Ensuring the Success of Your Newly Hired Leader: A Guide for Managers - Part 1

Tell me if this sounds familiar.  You’ve just hired a new leader who had a fantastic resume, interview and references; or maybe they were an excellent staff member already working for you in a customer-facing role who you've promoted.  Whether you’ve witnessed their work first hand, or confirmed it through the hiring process, your new leader is committed to the organization, great with customers and guests, understands how to provide a quality experience or program, has great common sense – a really stellar employee that you feel confident is ready to step up and become a phenomenal leader on your team.

Perhaps you spend a lot of time with them in the first few weeks on the job giving them lots of your time, feedback and support.  Often though, as senior leaders, our already more than full time job gets the best of us and sooner than even a few weeks we’ve let this new leader move forward on their own.  You’ve told them to let you know if they have questions, need support, your door is always open, etc.  You have regularly scheduled one-on-one meetings that you rarely, or occasionally, reschedule.  Now, its 6-12 months later and the proverbial poop has hit the fan.  They’ve made a big mistake, or had some big blow up in their program, or maybe it’s just that they aren’t delivering the results in terms of job duties, program offerings or supervision that you’ve expected and you’re concerned they aren’t the right fit after all.  Or, maybe they just turned in their resignation, and you’re shocked.

Sadly, I've seen this happen too often with really good people, including one or two of my own. In some cases we may have tried to save them by way of something like a "performance improvement plan”, or maybe bringing in a coach or mentor, but in my experience it's rare that this approach has the desired effect at this point and we end up parting ways either through our choice or theirs. While we may think we are implementing tools and support to help them be successful at this point, it often doesn't feel that way to the employee. After all, we left them on their own for months and now that they are really struggling, or even failing, we want to come in with support? Why should they trust that?

Now, please take off your supervisor hat and imagine the scenario from a different perspective. You're a stellar customer-facing employee, who has always received fantastic performance appraisals and positive feedback. You've been told what a rock star you are time and again, because you are! An opportunity to join or to move up in an organization that you deeply respect opens up and you, likely with encouragement from those in the organization, apply and get the job. It's a dream come true! Suddenly, though, you've got a ton of new responsibilities that you didn't have before and many of them you don't have any experience with. Perhaps it's creating or managing a budget, program development, marketing, supervision, or community engagement. Or maybe it's one of the hardest of all - supervising people who just yesterday were your peers. Those all have steep learning curves. You were honest about your skills in your resume and your interview and you were told training would be provided. And sure, your supervisor spent some extra time with you over the first few weeks going over things.

It’s been a few months now. You see your supervisor every couple of weeks at your one-on-one meetings. They’ve only canceled on you a couple of times, and always for a good reason, and sometimes they seem like they've got plenty of time for that meeting.  Beyond that, though, you're on your own. You're feeling overwhelmed, in over your head, and like you were never qualified for this job to begin with. They said to come to you with questions but can you trust that? How do you, yesterday's super star, go to your boss and say you need help? Won't that show you can't do the job? Won't they be disappointed in you? They had such high expectations, how can you let them down? And so, you jump online and start your new job search.

When we, as senior leaders, question turnover – whether their choice or ours - of stellar staff who only recently joined or moved up in our organization, we need dig deep into the ‘why’ it’s happening. In actuality, we should always look closely at turnover, but let's focus on our newer hires for now. The forgoing scenarios are not uncommon and to some degree they are understandable, but the results are detrimental to everyone involved.  So what do we do?

It’s time to rethink and recommit to how we set up new leadership staff members.  Rather than waiting for them to get to the point where they are failing or ready to quit, let’s put a plan in place to help them succeed from the beginning.  The important piece of this, though, is that it’s got to be plan that we can truly implement.  We’ve got to be honest about our capacity to train and support them as the supervisor who already has a full-time (and then some) job ourselves.  And let’s also be honest about how candid they may or may not be about how they are doing as they try to prove to us we made the right choice. 

Often I hear colleagues and senior leaders bemoan “this new generation” – whether it’s turnover, or struggling with failure, or unwillingness to ask for help.  They talk about how different we were “back in the day” and scratch their heads wondering why this generation isn’t just like us.  First, we’ve got to stop that blame habit and start looking at ways to be proactive.  The current workforce is the reality we’re working with - and if we’re truly being honest, I bet that when we were in some of our earliest leadership roles our supervisors had plenty of concerns about our generation as well. So, let’s stop looking at the past through our rose-colored glasses, but keep them on – they help us look with optimism - and look forward.  Then with that view, let’s explore how can we support all of our leaders, meeting them wherever they are, and set them up for real success.

