FROM OUR CEO

Why Your NEWCOMERS Do Not Generate Value Fast Enough! – And What You Can Do About It!

September 26th, 2019 | From our CEO

I am sure you can recognize this situation about why your newcomer do not generate value fast.

The resources involved in the recruitment of a newcomer:

1. You have spent thousands of dollars in form of advertisements, job fairs, and search & selection…
2. You have spent months on reviewing applications, interviewing, testing, and discussing candidates…
3. You have finally signed a contract with your ideal candidate after a cumbersome negotiation of a 30-page contract…

You now want your newcomer to generate value to your business as fast as possible! The value you expect them to. So, I am sure you also can recognize this situation!

The resources involved in the onboarding of a newcomer:

1. You have planned a corporate onboarding program.
2. You want the newcomer to meet the team, the immediate manager, attend a few corporate introductory classes, and so forth. These are all structured and planned activities.

But who will take your newcomer for lunch, and socialize with the new employee at the water cooler? – Is it the high performer? This is probably what you hope for. I am sorry to reveal the ugly truth: it is probably not!

The Three Key Learnings on How Newcomers Onboard & Socialize

Innovisor diagnosed the connectivity inside a global company with +7000 employees. The insights on onboarding were surprising!

Three key learnings were identified when we combined the organizational network data with the available organizational performance data.

The key learnings were:

1. 1. High performers spend most of their interaction capacity on other high performers

   2. Solid performers interacted primarily with other solid performers, and very limited with the high performers

      Not really surprising! The real surprise was that:

   3.  Newcomers predominantly interacted with the low performers.

Why do Newcomers Predominantly Interact with Low Performers

There is not an universal answer.

I do, however, know that people preferably interact with people like themselves, or with people they aspire to be like (Read another example here – Who Are You Collaborating With? Chances Are, She Is Just Like You).

Clearly, this is also the case inside this company. The high performers prefer to interact with other high performers, and that solid performers aspire to interact with high performers. The newcomers do not have a company track record yet, they do not have any credibility yet… and the trust of the high and solid performers has to be earned.

So the newcomers are not even on the radar for solid performers and high performers. Instead the newcomers are reaching out to the low performers, who in return welcome that their opinions and thoughts are sought out.

What is the learning on your next onboarding program?

To me the learning is that you have to be much more disciplined about, how your onboarding program should build the right relations for your newcomer.

If you have a laissez-faire approach to building the right internal relations, you miss an important opportunity for value generation.

This is perfectly illustrated in the below network visualization. Who do you want your newcomer to meet first? A or B?

Who would you introduce a new employee to? A or B?

You probably prefer B. And you certainly do not want them to connect to anyone at the periphery.

The learning is that it is only by connecting your newcomers to the right people in the organization that your newcomer can generate value fast. Doing that requires discipline!

Originally posted by Jeppe Vilstrup Hansgaard on https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-your-newcomers-do-generate-value-fast-enough-what-hansgaard/