Does your organization onboarding process for new hires extend to executives? It is important to ingrate Executives as seamlessly as other positions in your organization. Successfully onboarding your newest executive seamlessly can be best handled by following these best practices.
Before Your Executive Starts Their First Day
The start of onboarding a new executive should begin during the interview process. Waiting until their first day and expecting new executives to jump in and make changes is not the same thing as onboarding. To ensure a smooth transition you can begin the onboarding process by having multiple employees interview top candidates to give them a feel for the company and allow for potential executives to have candid conversations to discuss company culture.
During this process it is important to be completely honest with potential candidates. Transparency is a key component to onboarding a new executive. By being up front about your companies best and worst qualities will save everyone time in the end.
The Executive’s First Day
Once your new executive is ready to start it is important to make sure a great first impression. This will help your new executive will hold your organization in high esteem. It is not necessary to go overboard, but make sure their workspace is ready and stocked for them start off on the first day.
Once the executive starts make sure to introduce them to relevant staff right away. Arrange a time for upper management and senior members to meet your newest team member. Set up some coffee meetings and/or lunch meetings for you new executive with key employees. Additionally, it is a good practice to set up all the important meetings for your new executive for the first few weeks. This will help make their first few weeks not only enjoyable, but productive.
After the First Day
When looking at your onboarding process, remember it is not only about training it is also about understanding the organizations history, success, and failures. It is important to dedicate time for your new executive to talk with upper management to discuss your company’s culture in a comprehensive fashion. Spend time talking about your company culture and other policies. When onboarding executives make sure they are aware of the work culture, important company policies, big company events and other things of that nature.
A great practice to consider is assigning an executive mentor. Executive’s schedules are busy but finding a peer in your organization that can lend a helping hand via phone, email or in person will really help with the transition.
Executive Onboarding Timeline
When your onboarding an executive, always err on the side of brevity in terms of how much time you should spend on the process. These executives were hired to run departments, they do not need to be coddled entirely. So even though they may not entirely understand your company’s inner workings by day 1 or 15, you can expect they won’t need anyone to hold their hands after the 90-day onboarding plan.
The good news is that by beginning your onboarding process before a new executive starts working, you accelerate it. This makes it easier to let the new executive manage on their own terms sooner. The above is by no means an all-inclusive list. But it should help you ensure a much smoother onboarding process for new executives.