Onboarding: How to Get Your New Employees Up to Speed in Half the Time

CareerCast - Life-long Career Development

Mary Vonnegut When does a new job actually begin? According to Mary Vonnegut, your new job begins the moment you accept the offer. In this CareerCast, Mary, partner of PrimeGenesis and coauthor of Onboarding: How to Get Your New Employees Up to Speed in Half the Time, shares her insights, proven solutions, and advanced technologies for successfully transitioning into a new role.

Aired April 15, 2011

Mary Vonnegut has a unique perspective on helping leaders accelerate transitions based on her combined senior line management and consulting experience. After her education at Middlebury College and Harvard Business School, Mary progressed through a series of direct and database marketing experiences at companies including Hanover Direct, Ross-Simons, and Passport Internationale, leading up to her role as president of Gumps by Mail.

Over the past decade, Mary has worked as an independent consultant to CEOs and COOs of private companies that drive revenue with multichannel marketing. She has launched new businesses, built marketing departments from the ground up, and crafted growth strategies. Now she is a partner in the executive onboarding and transition acceleration group PrimeGenesis. Since its inception in 2002, PrimeGenesis has reduced the risk of failure fourfold for executives the firm has worked with—from 40 percent to 10 percent—through single-minded focus on driving new leaders and their teams to deliver better results faster over the first 100 days.

Mary is coauthor of Onboarding: How to Get Your New Employees Up to Speed in Half the Time (Wiley 2009).

The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan: How to Take Charge, Build Your Team, and Get Immediate Results by George B. Bradt, Jayme A. Check, and Jorge E. Pedraza (2009)

Onboarding: How to Get Your New Employees Up to Speed in Half the Time by George B. Bradt and Mary Vonnegut (2009)

Your Next Move: The Leader’s Guide to Navigating Major Career Transitions by Michael Watkins (2009)

You’re in Charge, Now What? The 8 Point Plan by Thomas J. Neff and James M. Citrin (2007)

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter (2007)

Right from the Start: Taking Charge in a New Leadership Role by Dan Ciampa and Michael Watkins (2005)

The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels by Michael Watkins (2003)

Mary Vonnegut Onboarding

Read an excerpt of Onboarding: How to Get Your New Employees Up to Speed in Half the Time by George B. Bradt and Mary Vonnegut. 

Read the excerpt