Acculturation Onboarding and Corporate Culture

Socialization is something that can happen naturally even with new hires who are left to fend for themselves. People tend to adapt to their work environment over time by paying attention to the cues of their coworkers and management. However, when acculturation onboarding is done in this haphazard way, there is a much greater risk that new employees will feel frustrated and alienated as they struggle to "fit in". Using good communication that makes it easy for new hires to navigate your corporate culture is a much more efficient approach.

Know What You're Working With

Of course, in order to communicate expectations and an overall value system through an onboarding portal, an organization has to be clear about what its culture is. The folks over at WiseGeek have a good working definition of this term. They also make an excellent point that a corporate culture can be positive or negative. So, just having one isn't sufficient. You also need to look at the impact the shared beliefs, attitudes, and customs of your workplace are having on employees.

Do you understand what new hires really want to know about how your company operates? Take a look at this article by Randall Hansen regarding the questions he thinks job seekers should ask to "Uncover a Company's Corporate Culture". It offers a snapshot of the basics employers should communicate during recruiting and onboarding.

About.com also has a decent collection of articles on organizational culture. This one by author Susan Heathfield is particularly interesting. It points out that a work culture usually consists of many unwritten or unspoken "rules". However, it's important to note that there is no compelling reason that an organization's expectations have to remain a mystery to new hires. Why not get everything out in the open?

Communicating Through Onboarding

A mission statement is a fine place to start, but it usually doesn't cover everything (unless it is a really long statement). Instead of trying to cram everything onto one page, try sprinkling little pieces of advice and information throughout an onboarding module. These hints and clues help new hires build a comprehensive picture of your corporate culture.

For example, there might be a section in your orientation program about your company's policy of promoting from within. This is a great place to put a tip about how a new hire can get on the fast track to promotion by taking positive actions to qualify for advanced training opportunities. Or, you might add a short testimonial from a satisfied employee who has successfully worked their way up from an entry level position to a supervisory one. With the AllegroHR Acculturation Portal, you can readily customize each screen with this type of positive branding.

Acculturation Onboarding For The Next Generation Of New Hires

Helping new hires become productive as soon as possible is one of the primary goals of acculturation onboarding. To accomplish this, you need to make sure new employees understand their role in the organization and get up to speed on current departmental projects ASAP. This is an area where an acculturation portal that is easy to customize and update offers your organization a huge advantage.

Knowledge Retention and Succession Planning

One of the most costly effects of turnover is loss of knowledge. Many companies don't realize what types of information are being lost until it is too late. Ideally, your organization should have succession planning down to a science and build knowledge retention into every key employee's job. These individuals should be developing training materials for the next generation of workers as one of their regularly assigned tasks.

However, most companies don't do this. So, when a valued employee gives two week's notice, his or her expertise is only available for a very short time. HR and managers should use this window of opportunity to ask the departing employee to put together a detailed description of how they get things done. This goes beyond a simple job description. It covers the type of issues and solutions experienced workers have learned through years of trial and error.

The employee should also outline where their successor will need to jump in and finish up any loose ends on outstanding projects. This type of information is invaluable to a new hire who will be filling the vacated position.

Start Getting the Information Out There

Job specific training materials can be easily uploaded for a new employee to access through a customizable online acculturation portal. These materials can be made accessible in the form of links to pages in an intranet library or as actual pdf documents - whichever option is simplest for HR and IT to implement using our AllegroHR Acculturation Portal.

Remember that this stuff doesn't have to be fancy to start with. Just begin by making knowledge retention and succession planning part of your organizational process. You can brand these training materials with your company's look/feel and add things like slideshows or videos when you have the basics down.

Targeted Acculturation Onboarding For Virtual Teams

As the modern workforce becomes more culturally diverse and widely dispersed, the need to build teams that operate effectively regardless of location is of increasing importance. The Human Capital Institute published a relevant white paper in 2007 on this topic called "Comprehensive Onboarding Beyond Line-of-Sight: Integrating Global and Virtual Teams". Author Ross Jones shares a number of insights in this piece that relate to acculturating employees around the globe to form highly productive work units.

