HR.com Thought Leaders newsletter for July 5, 2007

Many of you may be familiar with Merry Marcus and her firm, Break Through Consulting.  Merry has been involved with HR.com for several years.  She is HR.com's featured executive coach and has her own "Ask the Coach" column on our site.  Merry's coaching firm has provided top quality executive coaching sessions for the attendees at HR.com's national conference for the last several years, and will partner with us again this year.

Break Through Consulting's clients are multibillion-dollar global market leaders in various industry segments.  Merry has a specialty in coaching senior level HR professionals to be "boardroom relevant" and incorporate a line leader's point of view into their thinking.  She has extensive experience in using onboarding to support new hires' success and to accelerate their ability to have an immediate positive impact on business results.  Merry is a seasoned corporate executive and has held the position of VP of Sales for two Fortune 100 companies.


KE: How do you define "executive onboarding coaching" - is it a subset of standard executive coaching?

MM:  Onboarding coaching is a subset of regular coaching.  It is for high potential talent at the time of transition where the stakes are very high for the employee, the business goals, and the organization. Onboarding coaching is further defined by the time in your career when critical and lasting impressions are being made and when you couldn't possibly have a full view perspective into your company, your business and/or your culture.  Executive onboarding coaching can be further defined as coaching for high potentials and new executives transitioning into your organization, generally through a routine search.  The definition can also include coaching for current employees newly promoted into a position of significance.

KE: What is the business case for supporting new executives through an onboarding coaching process?

MM:  Onboarding coaching solves a specific issue or issues for a business.  It is framed in business language and has clearly defined metrics that it sets out to meet, measure, and move.  Your business case must be boardroom relevant, or strategic to the highest level of the organization.  You will want to work with your coaching partner to customize the program to be defined by your unique market, human capital and P&L challenges.

One business case metric that several of our current client partners are using to secure their funding for onboarding coaching is employee engagement.  Engagement is on many global CEOs' top five agenda items for 2007 and 2008.  Engagement provides a clear advantage.  If your company has improved engagement scores you will have increased revenue and increased profit, according to a global survey by Hewitt and Associates.  Coaching consistently produces a more engaged employee.  Engagement provides a clear advantage in increased revenue and profit. Engagement is one hard metric for you to consider.

To make a business case for onboarding coaching, you solve a business issue, you look at the history of your new hires and your new promotes, you cite any available statistic such as retention, engagement or promotability, and you also understand your particular anecdotal evidence. You are ready to solve this issue with onboarding coaching when you understand your company's particular metrics.

KE:  Other than engagement scores, are there other business statistics to consider relative to the need for onboarding coaching?