Page 41 - Successful Onboarding

30 • Successful Onboarding

understands the relative value and area of subject matter expertise) can
reach to his or her network to get perspective and assistance rather than
working from scratch to determine the optimal solution. Strategic
onboarding can increase the number and quality of connections both
within and beyond the organization.
Drive is the combination of ambition, entrepreneurialism, and attach-
ment to the enterprise. Ambition provides the energy for an individual to
pursue excellence in everything he or she does. Entrepreneurialism pro-
vides the grittiness, the willingness to sacrifice and push and the necessary
creativity to create efficient and effective answers. Attachment represents
the degree to which the individual cares and is motivated to perform for
the organization’s benefit. The greater that each of these factors is for a
given new hire, the greater the net new hire contribution over the short,
medium, and long terms.
These four variables—Capability, Context, Connectedness, and Drive—
together influence the result of the New Hire Contribution (NHC) or pro-
ductivity. As the preceding equation indicates, we can think of adding up
an individual’s unique blend of Capability, Context, Connectedness, and
Drive to arrive at his or her potential New Hire Contribution. Conceptu-
ally it would even be possible to score an individual in each of these vari-
ables on a scale of, let’s say, 1 to 10, and come out with an overall NHC
“score.” In this case, a maximum score of 40 (10 10 10 10) would
represent the super employee, one who could add the maximum potential
value to a given organization. We should note that our equation for New
Hire Contribution purposely excludes the issue of resources (e.g., size of
team, budget, tools, etc.) made available to an employee. For the purpose
of discussing managing new hire potential in the context of onboarding,
we treat all things as equal with regard to level of resources.
Mathematically, the lowest possible score would be a 4 using this scale.
However, most recruiting organizations screen for individuals who have
a minimum level of capability and drive (let’s hope so anyway). Thus,
even the most inexperienced of new hires for a moderate position would
join the organization with, for discussion sake, an NHC of “10” (4 each
for capability and drive, and 1 each for context and connection). Our
expectation is that once the individual starts work, the organization can
influence all four of these factors to raise the NHC.