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Leadership transitions are a big deal in an organization's journey.
The successful integration of new executives can pave the way for groundbreaking strategies, innovative ideas, and revitalized energies. But the challenge of onboarding new leaders into your organization's operations and culture is no small feat.
Enter executive onboarding – a strategic process designed to ensure a smooth transition and set the stage for lasting leadership success.
In this guide, we’ll explore executive onboarding best practices and steps to create your 90 day executive onboarding plan. Let’s get started.
What is executive onboarding?
Executive onboarding isn't just about welcoming a new leader to the fold or giving them an overview via a company handbook. It's a thoughtfully constructed process, crucial to making sure freshly appointed executives find their footing and integrate into their designated roles in your organization.
Consider executive onboarding as a bridge, connecting an executive's experience and knowledge with the specialized requirements and nuances of their new role. Given the substantial influence executives have over an organization's strategy, culture, and overall growth, the depth of leadership onboarding goes far beyond the administrative aspects in standard employee onboarding.
New executives are thrust into a realm where every decision echoes through the organization. Here, executive onboarding shines as a guiding light, steering executives as they wrestle with these early challenges, ensuring they find their balance, adapt, and lead with confidence.
But there's no universal playbook for executive onboarding. HR or L&D specialists need to tailor the process to the individual based on department, experience, seniority, organizational challenges, etc. to help uncover what they need to succeed in their new role.
The goal? To swiftly transition the executive from a newcomer to an integral part of your leadership team, perfectly in sync with the company's goals and aspirations.
In essence, executive onboarding lays the groundwork. It equips the new leaders with the necessary knowledge, resources, and connections, cultivating an environment where they can drive growth, foster innovation, and ensure your organization's long-term success.
Why is executive onboarding important?
When we look at changes within an organization, especially those involving top executives, the stakes are high. The impact of these kinds of leadership transitions isn’t just confined to one area; they ripple through various departments and can shape your company’s direction for years to come.
At its core, executive onboarding acts like a fast track, accelerating the journey for new leaders. Rather than a slow and gradual adaptation, these new leader onboarding programs help your executives get up to speed faster with the right tools and support in place.
- Minimize disruption: At the executive level, even a short delay can lead to missed opportunities, financial hurdles, or damage to your organization’s reputation. By refining your leadership onboarding or developing an executive onboarding plan template, you can help new leaders integrate into your team a lot faster while minimizing disruptions.
- Improve leader retention: Retention is another factor to consider in executive turnover, which can cause both direct hiring expenses and indirect costs like work disruptions. New manager onboarding not only helps your new leaders acclimate but also strengthens their bonds with the company and its culture, reducing leader turnover and contributing to positive retention factors.
- Mitigate risk: Risk mitigation is top priority during leadership transitions, as they inherently involve some degree of uncertainty. New executives introduce fresh ideas and strategies, which can be great or lead to early misalignments and conflict. However, when your company has a strong new leader onboarding roadmap, you can alleviate a lot of risks by outlining expectations early and aligning your leadership team.
- Steer in the right direction: An executive’s decisions don’t exist in a vacuum. Their influence flows through your teams and departments, affecting everyone. Proper executive onboarding makes sure the new exec’s influence is positive and aligns with company goals, harmonizing with the direction of the company and its culture.
Benefits of proper executive onboarding
Organizations are a lot like complex ecosystems where every element, especially leadership, has a large impact on the balance.
Considering the influence an executive holds, it’s so important to make sure they fit smoothly. Executive onboarding isn’t like regular employee onboarding, it’s a strategic process that optimizes the leader’s influence and makes sure that they can hit the ground running.
A structured approach to your 90 day onboarding plan for executives should consider these factors:
Cultural integration
One of the most common challenges new executives face is understanding and aligning with the company's cultural nuances.
Company culture—including values, beliefs, rituals, and behavioral norms—influences every aspect of your organization, from decision-making processes to interpersonal interactions. Effective executive onboarding is key to making sure that your new executive is familiar with and deeply ingrained in this culture. By doing so, the executive is readily able to accept and make sure they resonate with your organization’s ethos. This, in turn, leads to more informed decisions in line with the company's values and beliefs.
