In an ideal world, every employee would be solidly prepared for a transition involving a promotion or new roles and responsibilities. And yet so often, we leave this to chance. We hope that the person in charge will make sure the employee has all of the right information, tools, and support to perform the new job effectively.
Unfortunately, this often doesn’t happen. Employees are expected to figure it out, and many get overwhelmed, burned out, and demotivated in the process. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that – due to baby boomer retirement and other workforce demographic shifts – rising millennial leaders are being promoted an average of 10 years earlier than prior generations and have a steeper learning curve as a result.
Fortunately, providing a high tech, high touch experience for new managers and others transitioning to new roles and responsibilities can be a relatively seamless extension to your existing strategic onboarding activities. Here are a few things to keep in mind.
Provide relevant, on-demand learning content in a variety of formats
Whether you’ve created online courses in short or long format or have curated resources from other places, use your HRMS to offer employees their choice of training, being as flexible as you can regarding how and where they master the necessary information. Outline essential competencies, track training completion and skill acquisition, and suggest next steps.
Match employees with those already doing their new jobs
Your HMIS is a great place to pair newbies with seasoned managers or those performing especially well in a job function. Both formal and informal mentorship is useful in helping transitioning employees see a clear path forward and feel comfortable, supported, and confident in their new roles.
Document expectations and goals
Employees with new roles and responsibilities should understand exactly what they need to accomplish in the context of the larger organization, when specific goals must be achieved, how performance will be measured, and how other people (managers, reports, colleagues, etc.) will be involved. These details, highly customized to each new role, should be proactively communicated and reinforced.
Schedule and execute more frequent check-ins to accommodate assimilation
Managers of transitioning employees should be prompted to pay extra attention to those ramping up in a new position. This might include weekly in-person or video discussions that address both the personal and professional demands of the new job. Topics might include time management, cross-departmental rapport building, and leader-facing communication.
Demonstrate psychological comprehension
While there’s no substitute for a leader taking a new manager to lunch with inquiring after her well-being, software can go a long way in illustrating that your organization understands the obstacles and pressures of a new role and wants to be a partner in alleviating them. For instance, an embedded app that serves up a motivational “quote of the day” could set an important tone for an employee’s new journey.
Did you miss last week’s webinar on managing effective transitions? Catch the replay here and let us know what you think!
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