New members have joined the board of directors of the company. As a result, the question arises among employees responsible for corporate governance: how to familiarize newcomers with the company’s activities and what is needed to ensure that they start working in a new place as quickly and efficiently as possible?
What is onboarding, and why is it needed in corporate management?
Forming the right user behavior model is a key aspect of growth for any digital business. When a client uses the service correctly, he solves his needs faster, and his loyalty grows. Thus, onboarding is an important tool for those team members who care about the business metrics of a digital service: product managers, marketers, sales managers, and HR specialists.
Adaptation is the first impression a new employee receives about the company. Without it, the company risks losing talented personnel: 26% of employees leave their jobs precisely because they were not helped to adapt to new conditions, and 44% seriously think about the dismissal during the trial period. Adaptation includes 3 stages:
- Onboarding
- Induction
- Adaptation.
The onboarding mechanism optimizes resources for employee training by automating processes and reducing the burden on trainers and the second line of support. It also increases employees’ efficiency during periods of corporate systems’ transformation.
Successful onboarding provides the employee with key information and the important context in areas such as their specific role, company policy, company culture, and business processes and systems. A good onboarding plan will cover three key areas:
- Organizational: how things work, company culture, mission, strategies, etc.
- Technical: job expectations, goals, defining success, etc.
- Social: creating a sense of community, interpersonal connections, building trust between team members, etc.
Induction program for a new board member
Changes in the composition of the board of directors occur annually, and practice has already developed methods for the fastest familiarization of newly elected directors with the activities of the company and management bodies. This process is called the Induction program. Members of the board of directors make strategic decisions for the company, so they must understand what methods are taking place and what documents and information they can request to study certain aspects of the activity.
A well-structured Induction program will allow the newly elected director to quickly gain a comprehensive understanding of the company and the challenges facing him so that he can most effectively fulfill his role on the board of directors. There are at least two approaches to organizing the Introductory program. If we talk about foreign practice, then, for example, the UK Corporate governance code indicates that the chairman of the board of directors is responsible for ensuring that all directors are fully and comprehensively familiar with the activities of the company.
This program should include several sections that describe the purpose of its adoption and existence in the company, the rights and obligations of members of the board of directors, and their responsibilities, and also regulate the familiarization of new directors with the activities of the company and the rules established in it. The board members and management must understand why the company has the program. It is difficult to overestimate the correct definition of the purpose of its approval.
The purpose of the program is to ensure that new members of the board of directors are familiar with all aspects of the company’s activities and are provided with the necessary information and documents to properly understand the strategic directions of the company’s development to their work on the board of directors and committees.