Goal alignment
The vision and mission of your organization serve as a compass that steers its journey forward.
For an executive, aligning with company objectives is non-negotiable. Your executive onboarding process ensures this alignment by clearly detailing the company's strategic objectives and how the new executive's role fits into the grand scheme of things. By presenting the bigger picture, your new leader gains clarity on both short and long-term goals and helps them understand they’re not working in isolation but are actively contributing to your company’s mission.
Stakeholder engagement
Executives, by virtue of their role, work with a variety of internal and external stakeholders.
Building and nurturing these relationships is crucial—whether it's internal teams, board members, shareholders, or external partners and customers. Your executive onboarding program needs to factor this in and facilitate introductions with key people. By supporting your new executive through those first interactions, you set them up for smoother collaboration and faster relationship-building.
Faster ROI
Bringing in top executives is a big investment for any organization and, naturally, your company wants to see a return on that investment.
By carefully planning your new leader onboarding roadmap, you can help these executives hit the ground running. When given the right resources, insights, and tools right from the start, they can move from learning about the company to actively leading and making impactful decisions, demonstrating that return on investment faster.
Clearly established responsibilities
While job descriptions provide an overview, the actual scope of an executive's role can be complex.
By clearly defining responsibilities early and often, you help prevent any overlaps, conflicts, or gaps from popping up. A well-structured executive onboarding plan outlines the new leader’s duties in detail, making sure they know exactly what’s expected of them and how their role interacts with others. This level of clarity gives them confidence to lead their team, prioritize projects, and delegate tasks while allowing them to channel their expertise and energy into making meaningful contributions to company objectives.
5 best practices for onboarding executives
The complex nature of executive roles requires a thoughtful, strategic approach to onboarding.
Executives are key decision-makers, guiding the organization's path, shaping its culture, and fostering relationships with stakeholders. This means their onboarding process needs to be customized, systematic, and flexible, aligning them with the company's vision and culture while equipping them with essential organizational insights.
Drawing from expert advice, we've put together some best practices to help you create an executive onboarding template to streamline the experience.
1. Create an executive onboarding plan
An executive onboarding plan serves as a roadmap, mapping out their journey within your organization.
Rather than letting the executive wander through the complexities of a new environment alone, a well-crafted plan provides the support they need to grasp your company's dynamics, connect with key stakeholders, and align with organizational goals. Your executive onboarding framework should include key meetings, orientation sessions, skill development modules, and opportunities for feedback. By using tools like a development programs software, your new executive has all their onboarding resources and a high-level calendar view of the 90 day onboarding plan right from the start.
2. Offer executive coaching
Stepping into executive roles can be both exciting and daunting, even for those with extensive experience. While their industry knowledge may be solid, adapting to the specifics of a new organization can be overwhelming.
Offering coaching as part of your new leadership onboarding can be invaluable here. Through coaching, new leaders gain insights into company dynamics, potential challenges, and strategies to overcome them. Coaches act as a sounding board, providing unbiased feedback and strategies to manage complex scenarios, making the transition smoother and more efficient.
3. Ensure cultural immersion
For executives to truly succeed, they need to resonate with the organization's cultural essence.
Beyond the official company values listed in manuals, every organization has unwritten norms, rituals, and beliefs. To immerse an executive in this culture, exposing them to the different elements of your company’s unique environment, such as your diversity and inclusion strategy, meetings with long-standing employees, or learning more about company history. A deep understanding of the cultural fabric helps the executive make decisions that fit your company.
4. Foster stakeholder relationships from the get-go
The success of an executive often hinges on the strength of their relationships with key stakeholders.
Building solid connections with internal teams and departments as well as external partners or customers can determine how easily your new executive can do their job. Introduce your new executives to these stakeholders early on, setting the foundation for collaboration and cooperation. Organize meetings, luncheons, or even offsite team-building events to provide opportunities to build lasting rapport.
5. Implement feedback loops
Continuous feedback is the cornerstone of improvement and growth.