Ross reveals a very interesting statistic about how global corporations are currently handling acculturation. Only about 1 in 4 organizations make use of both location specific and internationally standardized onboarding processes to integrate new team members. He argues that more employers should make use of this blended approach.

Local Versus Global Acculturation

A one-size-fits-all program has obvious limitations. It doesn't take into account cultural differences - or the fact that different employees at the same site require varying levels of orientation and training that are specific to their job functions. For example, a worker who will interface with other team members around the world will have different acculturation requirements than one who is expected to interact only with other local employees.

However, when each location is solely responsible for creating and implementing its own onboarding program, corporate cohesion suffers. In order for virtual teams to collaborate, they must have a shared vision and understanding of the goals of the parent organization.

One solution is to use existing standardized onboarding as a starting point. The company's communication network and intranet portal should be accessible to all employees regardless of where they work. Cross-cultural interaction should be encouraged through the use of global team training initiatives. At the same time, each satellite location should have the ability to customize its acculturation onboarding modules to provide relevant information and tools to local workers.

With the AllegroHR Acculturation Portal, flexibility is built into the system making it an ideal solution for employers who mobilize virtual teams across the globe.

 

Multi- Level Acculturation Onboarding

The doctor is in and he has diagnosed 15 errors that can kill an acculturation onboarding program dead. Dr. John Sullivan shares his view on common mistakes employers make and how to avoid them in this article from 2008. At #4 on this list, Sullivan points out that many companies lack appropriate customization of onboarding for each of the following levels:

• Companywide
  
• Location
  
• Department
  
• Team/Function
  
• Individual
  

One of the most critical levels is team and job function onboarding. This is where organizations may fail to put processes in place to effectively integrate a new hire with his/her team members. Depending on the nature of the employee's assignment or job functions, these teammates may not actually be departmental coworkers.

For example, a staff member in Sales might be collaborating with counterparts at satellite locations nationwide to develop and roll out an innovative sales program. In these cases, onboarding should involve introducing new hires to individuals fulfilling similar functions at other sites. This ensures that these teams are fully connected and new members are encouraged to add their creative opinions to cross-location discussions.

Prescription for Efficiency

Dr. Sullivan also reveals his opinion on the "face to face" approach to acculturation in error #8. Although in-person meetings may be important for establishing rapport, Ross holds firmly to the viewpoint that as much orientation as possible should be delivered to new hires online. This reserves valuable face time for situations where personal interaction is required and will have the most positive impact.

At Emerald Software Group, we agree that new hires benefit greatly from access to online acculturation onboarding. It not only streamlines the socialization process, but actually ensures that employees can get more individual attention when necessary since resources aren't stretched too thin.

Acculturation Onboarding for Independent Contractors

When a company hires an outside contractor, it can be tempting to skip the onboarding process altogether. After all, the independent contractor is covered under a separate agreement covering expectations such as non-compete and non-disclosure clauses.

It can be tempting to assume that, as a professional, the contractor has little need for any orientation or socialization that would typically take place as part of the acculturation process. After all, any hours spent on onboarding tasks are billable - and that can really add up. However, the very nature of contract work makes it essential that some level of acculturation take place.

Why Is This So?

Bringing in an independent contractor is intrinsically disruptive to the normal operations of the department in which the individual is assigned to work. For example, a high-level IT consultant might be sourced to work on a specific project involving the implementation of new software.

The existing IT staff members are already stressed with a tight deadline and the need to adapt to a modified system. Learning to work with a new team member poses an added emotional and psychological challenge during an already difficult period.

They may also resent the contractor if they feel the project was within their ability to carry out on their own. Or, they may feel that since the contractor will soon be leaving, they will be left to take any flack over later issues that may arise due to any errors made during implementation.

This means it is imperative for the consultant to not only understand the parameters of the job, but the corporate and departmental culture within which the project objectives will be carried out. Otherwise, the likelihood of miscommunication, non-cooperation, and lowered productivity may further increase the costs of the project in question. This may defeat the purpose of bringing in an outside contractor to ensure an optimal outcome.

