Sharlyn Lauby - Manager Onboarding: 5 Steps for Setting New Leaders Up for Success

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Copyright 2016 Sharlyn Lauby. All rights reserved.

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Interior and Cover Design: Terry Biddle, Shirley E.M. Raybuck

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

(on file)

ISBN: 978-1-586-44407-5

16-0225

A book never happens alone.
As a consultant, Ive always said that I work with terrific people and companies on fun, engaging projects. This one is no exception. My thanks to Christopher Anzalone and the entire SHRM team for giving me this opportunity. It has been fabulous working with you on this project. Your guidance and suggestions have helped shaped the human resources conversation about manager onboarding. A huge thanks to all of the people and organizations who shared their onboarding best practices and lessons learned. You didnt have to, but we are all glad you did. Youre leading the way for better manager onboarding programs to exist. Lastly, all my love and admiration to my husband, Keith, who still listens to my crazy ideas. Im one very lucky girl. Thank you all and enjoy the read. Cheers!

Sharlyn Lauby

Onboarding is such an important part of an employees success. It starts well before the employee decides to apply with an organization in the forms of employment branding and the candidate experience. It includes sourcing, interviewing, background checks, and extending the job offer. Next comes new-hire paperwork, orientation, and training. Lastly, performance management. On some level much of onboarding touches every single component in the employee life cycle.

Yet, when it comes to onboarding managers, we do nothing or very little.

But we expect managers to help onboard new employees. They are an active part of the recruiting process. Managers are expected to train and develop employees. They are required to coach and mentor employees for exceptional performance.

Its time for organizations to give managers the same foundation for success that we give new-hire employees.

In 2015, I had this conversation with Christopher Anzalone at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Annual Conference & Exposition. He mentioned to me that manager onboarding was a frequently requested topic in the SHRM Knowledge Center. My immediate response was Yes! I can see why this would be a widely requested topic. What amazed me was that no one was really talking about it. So I decided to take on the challenge.

This book will walk you through the process of creating a manager onboarding program. While onboarding has many touchpoints in a managers career, this book is going to focus on the new-hire or newly promoted phase. Were going to focus on the part of the process that hasnt been created. The part that desperately needs to be created.

Companies havent stopped hiring people. There are many great books out there about branding, strategy, sourcing, and hiring. There are also dozens of books about training and performance management. This book will help you set the manager youve just hired or promoted up for success.

And in my humble opinion, this couldnt come at a better time.

Job seekers are doing their homework before they apply with an organization. Research from Glassdoor showed that 62 percent of job seekers are influenced by employee reviews. Those reviews include corporate culture, management practices, and the work environment. Candidates are making judgement calls about your organization long before they apply.

A poor candidate experience is costing companies. A survey from Recruiting Daily revealed that 47 percent of candidates have no previous relationship with a company before applying for a job. This means the candidate experience is the first impression of a company. Couple that with 11 percent of respondents saying their candidate experience was bad enough to sever all ties with the company (as a candidate and a customer), and its worth paying attention to.

Employee engagement is stagnant. Gallup reported that employee engagement in the U.S. was stagnant in 2015 at 32 percent. Yes, three out of five employees are not engaged. I know we toss around the term employee engagement a lot, but the truth is engagement matters to the bottom line.

Who touches all of these processes? Thats right. Managers.

So it makes absolutely no sense to simply promote or hire someone into a manager position and not give him or her the tools for success.

I wrote this book for human resource and business professionals who are looking for a roadmap to designing a manager onboarding program. My goal was to share just a bit of theory and a whole lot of practical knowledge. I also reached out to my friends, colleagues, and clients for stories and examples about how their onboarding programs workboth for new employees as well as for managers. We dont have to recreate the wheel, and you can use their best practices as inspiration for your own.

While at a 2015 conference in London, I heard many HR executives talk about the need to invest in managers. I believe onboarding is the place to start. Let managers know on day one that youre invested in their success because you need for them to be engaged too. Ive never seen a disengaged manager engage his or her team members and coach them to high performance.

Heres how were going to tackle the project. The book is divided into six parts.

In , Manager Onboarding Defined, Ive broken down the definitions so were on the same page. You might need this when it comes to explaining and selling the program to senior management.

, The Business Case for Manager Onboarding, offers some thoughts on how to sell the program to senior management and acquire the resources (that is, head count and budget) necessary for the project.