Providing regular feedback helps guide decisions and actions, particularly as an executive is getting to know their new organization. Establishing a structured feedback system, where insights come from peers, superiors, and even subordinates, offers a well-rounded perspective on performance. This 360-degree feedback highlights both strengths and areas for development. By embedding these practices into the executive onboarding program, organizations can ensure a smooth transition, equipping new leaders to be familiar with their roles and ready to inspire growth and innovation right from the start.
Step-by-step guide for creating an executive onboarding plan
The importance of executive onboarding truly shines when we consider the immense responsibility these roles carry.
It's crucial that onboarding does more than just help executives fit into their roles; it should empower them to excel and propel the organization forward. This isn't something that should be left to chance—it requires a strategic 90 day onboarding plan. By understanding both the specific demands of the executive's role and the wider organizational landscape, a tailored 90 day executive onboarding plan can be developed. When this plan aligns with the goals of both the executive and the organization, it lays the groundwork for a successful leadership transition.
Here are 9 steps to help you create your plan:
Conduct a training needs assessment
Start with a thorough skill gap analysis and assessment. This process is not about questioning their ability but understanding where they're at in relation to the requirements of their new role. This forms the foundation for a tailored executive onboarding plan.
Set clear objectives
Outline the onboarding goals using the SMART criteria: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Clear leadership development goals like "Understanding the company's main revenue streams by day 30" help guide your new leaders through the onboarding process.
Organize onboarding using development programs software
Use technology to your advantage. Organizing your executive onboarding plan in one place using development programs software means all the elements can be easily managed and tracked. This frees up your time so you can focus on creating engaging and supportive experiences for your new executives.
Curate resources
Equip the new executive with resources tailored to their learning needs. This could include strategy documents, organizational charts, past performance reports, or industry research. The goal isn't information overload but providing them with tools to aid their decision-making processes.
Introduce the organization
Provide the executive with an in-depth understanding of the organization, beyond just figures and facts. Share the company's history, cultural nuances, values, and strategic goals. Organize sessions with key personnel who can provide macro and micro perspectives of the organization's functioning.
Develop a plan for skills development
Identify skills that the executive needs to develop or sharpen. This could be based on the initial needs assessment or feedback from initial interactions. Prioritize these skills and offer avenues for their development, whether through workshops, courses, or peer coaching sessions.
Schedule orientations for teams and departments
Facilitate meetings between the executive and the teams or departments they'll work with. These sessions aren't just about introductions but understanding team dynamics, ongoing projects, challenges, and opportunities.
Set up 360-degree feedback
Incorporate a 360 feedback template involving peers, subordinates, and superiors. This feedback gives the executive insights into their impact, areas of improvement, and strengths from multiple perspectives.
Organize regular check-ins
Establish a regular cadence of check-ins between the executive and their immediate supervisor or a designated onboarding guide. These sessions are platforms for reviewing progress, addressing challenges, and recalibrating objectives if necessary.
Provide ongoing learning
Recognize that executive onboarding isn't just a phase but an ongoing process. After the initial leadership onboarding period, the focus should shift to continuous learning, making sure the executive stays up-to-date with industry changes, organizational shifts, and leadership methodologies.
Why mentoring is crucial for executive onboarding
Mentoring programs are an increasingly valuable part of executive onboarding because the practice becomes so ingrained in organizational structure and culture.
The personalized approach of corporate mentoring programs bridges gaps between what executives know and what they need to understand about their new roles. Leveraging mentoring in the onboarding process taps into the experiential knowledge of seasoned professionals, enabling new executives to sidestep pitfalls and harness best practices that took years for others to cultivate.
Let's delve into the multifaceted advantages of mentoring in executive onboarding.
Knowledge transfer
At the helm of any organization, executives must quickly decode the company's dynamics, understand industry shifts, and adopt best practices that align with the company's vision. Here, mentors emerge as a reservoir of knowledge. They provide new executives with insights that textbooks or training modules might miss – the unwritten codes of the organization, the historical reasons behind specific practices, or the nuances that differentiate this industry from others. This rich tapestry of insights ensures that executives don't just know the organization but understand its soul.
