Thirty-nine per-cent of Senior Executives starting a new job find their first three months in the role so tough that they consider walking away from the organisation according to research by professional recruitment and executive search firm Harvey Nash.
The report ‘Onboard and upwards: How an executive’s first 90 days make or break the ones that follow’ was conducted among more than 280 executives changing jobs in the past year and suggests that executives are being poorly recruited and inducted into UK businesses.
One in five respondents feel they do not fit in well with the business once they have been hired due to inaccurate information about the role and organisation at the business stage and in terms of induction into new companies, only 24% stated they felt their induction was very useful.
Research also found that 73% plan to leave within three years and 37% plan to stay less than a year or are even already looking for new posts.
The findings also suggest that executives often lack a method of measuring their own performance and contribution once they have started a new job, with 46% admitting that their key performance indicators are not agreed within the first month, and 32% say they complete their first 90 days with goals still not set out.
Lucy McGee, Director of Leadership Services at Harvey Nash, commented on the findings:
“If you are investing in recruiting a senior employee, you would expect the rest of the management to be buying into that fresh perspective.
“Perhaps CEOs are better at expressing their vision of the future than they are taking on board new perspectives. But, respondents said they get a lot of time with the CEO at the beginning so it’s essential that they focus those conversations on what they expect from them.”