Prioritize!

For this new leader to be successful, they will need a lot of support, and this needs to be the top priority of the supervisor.  I want to be clear here that this is true for every level, from the C-Suite to the mid-level manager. Take a look at your calendar and schedule training time.  Before their first day, think about all the major components of their job and schedule significant time to really train them on each.  It doesn’t always have to be you doing the training, tap into your team.  Is there someone really good at budgeting? If so, schedule your new leadership staff member some time with them, making sure the budget superstar understands what you need them to do. (This has the added benefit of letting your budget superstar know you notice and appreciate them.)  Has someone else on your team had to go through a similar learning curve? If so, set up a time for them to share their experience and specifically what helped them get things figured out.  And while it’s absolutely ok, and really ideal, to lean on the strong folks on your team, make sure you are doing some of the training as well.  This time together will help this new leader build relationships with their new team, including you, and often that is the most important benefit to new staff.

Make sure to communicate to the rest of the team that you will be prioritizing this new leader in the first few months.  Explain that means you will be working around the needs of this new leader and won’t be available during times when you are working or meeting with them.  Work really hard to honor these commitments, this will speak volumes to this new leader and will have a significant impact on their satisfaction and retention.

Think, too, about their very first day.  First days are likely both exciting and stressful for everyone involved.  You are about to make a first impression, and you only get one chance, so think about what you want that first impression to be. Here are some suggestions:

• Make sure you’ve set up their space, whether it’s a desk in a shared space or an office.  Ensure that it’s clean and that there aren’t remnants of prior staff.  Having a small welcome gift there is a nice touch as well.

• Arrive well before their start time and take care of any of your needs before their arrival.

• Keep your calendar clear so you can greet and welcome them and introduce them to the team. This means also being intentional about selecting their start date.

• If appropriate, give them a tour.  Make sure they know important things like where the restrooms are, where they can store lunch if they brought it, if there’s a break area, etc.

• If they will have business cards, ID badges, name tags or placards, etc. order those as soon as you’ve made the hire so they are there and ready for them

• If you’re providing them a desk phone or computer, make sure it’s set up for them in advance with their name as applicable, not the name of the person who was at that space before.

• Bonus tip! When you email them to confirm first day, what they need to bring, etc. you can again help set them up for success by letting them know what to expect. Make sure to include what time their day will start & end on that first day, where to go when they first arrive, as well as some of the company norms. Where should they park? Are there any security needs for accessing the workspace? Do most folks bring their lunch or do they go out? If they go out, can you arrange to take the team out for lunch that day? If lunch will be on their own, is there a certain time they should plan for their lunch break?

Now consider your situation - the position, the person and the workplace. What else can you do to help them feel welcome and that you’re excited about their arrival?

Consider a Coach

For both the employee and the organziation, there are many benefits of hiring a professional coach. Often though, we don’t think of it until either the employee is struggling or they’ve been with us a long time and we have decided to help them get ready to move into a higher level position.  Coaching has been shown to increase employee retention, satisfaction and and productivity. What might the result be if we created a "culture of coaching" for our teams?

I recently started working with an organization who reached out to me BEFORE they hired their new leader.  They knew they would be hiring an internal candidate and they wanted to help set this person up for success, so they included the support of a coach as part of the onboarding and first six months plan.  Brilliant! 

Think about how this changes the message.  This says, we know you’re going to need some help and we’re honest about our capacity to provide that ourselves.  It also says, we understand you need someone neutral who you can say anything to without fear of reprisal.  In this case, they further empowered the employee by giving them the choice between a few different coaches.  They let the employee interview each and choose the one they felt was the best fit.  (Yay! They chose me!)

While hiring a coach is a small financial investment, it is significantly less than what you will spend if you’ve got to rehire this position again, especially in 6-18 months.  There are typically a variety of levels of support available so you can select what makes the most sense.  In the case above, we meet once a month over zoom for six months.  The package also includes email support and a few “phone-a-friend” options where they can get nearly immediate support in the event of more critical situations. Sound appealing? Visit our website for more information on coaching packages through Ready 2 Imagine.

Only The Beginning

Above I've talked about prioritizing our new hire, planning for their onboarding and initial training, and the benefits of a coach. This, though, is just the beginning. In part 2 of this series I discuss the importance of one-on-one meetings and share an effective meeting format. We simply can't hire someone great and expect them to thrive on their own. It takes a lot of focus and commitment on our part, and when we do it, it will pay off in increased employee satisfaction and retention which increases our ability to serve our customers more effectively and make our work even more productive.