In a Monday marketing meeting, Karen (Marketing Director at ERG Payroll) invites Erica, an HR and payroll specialist, to discuss the unique challenges of hiring and onboarding leaders in a remote, post‑COVID environment. Erica explains that leadership hiring adds anxiety for existing teams and requires a structured "new‑leader assimilation" where a facilitator gathers questions from direct reports (communication preferences, expectations, 30/60/90‑day goals) and the new leader responds to build trust. They cover practical steps: appointing a trusted facilitator (often HR or a well‑engaged employee), using online resources to launch the process, and timing the assimilation within the first 30 days (or later for promotions or lagging integration). Internal promotions are highlighted as ideal pilot cases because the promoted employee already knows the organization. The conversation also touches on candidate expectations during the pandemic, the morale boost of promotions, and best‑practice tips such as choosing facilitators with collaborative, outgoing traits, involving cross‑functional participants beyond direct reports, and establishing post‑session follow‑ups for continuous feedback. Erica emphasizes starting simple, iterating, and not letting remote constraints deter organizations from implementing these assimilation programs.
Chapters
Welcome to the Monday marketing meeting. As you guys all know, I'm Karen. I am the marketing director for ERG Payroll and Grow by ERG. Usually you're used to seeing Matt's face on the other side, but today we have a special guest speaker, which I'm really excited about. Um, Erica, who is our HR and payroll specialist at ERG Payroll, and she kind of brought up a good point from a couple of weeks back that she wants to talk about today. So we, We're really excited to get her in here and talk about this. So welcome, Erica, to your first Monday Marketing meeting.
Thank you. I'm excited to be your guest today.
First guest. Maybe you'll inspire others to want to join in. So a couple of weeks ago, Matt and I talked about employee onboarding in a remote environment, how employee onboarding right now is a little bit different, especially, you know, from COVID-19 and how, you know, employers have had to make the shift. To now hiring employee, you know, new employees remotely. And after that video went out, you sent us a note about how there's another complexity of the whole onboarding, and that is with leadership roles, because taking a leadership role and hiring for them is a little bit different than a non-leadership role. And that a lot of companies right now are actually facing some challenges with that. So you have a great idea and have some things to talk about today. And I think we're going to be able to help a lot of employers who are facing this and giving them some good ideas to better their leader, their new leadership roles in the upcoming months, and especially for companies who are now thinking about going, you know, more remote workplace forever. So they're going to have to really, you know, down the road, there's going to be leadership positions that come up that once they hit it, they may not know where to start. So I'm excited to talk about this today. And I think, you know, we'll just start in with kind of the hiring process, you know, start with, you know, what are some ways that hiring for a leadership position is different than hiring for a non-leadership position in this remote environment?
So hiring for a new leader in an organization is difficult even when you're not having to deal with the remote aspects. You know, there's a lot of anxiety for the employees who are getting ready to have a new leader. And then also for the management team, you have to ask, how do I integrate this new leader into their role? How do I help their team understand who they are and what their objectives are? And those kinds of things. So something that is pretty common practice in person would actually be to hold a new leader assimilation. And that's, that's something that is typically done partially behind the scenes and then also on site. So the way that that would work is you would normally have a facilitator and they would help your participants, the direct reports, generate some questions that they may have for their new leader. Questions around, you know, what are their preferences for communication style, what are their expectations and their goals What do they see happening in the first 30, 60, 90 days? Those kind of questions. From there, the new leader would actually digest all of that information and come back with responses for the participants, their direct reports, and then the whole group would come together in order to go through the information. And the purpose of that is to help establish trust and really help that leader be more effective up front.
Okay. So this is, you know, for people who haven't even done this, you know, they haven't even done this when working in an office. What is some good, you know, maybe one or two key points to starting this? You know, that how they can get this going, how they can get the team involved and how they can get their leaders going on this just because they might not have ever thought about this before.
If it's something that you've never done before, you— it's pretty easy to implement. I would definitely suggest identifying someone in your organization that could be your facilitator. So someone that would take the process from start to end. Typically that would be someone that's in an HR role, or you could use someone within the organization that's well trusted and engaging and can facilitate this type of meeting in an engaging way. And then from there, there are a lot of resources online that you could actually use in order to help get your program started.
Perfect. And what is the ideal time to, you know, to conduct these new leader simulations?
Ideally, if it's a new employee, you want to do it within the first 30 days. So, you know, once there's an awareness that the new leader is in place and who they are, you want to do that as quickly as possible. Not just for a new leader coming into the organization, but also if you made a promotion internally, it's a good idea to hold one of these. But if you find yourself in a situation where maybe a new leader hasn't become as cohesive with the team, or maybe isn't as far along as what you'd expected in their relationship development, you can even do this a little further on down the road. So say 6 months from the new hire. It's still a good idea to have this program in place.
On a side note, you actually brought up something there that could probably be helpful is this whole promotion aspect. So we've been mainly talking about just a new hire, completely new to the company, but there's promotions that may be being held off because, you know, we're involved with these trainings and all. Is there any additional— you know, should employers be holding back on promotions or should they be using this as a practice? So, you know, we want to start— since the employee's already a part of the company, they're comfortable with the company, like, could that be a starting role of practicing these assimilations? You know, we want to start doing this with new hires in this leadership role. You know, you've been promoted, we would love to run through this. What are your thoughts on using an existing employee to use this as a practice round?
Oh yeah, that's actually a great starting point. That way everyone is already somewhat familiar with the organization. It's going to facilitate a different kind of conversation. So yeah, absolutely for an internal promotion. I mean, there's no reason right now if you have a need to not promote or hire into a leadership role. If you wait, eventually there's going to be a whole lot of competition when it comes time to fill your vacant leadership roles. So if you have the need, don't put it off, do it now, and then find a way to make all of these other pieces happen.