Nip Problems in the Bud

Ensuring collaboration between the contractor and full-time staff members is critical. An acculturation module geared toward bringing contractors quickly up to speed with how things really work at your organization can be a sound investment of time and resources. With the web-based orientation available via Emerald Software's Acculturation Portal, contractors can begin familiarizing themselves with your company prior to meeting your team for the first time.

International Merger Acculturation - When Workforces Collide

Sometimes, employee onboarding happens with workers who have been on the job for a long time. That's the case when a merger brings together two separate workforces under the same employer "umbrella". A smooth transition is especially challenging when a merger involves companies in different countries (here's a great article on that topic). Due diligence may cover the financial and organizational aspects of the transition, but the human side of things is often given too little attention.

Everyone Has To Work Together....To Work Together

When two disparate groups of employees are expected to start collaborating, it's not just one side or the other that has to adapt. That's one reason to make acculturation onboarding a part of the merger process for both sets of workers. When everyone goes through a similar orientation to the newly blended company, employees are more likely to start seeing their international coworkers as part of the team.

Creating Connections

Since mergers often result in redundancies, employees are likely to have lost friends due to layoffs. This can make it difficult for them to open up to their new coworkers. That's where an acculturation portal that includes extensive networking features can be a valuable asset. Making it easy for workers to create new connections can pay off big in terms of restoring employee engagement to previous levels.

Get creative - use employee profiles and blogs to give workers a chance to talk about the hopes and challenges the merger is creating for them. This kind of brainstorming may yield surprising results as workers from completely different cultures reach out to help each other through this transition.

Expand SIGs to include topics and hobbies with international appeal to encourage participation that crosses boundaries. Remember that visuals are especially powerful. Employee-led production of workplace videos or slideshows that help each group get to know the other can be a fun and informal way to create feelings of camaraderie.

Don't Make It Complicated

Bear in mind that creating an acculturation portal from scratch may not be necessary. If you use Microsoft SharePoint or a similar intranet platform, you can build with what you have. That's especially helpful if both parties to the merger are already using this software. Then, employees don't have to learn a new system to engage in the acculturation onboarding process.

Acculturation Onboarding- Get Ideas From The Greats

Are you interested in setting up an acculturation program that will introduce your new hires to your corporate culture? It's time to start putting together a vision of what you hope to accomplish and how to create an impressive presentation.

To get an idea of how the corporate giants set themselves apart in this area, visit their employment information sites. These are designed to begin socializing people while they are still in the job seeker/applicant phase. However, they still offer lots of great examples you can incorporate into your onboarding program.

Coca-Cola "Our Workplace"

This portal presents several aspects of the company to catch a potential employee's interest. It focuses not just on the individual worker, but how the corporation is positioned within the community on a local and global scale. One particularly nice touch is the use of employee testimonials.

You can accomplish the same effect with an AllegroHR Acculturation platform. Consider adding video or audio testimonials from current employees to your introduction module. This will really engage your new hires on an emotional level.

Life At Google

Google is considered hands down one of the coolest places to work. They have plenty of YouTube videos to browse (of course). They've also got a top ten list of reasons to work at their company. Putting together your own top 10 would be very easy. Just be sure to get opinions from the average employee on what they really enjoy. This adds authenticity that new hires will recognize.

Whole Foods "Why Work Here"

Whole Foods takes the approach of making employees feel good about being part of a larger movement to change the world for the better. The company also emphasizes teamwork with their Declaration of Interdependence.

Your acculturation portal should always be used to inculcate the values of your organization. This doesn't have to be "in your face". It can be subtly woven throughout the entire module using quotes and insights to accent the content on each page.

Cisco Inclusion and Diversity

Cisco harnesses the power of the press to demonstrate their commitment to creating an employee-friendly workplace. Check out the list of articles they link to about how great their company is. If your business has gotten some positive "ink", remember to link or upload copies of newspaper clippings into your acculturation onboarding program. This adds credibility to any claims your organization makes about being a superior employer.