In recent coaching assignments I am seeing a strong trend toward the use of onboarding coaching to help newly hired executives quickly deliver in their new role.  It seems that HR and OD departments are aware of the high cost of attrition and are seeing a return on investment from coaching that helps retain expensive new hires and supports them to deliver more quickly in their new role.

According to Dan Ciampa and Michael Watkins, in Right from the Start (Harvard Business School Press, 1999), 64% of new executives hired from outside the company will fail at their new jobs. Coaching for your newly promoted or newly hired executives can help assure their success and accelerate their ability to have an immediate, positive impact on business results.

Objectives of Executive Onboarding:

• Immediately identify the skills most critical to leading in their new role.
• Rapidly evaluate the new executive's team to assess the present talent and fill any gaps to ensure success.
• Accelerate the learning curve so that the executive's leadership tone and style are quickly matched to the new role and informed by the new culture.
• Develop collaborative relationships with key stakeholders and gain a robust understanding of others' organizational point of view.
• Gain understanding of both the "formal" and "informal" decision making power in the organization.
• Deliver early results to establish credibility.

Expected Results:

The new executive delivers business results by focusing on key points of leverage in their new role.

• They are quickly aligned with and integrated into the new culture.
• Emotional intelligence and effective communication strategies yield strong business relationships and strengthens team morale.

In addition, many organizations I currently work with are using onboarding coaching to attract higher caliber candidates, and as a tactic to improve retention and maintain business flow during times of change.

What is your experience with onboarding coaching?  Have you seen a return on investment?  Please write me at the address below to share your hands-on experience. 

Dare to Deliver

Merry Marcus

www.breakthroughconsulting.com

As always, feel free to drop me a line at mmarcus@breakthroughconsulting.com, or submit a question to my twice-monthly Hr.com column - Ask The Coach.  Twice a month I will answer your questions about your toughest leadership and career issues.  To submit a question to Ask The Coach, click here.