Page 171 - Successful Onboarding

158 • Successful Onboarding

may find themselves in either a difficult position or a position for which
they were not prepared (sometimes because of weak recruiting and place-
ment). When new hires are not getting the support they deserve, usually
the local resource is simply too busy, has conflicting incentives, does not,
him- or herself, have the right skills to assist, or is otherwise unavailable.
In these cases, the new hire should have somewhere to go to get support.
Mentor programs largely exist for this purpose, but in all too many cases,
the mentor himself may prove to be disinterested or unskilled. The new
hire should not pay the price. Onboarding designers need to provide for
a centralized resource to seek assistance. It is simply unacceptable to spend
the money that companies do on recruiting and placement and then allow
failure because of organizational design flaws. The price is too great.

Effective Delivery of Early Career Support

Now that we’ve established the critical role of early career support as part
of a strategic onboarding program and laid out the structural elements
required, let’s consider the question of how to do it effectively. Our own
experience working with and investigating effective programs across indus-
tries has led us to some additional best principles that can help you when
introducing early career support as part of onboarding.

Best Principle #1: Take steps to centralize and systematize normally
informal career conversations.
Centralizing and systematizing delivery of career information allows for
some governance while simultaneously making it easier for new recruits
in large companies to locate the information they need. Centralization
also helps provide managers with guidance into the needs of new hires as
well as into the most helpful ways to offer feedback. Firms like Caterpil-
lar and Lockheed Martin offer centralized materials to provide “go-to”
career support and a source of expertise for managers who are planning
new programs. IBM and Booz Allen offer corporate learning sites and self-
education curricula that provide learning tailored to new hires, making
the information more engaging and timely.
An HR manager at the holding company of Sears reported on the ben-
efits of systematizing its previously informal buddy program. In the old