In a survey of 588 senior executives 60% reported that it took them six months—and close to 20% said it took more than nine months—to have a full impact in their new roles. Less than a third said they had received any meaningful support during their transitions—a big problem when you consider that more than 80% of this fortunate minority thought such support would have made a major difference in their early impact. (Watkins, 2017)
Why do organisations continue to miss or ignore this easy win when it comes to recruiting or promoting leaders?
Organisations are continually searching for initiatives to truly move the needle, especially around their people. The people in your organisation with the greatest ability to do this are your leaders. We still operate in a competitive environment for talent and better executive / leader onboarding is firmly on many organisations HR hit list – yet collectively many organisations still don’t have a solution in place..
Research by BCG showed that organisations that had an effective onboarding program had 2.5 times more revenue growth and 1.9 times greater profit margin than those without an onboarding process.
In my research only 34% of leaders had a formal onboarding process and less than half of those leaders were happy with the process.
Building or improving your executive onboarding program (which needs to be distinct to your employee onboarding process) will significantly enhance your recruitment and retention, deliver short term results in the time it takes for executives to break even in terms of their productivity and deliver higher revenue growth and profit margins.
The best bit is that it is far easier than many organisations think. Implementing a specialised executive onboarding program is one of the simplest and most cost effective ways to move the needle in your organisation.
Leadership Transitions 