Page 170 - Successful Onboarding

Personal Progress and Prospect: Early Career Support • 157

better with instruction and advice as necessary. A new hire at junior or mid-
tier levels may need task instruction, but all new hires benefit more from
the managers’, peers’ and mentors’ perspective on the organization culture,
performance values, strategy, etc. Taking a “sink or swim” approach and leav-
ing the new hire on his or her own is not such a great tactic. The only thing
a hiring manager will likely prove by that exercise is something that requires
no proof: that an outsider is far less likely to “get it” than an insider would.
Instead, system participants should remain active observers of the things that
the new hire is “getting” and the things that the new hire is missing. System
participants should be more cautious when the new hire is performing a task
or an experience (e.g., presenting in front of one’s peers for the first time)
that carries risk of judgment by others, and they should provide an additional
layer of counsel. Senior leadership should tell system participants that they
bear responsibility for helping this new entrant to succeed (and again, every-
one’s annual assessment forms should reflect this responsibility).

Insulation

New hires—at all levels deserve “insulation”—a layer of organizational
protection to help avoid getting in too much trouble too early. Ideally, a
new hire reports into someone who has time to take proper care to help
the new hire succeed. Given organizational design constraints, a modest
leader to direct reports ratio often does not exist. The onboarding design
team should examine the enterprise’s overall organization and determine
which new hire positions remain subject to limited oversight. In these
cases, mentors should be made aware of the circumstance, and the system
should ensure that the new hire is provided with alternative and sufficient
resources and support. At the very least, both the new hire and the hiring
manager should understand that the critical “firsts” associated with a given
role (introduced in Chapter 2 and discussed further in Chapter 8) require
more managerial attention so new hires can experience critical wins.

Remediation

The last piece of structural support is a mechanism for remediation. Too
many good people fail because companies do not have the equivalent of
an emergency room. Everyone is subject to making mistakes, and anyone