#The Scenario
SmartTech is a company producing home automation technology including smart speakers, lights, smart displays, and smart security systems including doorbells, cameras and smart locks. The company currently employs more than 1500 individuals divided between Europe and the USA.
Working in the HR Department, you have been tasked with putting in place a structured onboarding programme that will socialise new employees into the company quickly and promote a common culture across SmartTech. Your first task is to look at what happens once new employees have been offered a job in the company.
What do you do?
[[Implement a process whereby, when an employee receives a job offer at SmartTech, the offer arrives with smart speaker and smart display. Once the contract has been signed, the employee receives a company handbook outlining life at SmartTech. A member of the HR teams calls the new employee two weeks before he or she joins to make sure everything is ok. On the first day at work, a member of HR greets the new employee at the front desk and provides a structured timetable that maps out their first two weeks on the job. ->Option 1]]
[[You want to ensure that new employees see membership of the SmartTech team as a privilege. You decide to communicate to new employees that, as SmartTech employees, they are the brightest and best employees in the world. Reinforce this message with a banner at the entrance to each company location proclaiming the company’s vision: THE WORLD’S LEADING TECH COMPANY. On the first day of employment, ensure that multiple people present the ‘vision’ proclaimed by SmartTech’s leaders, and make it clear to new employees that they are expected to frequently express their solidarity with a dominant and centrally-ordained corporate philosophy.->Option 2]]#A sense of belonging
Both the positive impression created before the individual has started work, and the structured nature of the first two weeks’ activities, create an immediate sense of belonging to a team and effective onboarding.
You now need to consider integration with other members of the team.
[[Provide the new employee with a pack of photos of the people they’ll be working with and a map of the office so they can recognise and find their new co-workers. You also decide to schedule a series of lunches for the new employee with a range of people from the office. ->Option 1.1]]
[[Let new employees figure out things for themselves. They are adults who don’t need any help meeting or talking to their new co-workers. ->Option 1.2]]#Survival of the fittest
This ‘survival of the fittest’ approach, which was characteristic of the energy company Enron prior to their spectacular collapse in 2001, demonstrates to new employees that they are expected to exhibit excessive levels of intrinsic motivation to survive in the company.
[[Proceed to the next situation.->Culture]]#Provide a pack of photos
These measures lessen any sense of the new employees being organisational ‘outsiders’ and instead help them to become organisational ‘insiders’.
This results in effective employees with positive work attitudes who stay with the company for a longer period of time than they would have otherwise.
[[Proceed to the next situation.->Alice]]#Let them figure things out themself
Ineffective socialisation leads to the premature departure of some employees from their new jobs, and to ineffective performances from other employees. The recruitment and selection process must start all over again resulting in a loss of time and resources.
[[Proceed to the next situation.->Alice]]#A New Scenario: Alice
Alice is a new hire in the smart speaker division. She was told she would report to Mary. At the time that Mary was recruiting Alice, Mary was also being considered for an internal promotion. This promotion would require relocation to another part of the USA. Since Mary had not secured the position, Mary did not discuss this possibility with Alice during the hiring process as they had got on so well at the interview stage.
A month after Alice joined the company, Mary announced her departure.
[[Tell Alice that her new boss will be John, who had not been part of the hiring process. ->Alice 1]]
[[Explain to Alice that her new boss will be someone whom Mary mentored for a number of months prior to leaving and was identified as a future successor to Mary.->Alice 2]]#Alice leaves
John and Alice do not get along with one another and Alice resigns within 90 days.
Nearly half of employees who leave their job report that their day-to-day role was not what they had been led to believe it would be during the hiring process.
It is important that organisations set up candidate expectations of consistency and fairness that the company can live up to.
#Personal Chemistry
Personal chemistry with a prospective boss is always a good thing. But you should be wary of hiring someone on the basis of chemistry alone.
The candidate should spontaneously express a desire for the role based around company mission, growth prospects, compensation, and job challenges.#How to promote a common culture?
To ensure SmartTech realises its ambitions as one of the leading companies in the world, you look at ways of promoting a common culture.
What do you do?
[[You suggest that selling the idea of a monolithic organizational culture, to be determined exclusively by senior managers, is the key to success.->Culture 1]]
[[You decide that, in the first instance, employee engagement should be the barometer of current culture and that you should focus on creating a culture of engagement.->Culture 2]]#Top-down approach
The corporate communication that emerges is essentially one way: from the organization’s top leaders, to those at the bottom. This reinforces the demanding goals set by SmartTech’s leaders and any corrective or constructive feedback is stifled.
The purpose of this kind of culture can be simply to transmit a new corporate code, and to ensure its rapid implementation. People are expected to escalate their commitment, and transform their attitudes to be ever more consistent with the needs of the organization’s leaders.
[[Proceed to the next situation.->Organisational change]]#Highly-engaged employees
A strong company culture will generally be evidenced by highly-engaged employees. An unmanaged or poorly defined culture can often drive employees to disengagement.
Spending time locating the right employees and then cultivating the right culture to nurture them, means that your employees more than pay you back with their commitment and drive.
[[Proceed to the next situation.->Organisational change]]#Organisational change
In trying to promote a common culture focused on innovation, you realise changing SmartTech’s onboarding culture should be part of a wider organisational change initiative.
What do you do?
[[Inform the CEO who tells you immediately that a new vision should be created, which reads: //FROM THE WORLD’S LEADING TECH COMPANY – TO THE WORLD’S LEADING COMPANY//.->Change 1]]
[[Decide to consult all employees in the organization on the change initiative. ->Change 2]]#Top-down approach
For organizations seeking to become more adaptive and innovative, culture change is often the most challenging part of the transformation and cannot be achieved through top-down mandate.
Rather, it lives in the collective hearts and habits of all workers and their shared perception of ‘how things are done around here’. #Consult the employees
It is important to be open and honest about the degree to which employees will be consulted and involved and make it clear that not all decisions will be up for discussion. Think about the points in the change process where involvement will be most valuable.
Ensure decisions about staff involvement are consistent with the new cultural values. For example, if empowerment is a key part of the desired culture, a more inclusive approach to change should be considered.
It may be more feasible to encourage employee buy-in to the new culture by helping employees to emotionally engage with the need for a new way of working that is linked to the organisation’s core purpose, and by considering how you can best bring the new cultural values to life for employees.