Onboarding for the Long Term: People, Things, and Expectations

Too often, a nonprofit board or hiring committee will celebrate the appointment of a new leader, give themselves a pat on the back for a great process (or at least a process they got through!) and relax into a well-earned deep breath. Meanwhile, they invite the new leader to flounder through benign neglect when active and engaged onboarding is warranted and essential.


Why is an onboarding plan so important for a nonprofit Executive Director?
One reason is that without a clear plan, ownership for the Executive Director onboarding process is diffused. When responsibility is diffused, everyone can assume someone else is picking up the slack. There are terrible examples of this in daily life - for instance, children at a pool are actually less safe when there are more adults present, since each adult can assume that another is paying attention. 

Another factor has to do with the unusual tension of the board managing the Executive Director, while being removed from the day to day activities of the organization. Boards become used to deferring to the Executive Director to run the show, which can create idiosyncratic processes and expectations for the new hire to navigate. (That’s a longer conversation about how weird the role of boards are for nonprofit organizations.) The board does not know what they don’t know - because the former Executive Director held that knowledge.


All of this can leave a new Executive Director set to fail or burnout. This is especially true when the Executive Director represents a significant difference for the organization - such as succeeding a long-serving leader or having a different gender, race, or ethnic identity. 


People are more comfortable with what is familiar and can confuse a different way of doing something with being not as good. This is salient as predominantly-white boards hire their first leaders of color and have unrealistic or unsupported expectations. Failing to have a strong onboarding plan and clear expectations of what success looks like creates and perpetuates barriers to success and welcomes biased assessments of performance. 


So, what to do?
Boards should commit to having an onboarding plan for the new Executive Director. Just as they formed a search committee, they should form a Transition Committee, focused on creating a robust onboarding plan that spans at least a year, and ideally two.


An onboarding plan can be focused on three things: People, Things, and Expectations.

  1. People: Who does the new ED need to know, and who will introduce them? This includes current staff, clients, board members, key funders, collaborative partners, and community stakeholders. There should be a list, briefing documents on relationships and history, and a plan for transitioning (or creating!) the key relationships that are vital for success.

  2. Things: This is most familiar to a traditional orientation. Where are the keys? What are the passwords? Where are the HR documents? How do you write a check? This is the operations manual for the organization and the role.

  3. Expectations: In many ways, this is the most important and overlooked aspect of the onboarding process. What are the expectations for the next six months? Year? Two years? What are the organizational goals and how will success be measured? Importantly, expectations should be framed both in terms of what the board expects of the new leader, but also what the new Executive Director can expect of the board. 


The board can ask the outgoing Executive Director and staff for help in creating the onboarding plan related to “People” and “Things.” For “Expectations,” the board should assess and consider the organization mission, budget, strategic priorities, and resources and be honest, transparent, and thoughtful in what is realistic and appropriate. 


The onboarding process is so vitally important, that JUNE Partners talks to clients about it as part of every search process and offers an additional service to work with boards and organizations in developing a robust onboarding plan.

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