Survey: Most Companies Do Poor to Average Job Integrating New Managers

Please don’t spend your corporate dollars to work with me until you’ve read this entry. I’ve noted some tips below on how to improve the performance and retention of newly recruited managers. If you want to discuss further, let me know. I am happy to help. There is no sense in wasting time or money – or frazzling the nerves of everyone involved! – when you can easily resolve this issue.

Almost two-thirds of companies say they do less than a good job of integrating newly recruited managers and executives into their organizations, according to a survey by Salveson Stetson Group.

Sixty-five percent of companies said they do an average or poor job of assimilating newly hired management employees into their organizations, with 46 percent rating their efforts as average and 17 percent as poor, according to the survey of about 100 companies.

Only 25 percent said their organizations do a good job, while 10 percent categorized their integration efforts as excellent.

“Once the hiring process is complete, many companies fail to provide sufficient assistance to integrate newly recruited executives into their organizations, which can lead to poor performance and an early voluntary or involuntary exit,” said John Salveson, Salveson Stetson Group co-founder and principal.

Here’s what can you do to improve the performance and retention of newly recruited managers:

• Help adequately assimilate new hires into your organization’s culture.“Lack of cultural fit is one of the biggest reasons why newly recruited employees fail,” said Sally Stetson, Salveson Stetson Group co-founder and principal. “A comprehensive on-boarding process that identifies cultural values, introduces key internal stakeholders and takes the pulse of the business units and departments new executives are inheriting will significantly decrease ramp up time, and can turn potential hiring mistakes into key contributors to the leadership team.”

If you are a newly hired executive and you find your new company doesn’t have much of an on-boarding process, then create your own. Check out books like ‘The First Ninety Days’ as a guideline.

• Help clarify the most important critical objectives of the job. Assist new hires in determining the most important goals of their new jobs and establish a time frame for achieving them.“Both the employer and the new hire need to know what success looks like,” Salveson said. “Outlining a clear plan for the first year, which includes defined and measurable goals, facilitates a more successful integration. Without it, many new executives flounder a bit early on in their tenures while they attempt to identify key objectives. Having an agreed-upon plan serves as a framework to measure the new hire’s performance and aligns expectations between the executive and his/her boss. The newly recruited executive’s performance within the first 12 months will be judged primarily by how well he or she has attained these primary objectives.”
• Assist new hires in building team work with subordinates and peers.“New management hires need to establish good working relationships not only with their bosses but with their direct reports and peers, who will be crucial in assisting them to achieve their goals,” Stetson said. “New management hires frequently overlook the importance of establishing a rapport with peers within their functional areas and departments and in other areas of their organizations.”