One in three senior professionals aren’t supported by their organisation in ‘hitting the ground running’, when they start in a new role –as research by Penna Plc, a global people management business, finds today.
The research, conducted amongst 1,000 hiring professionals, finds that one in three (33%) do not offer onboarding coaching – the practice of helping new recruits to understand their role in a structured way – for externally recruited senior level hires. In fact they’ll be lucky to even see the books, as just over a quarter (28%) of employers felt that having access to all financial information would be important to senior professionals recruited into new roles.
Despite the importance of strong leadership to business success, organisations are failing to invest in guidance in the early days to ensure professionals are equipped to succeed in the role and have everything they need to make an impact – and meet what are often very high expectations. It’s no wonder then that 40% of hiring professionals say that a risk associated with recruiting a senior leader externally, is that they won’t last long in the role.
Penny de Valk, managing director of Penna Talent Practice, comments: “Most people assume that senior professionals will just get on with the job at hand, given the experience they have built up over the years, and fail to recognise how onboarding can help accelerate their performance in a new role. In fact 39% of hiring professionals thought onboarding was better suited to middle managers, with a measly 4% identifying board level executives as benefiting from such investment.
“Regardless of seniority within the organisation, utilising onboarding coaching can ensure they make an impact as quickly as possible. By ensuring new recruits, whether externally hired or internally promoted, have all the knowledge and tools needed to do their job well – the more prepared, engaged and effective they will be.”
On the type of onboarding identified as important for senior professionals recruited into new roles, ‘having a supportive top team’ came up trumps – with 50% agreeing this is imperative. Onboarding can be beneficial here too, as stakeholder management coaching equips the new starter with knowing how to get the most from new colleagues. Induction meetings with key colleagues (39%) and honest feedback, with no information withheld (34%), were also identified as important factors in getting senior professionals up-to-speed quickly. Interestingly, more than one in eight (13%) think access to a predecessor is important.
Penny concludes: “With the average cost of losing an employee being over £30,000[1], it’s surprising that organisations aren’t doing more to get senior hires up-to-speed from day one – as a little investment up front, ensuring they have everything they need to get on with making a positive impact, can go a long way. Senior professionals are integral to organisational success and businesses should be doing everything they can to ensure they hit the ground running when stepping into a new role.”