Do you think people who are applying to these higher leadership roles and people in companies who are looking to be promoted, do you think that they have an expectation that this isn't going to happen right now because of everything that's going on? Like in their mindset, do you think that these, you know, it's going to take much longer than usual to get hired for this position? It's going to be a much longer process than I've been used to in the past. In my past experiences. You know, people I think who are going through these adjustments with these different, you know, in their position right now aren't really looking for a promotion because, you know, the workplace is so unsteady back and forth. They're getting used to working from home. They're getting used to everything else. So I do think personally it's a really good time that, like you said, for a promotion to happen or a new leader to come in because it gives that excitement and it gives, you know, a little of something different that's on a positive note for companies.
Yeah, hope, and it helps build confidence that the organization is moving forward. Absolutely. Right now, a lot of folks, they're just happy to still have a job, right? So if they see the company doing things to move them forward and grow and build, it's absolutely going to build confidence and hope in the organization.
I also think it builds a lot with everyone else in the organization that We are doing, you know, we're still doing good. Any, you know, unease that they had about what's going on with COVID-19 with their company, you know, there's been promotions, they're hiring new people. That's a positive impact for the company as a whole, you know, that hope outlook across everyone. But sorry to get off topic. I get all going, but going back to the simulations, just tell us like, what are best practices? What would you tell? And I know you've done this in the past. Just so everyone knows, Erica has a recruiting and she's big time, has tons of experience in that hiring process. And what would you say just are best practices for these assimilations? What are your tips, your tricks that employers could take from it?
If you're going to put something like this in place, whether you decide to do it once or you decide to do it on an ongoing basis, make sure you choose someone in the organization that can facilitate it well. It has to be someone that can host an engaging live session, but someone who can also help pull questions out of participants that are going to be value-added and help the new leader be seen, you know, not just as someone with goals and aspirations and, you know, going to hold someone accountable, but can make them a real person too. You know, so what are your pet peeves, right? Like, those are questions that somebody may not think to ask their new leader. But they're things you should know and they make us more human. So picking someone who's good with that is definitely going to make your program more successful.
So if you could say, and this is just something for them to think about, like 3 top personality traits of the person to conduct it, you know, is it outgoing or is it more laid back? You don't want to be too pressure, you know, or what would be your 3 kind of traits that you're going to look for for this?
They're going to be collaborative. Definitely someone who's a little bit more outgoing, and it's helpful for that person to understand the business.
Perfect. Okay. Is there any other tips or tricks that you have for them?
Just, just, you have to have a starting point when you do something like this, and it doesn't have to be an intimidating program that you know, it takes you a long time to develop or has a really strict process, just start, right? Hit place and start.
And then they can over time come back and I think, I don't think we've hit on it, but possibly when the new hire, you know, after a couple months, get feedback, get the continuous feedback and how they can better this over time and make this process, this assimilation process work for that company's, You know, you if maybe test out different conductors, you know, take 3 people that you think are the best fit and see over time who works the best. And then from there, you know, get your feedback and now you have options, but you know, maybe your number 1 candidate, you know, your main one that you want to go after. Would that be something that, you know, is there any additional questions for feedback that you would get from the new leaders or, you know, people who have been promoted?
After their session? Yeah, I would definitely suggest if it does— if something doesn't happen prior to the new leader assimilation, that afterwards that new leader then go out and have a touch point with each individual, see if they have any kind of follow-up questions or anything that they'd like to touch base on. That's good. And then I would also throw in there too that when you're trying to decide who your participants are going to be in the session, Typically, it's going to be the direct reports of the new leader, but there could be situations where you want to pull other folks into the group as well. So, for example, if you've hired a new operational director and you're in a manufacturing environment, their direct reports may be operations managers. There may be value in pulling in an EH&S leader, a quality leader, an engineering leader. Because those are people that they're going to work with on a regular basis. So if you can help fast-track that relationship and help establish some collaboration there, there may be other people in the circle of influence you want to pull in as participants.
That's all great. I think this is such a different topic that, you know, some companies may be doing, some companies may not be doing, some, you know, may have tried in the past and followed through with it, but this is a great time as more of the remote aspects come into play with companies, that this can be a huge incentive and a huge advantage for them to start getting into this rhythm of when any new leader comes in. So I think that you've hit on a lot of great points, and as all of you know, you're more than welcome to email us for any additional questions. Also, how Erica spoke up, and yes, she is part of our internal team, but She had an idea from one of our videos from one of the previous Monday Marketing Meetings and just said, you know, this is something I think that we can talk about. And we're always open to hearing that from you guys and hearing, you know, what's on your mind, what topics could you hear more about, you know, if there's an idea that you have, we can go in and, you know, talk about it. So I love how you reached out and I love that you are, you know, in there listening in and throwing out ideas, and I hope that inspires others to come in. And also, we're always looking for some guest speakers on these meetings. So just like Erica was our first one, we don't have to have internal positions to fill these, you know, guest speaker spots. If you want to get in and talk about something that's related to HR marketing, we're more than happy to have you. The more the better. We want to make this fun and exciting for everybody. So Erica, is there anything else you kind of want to hit on today? I think everything you hit on was great about the assimilations and, you know, this whole thought process of hiring new leaders in this remote environment and how it's going to be a little bit different.
Definitely different, but not a cause to stop.
Cause to start. Start doing it. Well, perfect. Well, thank you so much, Erica, for joining in. Matt will be back and we will have a marketing talk topic as well next week, but today we really just want to focus on this HR topic and the leadership roles. So thank you so much, Erica. You have a great rest of your day.