Networking
The age-old adage, "It's not what you know, but who you know," is particularly true for executives. Their ability to effect change, drive innovation, or resolve conflicts often hinges on their connections within and outside the organization. With their extensive tenure and relationships, mentors can introduce new executives to crucial stakeholders, potential allies, or even industry experts. Internal networking through mentorship is a long term practice that helps your new executives achieve their own goals and solidify their position in the company.
Navigating challenges
Every executive, no matter their previous successes, faces unique challenges in a new role or organization.
If not handled thoughtfully, these obstacles can become significant hurdles. That's where mentors step in, drawing from their experience of overcoming similar challenges to offer valuable guidance. During the executive onboarding process, mentors provide strategies and insights to help new leaders make wise decisions, from navigating team conflicts and organizational politics to advising on strategic choices grounded in their own past experiences. Mentors serve as a trusted resource, offering seasoned advice that can make all the difference.
Confidence building
The early days in any role, especially as pivotal as an executive position, can be daunting. Doubts can creep in, and decisions can seem overwhelming. In such times, mentors act as a pillar of support. Their vote of confidence, rooted in experience and wisdom, can boost the executive's morale.
By offering guidance, sharing their own tales of trials and triumphs, and being a sounding board for ideas, mentors ensure that new executives not only make decisions confidently but also grow into their roles with confidence.
Foster leadership success and organizational growth with Together
Navigating the intricate dynamics of a new leadership role is challenging, and while executives bring a wealth of experience, they still need guidance tailored to their new environment.
Here's where development programs software and mentorship platform like Together come into play. Together not only helps executives during the transitional phase but also embeds them into the fabric of the organization.
Together understands the nuanced challenges and opportunities tied to executive roles and can help program administrators build a solid, consistent executive onboarding framework that ensures your new leaders don't just adapt but thrive. Our development programs software brings together all onboarding program elements including workplace mentoring, a leadership development program, learning events, and the ability to track program success.
- Tailored mentor-mentee pairing: Every executive is unique, bringing a blend of skills, experiences, and aspirations to the table. Together’s advanced algorithms automate the mentor matching process to pair executives with mentors who complement and challenge them. This bespoke mentor and mentee matching makes sure mentorship is not a generic exercise but a deeply personalized experience.
- Accelerated learning curve: Time is of the essence in leadership roles. With streamlined leadership onboarding using specialized software, executives can sidestep common pitfalls, understand organizational dynamics faster, and start contributing meaningfully in a shorter span.
- Expert insights: While data and reports provide a wealth of knowledge, there are certain insights only experience can offer. Together’s tools support different types of employee connection tools, including peer mentor programs, where others help new leaders decode these unwritten nuances and find long-term support in the workplace.
- Building relationships: Beyond the formal hierarchies and organizational charts lie the intricate web of relationships that truly drive an organization. A well-structured executive onboarding plan executed through development programs software sets new leaders up to forge relationships with key players both inside and outside your organization.
- Leadership development: Leadership isn't just about decision-making; it's about influencing, inspiring, and innovating. Through formalized feedback loops, easy access to training resources, and regular support from mentors, Together’s software helps you not just in onboarding new leaders, but continuously supporting them.
- Monitoring and progress: Executive onboarding isn't a one-off event; it's a journey. Together recognizes this and offers tools for continuous assessment during your 90 day onboarding plan and beyond. Whether it's tracking the progress of the executive, gauging the impact of mentoring, or identifying areas for improvement, Together ensures their learning journey is not just impactful but also evolving.
Executive onboarding is a continuous process
Executive onboarding is such a pivotal moment in any leader’s journey. It’s more than just getting to know the ins and outs of your organization’s operations; it’s about immersing leaders in its culture, aligning with its vision, and laying the groundwork for transformative leadership.
Development programs software, like Together, amplifies the effectiveness of this process, bridging gaps, and accelerating new leader integration. This software allows you to gather all the moving pieces of your your executive onboarding program in one place, such as documentation, events, mentorship, and it even integrates with your learning management system (LMS) to make sure your new executive is well-equipped to take on their role.
As we move forward in a world that values agility, adaptability, and authenticity, a comprehensive executive onboarding process will be one of your most impactful tools.
Don't leave the success of your executive transitions to chance. Harness the power of structured executive onboarding and impactful mentorship with Together.
