Page 77 - Successful Onboarding

66 • Successful Onboarding

Early career support
Early career support excites new hires by appealing to their own interest.
Most people seek to build steady and advancing careers—at least the peo-
ple we want working for us. When people accept new jobs, they evaluate
the prospects that their new job and new organization will push them fur-
ther down the road to success. By helping new hires develop their own skills
and job prospects, and giving them reason to believe that the enterprise
they chose can deliver career advancement faster than other employment
options could, you will motivate individuals to perform and stay with your
company. This additional value is something that employees calculate.
In fact, new hires worth their salt assess how their skill and career advance-
ment prospect compares with personal aspiration on Day One, and they
never stop measuring. Given the weakening of the traditional compact,
improving the career development opportunities available to new hires is
the number one way to define an improved compact and positively differ-
entiate a firm’s employment brand.

Strategy immersion and direction
The final area that an effective program should cover—strategy immer-
sion and direction—appeals to new hires not merely by making them more
effective, but by helping them feel that their thinking is taken seriously
and giving them a stronger sense of purpose. The enterprise (not just a sin-
gle representative) needs to hold significant conversations with new hires
about the organization’s overall direction and scope—what the firm does,
why it is doing it, and where it is headed. You need to establish early on
that these conversations are two-way; firms need to indoctrinate new hires
into the strategy and its full context, and they also need to solicit new hires’
observations, ideas, and commentary.
Strategy discussions should go beyond the abstract level and connect to
the individual’s business area and role. This way, new hires will under-
stand how their daily work affects the company’s success. We aren’t only
talking about engaging with high-level new hires on this topic; it is
extremely beneficial to do strategic orientation with front-line employees.
Think about it: What do you think the strongest and most insightful
new hires do if they do are not able to find an audience for their thoughts