Page 198 - Successful Onboarding

182 • Successful Onboarding

at a mid-sized company we know of remained engaged and happy with
his job (and of course there were likely others). This individual had been
given information about the strategic context by his mentor, so he under-
stood why he had been spared from layoffs and what the company was
doing to weather the storm. Further, he understood how his daily work
helped the company execute its recession-era strategy. Because this
employee was committed enough to the firm and really wanted to help it
succeed, he took it upon himself to share this strategy with his peers and
more junior employees, helping get them engaged around the long-term
opportunities at the company despite the current disruptions. From our
work with this company, we learned that his behind the scenes conversa-
tions helped sway a number of unhappy employees to stay, helping this
company continue to deliver on promises during this stressful period and
remain healthier than the competition.
Conversely, we have also seen situations in which firms have discour-
aged the sharing of strategic information and seen the morale of individ-
ual new hires suffer as a result. One new hire, an experienced executive
assistant, had become adept at serving as the “gatekeeper” for the busy
executives whom she served in her past employment, largely because of
her knowledge of company strategy collected in the course of her 15 years
at the company. Understanding the roles individual executives served rel-
ative to the company’s goals, she understood who needed to be seen right
away, who or what issues could wait, and how to support prioritization for
the executives’ agendas. At her new company, her “onboarding” consisted
of showing her where the kitchen was, how the executives liked their cof-
fee, how to answer the phones, and when to feed the fish.
Eager to succeed, this employee introduced herself to others in the
office and made a point of learning about strategy on her own. At one point,
she emailed the management team and asked to speak with them for
10 minutes to get a better understanding of their individual roles and how
they all fit into the big picture. Upon receiving this email invitation, her
hiring manager called her to tell her this was not a good use of her time.
She reminded her that she supported the CEO and CFO, not the other
functional leaders, and that she should not stray beyond her standard job
duties. Not surprisingly, this superb executive assistant chose to leave her
new job within one month. Her hiring manager had not only failed