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Employee onboarding is an essential investment in your business success. Studies show onboarding programs can<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cHelping new hires navigate that culture \u2014 and their place within it \u2014 is essential,\u201d according to the SHRM Foundation<\/a>, an advocacy group for HR professionals. \u201cUnderstanding an organization\u2019s politics, goals and values, and learning the firm\u2019s unique language are all important indicators of employee\u00a0adjustment and down the line are associated with commitment, satisfaction and turnover.\u201d<\/p>\n Awareness of the value has prompted many businesses to embrace onboarding processes<\/a>. This might include communicating with new hires before they report to work, walking them through the paperwork in advance, giving them an office tour, introducing them to the team, scheduling training, and encouraging them to socialize with colleagues over lunch or a happy hour after work.<\/p>\n All of this is helpful, of course. But we\u2019ve been discussing the value of company culture consensus in this series, and highlighting the issues that cause confusion around what an organization stands for and values most. Since onboarding is a key component of establishing workplace culture coherence, here are some tips to ensure you\u2019re getting company culture<\/a> buy-in from day one.<\/p>\n Company culture can\u2019t be communicated by word-of-mouth alone. Of course, how people act and what the new hire sees them do will be the most powerful in establishing the culture in your organization. Still, start out cultural onboarding by sharing an employee handbook which outlines what culture means in your business. Or direct the new employees to pages of your business website where you communicate mission, vision, and values.<\/p>\n With so many people working remotely in 2021, cultural onboarding is more challenging. Still, it is important to set up a face-to-face onboarding session<\/a>. Even if this has to be virtual, make sure your onboarding is more than sending a series of emails with instructions and paperwork. Making a personal connection is critical.<\/p>\n New hires are excited about their next move and optimistic about future prospects with your business. Talk about a receptive audience! Focusing only on housekeeping after the hire accepts your offer is wasting this excellent opportunity to establish cultural expectations.<\/p>\n The individual responsible for onboarding new hires should always spend some time sharing what makes your company unique. In cultural onboarding, the focus isn\u2019t only on meeting and greeting and getting paperwork signed. You\u2019ll also tell your business story and how it is supported by company culture.\u00a0Glassdoor recommends<\/a>:<\/p>\n By speaking to culture from the get-go, you immediately establish that your business cares about having everyone pulling in the same direction for a shared goal.<\/p>\n Part of company culture success rests on relationships. People who are connected to their colleagues are much more likely to observe and sustain business values. Cultural onboarding aims to facilitate relationships between the new employees and other company stakeholders.<\/p>\n Unless your workplace culture is one of cold isolation, make an effort to facilitate significant interactions between the new hire and their team, managers, customers, and vendors. You want them to feel connected, quickly, so that they are more empowered to cooperate and collaborate.<\/p>\n Communicating culture can\u2019t just be the job of HR or a specific supervisor. In cultural onboarding, everyone in the organization plays a role. At Microsoft, for example, a major revision of the company\u2019s onboarding program led to the core philosophy that onboarding is \u201ceveryone\u2019s job\u201d and team members play a critical role in providing knowledge and support.<\/p>\n Again, seeing everyone in your organization working together on shared objectives, demonstrating similar mores, is going to have the biggest impact in terms of creating and sustaining culture.<\/p>\n The majority of us want to learn by doing. Active participation in the onboarding will help reduce feelings of anxiety and give the individual a more solid foundation to start from. Studies on newcomer adjustment<\/a> indicate that employees who are actively involved in information-seeking, goal-setting, and self-management are better socialized and have reduced feelings of uncertainty.<\/p>\n If your work culture embraces gamification, the participatory elements of onboarding are going to be more obvious. But even the most staid business could benefit from having a culture-oriented trivia game for new hires, or possibly a scavenger hunt that gets people up and out of their seats and meeting people in other departments while learning workflow processes.<\/p>\n Taking a cultural onboarding approach makes the experience more meaningful and memorable for employees. With 86 percent of new hires<\/a> deciding in the first six months whether to stay at or leave their new organization, it’s vital to start the cultural immersion that supports engagement at the earliest stages.\n
Share company culture documentation<\/h2>\n
Meet in person, if virtually<\/h2>\n
![\"remote](\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1248900571-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTalk about culture<\/h2>\n
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Make it personal<\/h2>\n
Encourage everyone to play a role<\/h2>\n
Make onboarding participatory<\/h2>\n
![\"Culture](\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/company2-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCultural onboarding and your organization<\/h2>\n
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