How Effective Onboarding Can Help You Get The Career You Want

By Christine de Largy, Executive Fellow with the Leadership Institute, London Business School

For people to feel included, valued and able to progress in an organization, they need to understand the organizational culture, relationship networks and information networks. Often this knowledge is assumed to be acquired over time and by chance, with organizations providing varying degrees of support. This is to do a disservice to both employees and the organization.

While all organizations spend time and resources on attracting, assessing and appointing people into new positions, paradoxically, a lot of companies pay less attention to investing in their onboarding once the contract is signed. If companies embrace the onboarding process fully, however, the knowledge and relationships gained will provide strong foundations for employees’ future success. Equally the same activities provide career-long good practices that can help you get the career you want. Here’s how.

What is onboarding?

Broadly, researchers Klein, Polin and Sutton define onboarding as helping people to orient, socialise and adjust into a new organization.

Thus, onboarding is more than a simple induction checklist to orient new starters around the building, set up their workspace and introduce them to key stakeholders. A good onboarding programme reveals the organizational culture, information networks and relationship networks.

To assess your organization’s approach, it is helpful to consider onboarding at four different levels.

Bauer, in her research from 2010, identifies four levels, the Four Cs of onboarding:

• Compliance is the lowest level and includes teaching employees basic legal and policy-related rules and regulations.
• Clarification refers to ensuring that employees understand their new jobs and all related expectations.
• Culture is a broad category that includes providing employees with a sense of organizational norms – both formal and informal.
• Connection refers to the vital interpersonal relationships and information networks that new employees must establish.

What happens when onboarding is ineffective?

Without a good onboarding programme, information and relationship networks may be hidden, or appear impenetrable. A study by Harvey Nash Executive Search found 39 per cent of executives had considered walking away from their new role in the first three months, and only half (48 per cent) felt they had a fit in the organisation. They also felt that they could have been 50 percent more productive if their start at the organization had been better organised. A good onboarding process can help overcome these challenges.

Who is responsible for your onboarding?

Most people think that it is the organization’s responsibility to provide an onboarding programme. Research from Klein and colleagues, however, tells us that organisations believe employees are experiencing more onboarding activities than may be the case.

Rather than relying on your organization, you could, therefore, look at the Four Cs of onboarding to determine what your new organization is providing. Then consider how this fits with Bauer’s view of successful onboarding: self-efficacy, role clarity, social integration and knowledge of culture. Start with self-efficacy, knowing that no-one is as interested in your success as you. Take responsibility for your own onboarding; it can have a significant impact on the speed and effectiveness of your career advancement.

The onboarding action plan

The optimal timing of a specific onboarding practice may depend on your needs, seniority and role. Bauer notes that many organizations’ onboarding programmes may last a day and aim to introduce employees to co-workers and help orient them into the organization, to understand the culture, values, goals and history. However, as Bauer also notes, “the higher a person’s level in the organization, the more tailored and flexible the program will need to be”.

The executive onboarding support tools and processes Bauer puts forward provide a useful framework to think about how best to organize your own company’s onboarding process. These include:

• Meetings and introductions to all key stakeholders to develop a deeper understanding of corporate strategy. Within three months.
• Formal and informal meetings with peer group and management or executive team meetings.
• Regular check-ins meetings with the key stakeholder. Bauer suggests at three months, but I would suggest monthly to diagnose potential problems and solutions and discuss developmental feedback, to discuss the how not just the what has to be done.
• Internal or external coaching, establishing mentoring and fostering sponsorship relationships.

Bauer also provides a useful checklist for individuals seeking to ensure onboarding success. Her advice to gather information, manage first impressions, invest in relationship development, seek feedback and show success early on is sound advice, particularly the suggestion to seek feedback.

Seeking feedback is a vital activity and skill. Performance appraisals and 360-degree feedback are important onboarding tools. I would you suggest you don’t wait for these formal, sometimes annual processes. Seek feedback as part of how you conduct your role. Develop feedback skills. For example, before a meeting or presentation, ask colleagues to share their feedback afterwards and be specific about the aspect of your performance on which you would like feedback. These experiential everyday developmental opportunities are powerful ways to not only build your skills but help foster trusted relationships.

The duration of this more comprehensive “connection” plan is likely to be 90 days or longer. Work out what you need and plan accordingly. Most importantly, consider your stakeholder community. When you start you will not know the stakeholder landscape; a knowledgeable onboarding ‘buddy’ can help you determine relevant stakeholders. A buddy can also provide the context within which you will be working and shed light on cultural norms. This support will facilitate your success in the organization both in the early stages and help you build a strong network for your future career.

To manage your stakeholder community, create a map to help you build a broad range of relationships and manage them appropriately. Gill et al’s 2021 adaptation of Mendelow’s 1981 stakeholder map offers a useful way of mapping power of influence against level of interest so that you can easily keep track of which stakeholders require minimum effort and those relationships you need to manage closely.

How to ensure your ongoing inclusion and career advancement

Career development and advancement are key in fostering experiences of inclusion, yet succession planning is rarely as good as it could be. While we like to think organizations have robust and fair succession planning processes, in my experience most succession planning is less than robust and less than transparent.

Your organization may provide excellent career development programmes, in which case access these. Just as importantly, create a developmental relationship with the person to whom you report. Ensure you have discussions about your career aspirations and development on a regular basis. They will be your key sponsor in the organization. You want them to know you, know your strengths and capabilities and support your development. They are likely to be the gateway to stretch assignments, your potential involvement in strategic projects and secondments.

It is important to maintain a proactive approach to your continuous development in an organization. No-one is as interested, or invested, in your career as you, so create your own successful onboarding and use that model to develop and access information and relationship networks to foster the career you want.

Christine de Largy is an Executive Fellow with the Leadership Institute, London Business School. Prior to this she was Chair, UK Board Services Harvey Nash, advising board directors on career planning. Her interests focus on promoting the ESG agenda at board and executive level.