Finding gaps in a new company

12 Comments

1. AnonymousFebruary 8,2025 at 6:37PM UTC

   You may be driven and "visionary" but from my experience, that's only maybe half of equation for successful improvement and leadership.

   There's a diplomacy and a personal touch to great leadership and building support. To create an atmosphere of camaraderie with leadership is a hard balance to strike. You can't bulldoze yout way through the plan and hope to be accepted and successful.

   You will need to invite the HR Specialist into the discussion early and often. Recruitment is not a separate department and HR must feel heard and have space to be a leader as well.

   I understand your ambition but you need to be inclusive in your approach because you are not yet a leader. The CEO has noticed your potential but you've only noticed gaps in an area of the business that are not 100% yours. You are only a teammate not in charge of outcomes beyond recruiting. So listen more than you speak and do not get too far ahead of yourself. At your current level you're going to need massive support and respect that takes time, effort and support building. Your colleagues need to respect that you have a seat at the table because of your talent and expertise not because of will alone.

   1. Be emotionally Intelligent

   2. Be a good listener

   3. Know your audience and their concerns.

   4. Align your goals with the company mission

   5. Know your role and stay in your lane. Don't over reach. You are not the CEO or even a department head.

   6. Acknowledge the roles of others.

   7. Understand that 50% of the time, no one will care what you think so pick your battles and know when to stand down.

2. AnonymousFebruary 9,2025 at 3:01PM UTC

   Let’s assume the CEO already knows the issues you so desperately seek to “turn around.”

   What then?

   You would then be outing yourself as someone trying to rock the boat. Your CEO and this HR person that you jumped the chain over now start building a case to get rid of you. Read “The 48 Laws of Power”

   I say this as someone who also brought PowerPoint upon PowerPoint to my leadership only to be told by the CEO “We been doing the same damn thing for 25 years and we ain’t changing.” They then proceeded to make the job unbearable and toxic. I quit soon after.

   If you want to make organizational change start with the tiniest smallest of baby steps and get buy-in from everyone. Most importantly make them think it was their idea. You don’t get to take any credit. The person who commented before wrote the steps more detailed and professionally than I could have.

   If that sounds like something you’d rather not do, I’d suggest Indeed.

   Best of luck.

3. AnonymousFebruary 9,2025 at 4:28PM UTC

   Let me get this straight: you’ve been with a company 5 months and you’re ready to school both HR and the CEO about major organizational overhauls? You may have leadership experience and be a visionary but you also sound arrogant.

   Sonething doesn’t square with your role as a recruiter (even though you’ve assigned yourself a senior recruiter title), and your platform. Unless you were hired as a cultural and employee retention change agent, think long and hard about how you’ll call out these shortcomings.

   I agree with the other poster who said to stay in your lane if you want to keep this job. Until you’ve been asked for feedback, this will jeopardize your long term prospects of remaining in this role.

4. AnonymousFebruary 12,2025 at 1:25PM UTC

   You need to tread carefully. You do report to the CEO, so if it comes up in your1:1s pick one area that has biggest impact and suggest you form a limited duration team to explore issues x and develop strategy for improvement. Include key stakeholders and get their buy in and instead of coming off as controlling and potentially power hungry you will showcase your leadership abilities in being able to influence and gain support for new initiatives.

5. AnonymousFebruary 9,2025 at 4:58PM UTC

   Bad idea. The best advice I've ever been given is, "It's not your job to tell the CEO everything that's wrong with the company." No one asked you. It isn't your job. That isn't assertive - it's aggressive, sneaky, presumptuous, and more for someone new to their job. If the HR specialist is incompetent AND the CEO's puppet, just what do you think will happen with this lead balloon when you release it?

6. GirlBossanova934974February 10,2025 at 3:23PM UTC

   Before you do anything about retention, it might be a good idea to find out what the ACTUAL employee retention numbers are for your company. In the last 3 years, what is the turnover rate? How does that compare to industry averages? Is your company much worse than industry averages? As a business owner myself, those are the questions I want answered before any other discussion occurs. As far as stepping on toes, I think you need to do a lot of digging and research on what the current person has done to address retention, if in fact a problem exists. VISION is one thing. HARD NUMBERS are another thing!

7. Tami L CannizzaroFebruary 13,2025 at 3:43PM UTC

   100%. Understanding data, as well as company history is important. Perhaps the organization has tried similar ideas in the past that were unsuccessful? At this point, 5 months in without deep history, OP reminds me of a consultant who sweeps in, making all sorts of suggestions without full understanding of the organization

8. AnonymousFebruary 11,2025 at 4:49PM UTC

   The best way to uplevel the department is to make it a team effort and come up with a written rubric for how to approach this. Work with the others to break it out into who does what, and share this with leadership asking for their input on it. Solicit feedback and use the "agile" method of how to do this so that you hit certain milestones throughout the process. Quietly be the project owner but don't direct anyone instead let leadership drive it and give input throughout. If you cannot make this happen in some sort of way then you are clearly with the wrong company where your input does not matter. And if you stay there just stay in your lane. You can do this but tread gently.

9. AnonymousFebruary 11,2025 at 5:22PM UTC

   Advice? Slow your roll. I appreciate your enthusiasm for the role, the company, and the ideas you have but I can see this ending badly. Has the CEO sought your feedback? Solicited ideas from you? You've been there 5 months. Do the role you were hired to do. And you also say that marketing is threatened by some of your suggestions? That tells me you are coming on way too strong and that is a definite turnoff for people.

10. AnonymousFebruary 11,2025 at 6:47PM UTC

    Seeing your potential is a long way from you being tapped to lead organizational changes. I think you're a little confused about your role and vision.

11. Christi LopezFebruary 12,2025 at 9:04PM UTC

    You may find this article helpful. I'm starting a new position on Tuesday and plan on taking this approach.

    "...At this point I'll start talking about it with other people on the team, the team lead, and my manager.

    I'll ask why things on the list are that way, and how they got to be that way. I'm trying to establish credibility as someone who's genuinely curious and empathetic, who's patient, and who respects the expertise of my coworkers. That's the reputation that's going to let me make changes later."

    https://www.simplermachines.com/why-you-need-a-wtf-notebook/

12. AnonymousFebruary 13,2025 at 11:34PM UTC

    No shade, but no one has asked you for your vision.