarding coach,
the executive’s direct reports are polled and involved in providing feed-
back to the executive on his or her performance thus far with the team.
They also share cultural norms and performance values that will be impor-
tant for them all to work together effectively as a team.
A letter every quarter from the CEO would help reinforce messages about
the company culture, as would the sort of presentation that Netflix’s CEO
created. If best-in-class onboarding is inherently systemic, it falls on the CEO
to set the broader agenda for teaching the nuance of culture for new hires,
acknowledge the adaptation required of new hires, and offer the organiza-
tion’s guidance. Division heads and functional leaders should be engaged
in talking with new hires about their businesses and the cultures of their
organizations. The new hire’s manager also plays a critical role in this
process, holding conversations regarding culture at performance review time
and when starting a new assignment. Getting everyone involved requires
that you make a compelling case that this issue is important, something that
your diagnostic (see Chapter 8) can help surface properly.

Best Principle #10: Take it into the field.
Building on Best Principle #5, we emphasize that in-the-field experiences
can provide a great opportunity for cultural learning; after all, accultura-
tion naturally occurs here, even without the aid of formal onboarding.
Starbucks encourages its corporate employees to work a retail counter shift
on a volunteer basis during the holidays, ensuring that all new hires
are in the field within their first year and learning the “Starbucks experi-
ence.” The program is popular, inspiring near universal participation.