Organizational Socialization: What Businesses Often Forget When Onboarding New Employees

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In my career, I was honored to serve in the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) field as a paramedic. It was a fulfilling but at times thankless job. Having the skills, knowledge and experience to help someone on what could be the worst day of their life kept me motivated in becoming the very best I could. For this reason, the men and women of the EMS profession are some of the most dedicated and committed experts I have ever encountered.

My career field had many positive attributes, but like any other field, there were challenges that caused organizational culture to become toxic. EMS is plagued with long hours and depressing pay, and employees are constantly dealing with trauma or death. On top of that, poor organizational leadership affects employee retention.

There is often a disconnect between what the leaders of an organization think the culture is and what the workforce actually knows it to be. This is why leaders need to pay closer attention to organizational culture from the perspective of the workforce as it relates to onboarding new employees. This is known as organizational socialization (OS).

Organizational Socialization Defined

OS is the evolutionary journey a new employee takes when adjusting to a new organization, position, and group of people. Its commanding foothold is for new people to learn the “real" culture of the organization. How the incumbent workforce guides the new employee cements the culture time after time.

Some organizations are very successful, have a positive culture and know how to socialize new employees, but others create a circle of disappointment, normalization of deviance and poor employee retention. It is unavoidable: Organizations will always leave an imprint on their individual members through their socialization methods.

It is OS that leads the members of your workforce to understand the values, norms and necessary behaviors that outline the contributions the organization requires from successful employees. It's the catalyst that will shape and maintain your organization's culture.

Why is an organization’s culture so important? Vision is where the organization is heading and what it will look like when it gets there. Strategy is the goals and plans to reach the vision. And culture is the behavior of the workforce as it heads off to reach the vision. If there is a poor or toxic culture secondary to poor OS, how successful will that organization really be in reaching goals, and subsequently, the vision?

In short, leaders need to recognize that OS is the first behavioral method a new employee experiences after joining the organization. If OS is negative and toxic, most times, we blame the new employee we have to now let go for not fitting into the organization. But in fact, they are disillusioned and chased away by poor socialization from day one.

Stages Of Organizational Socialization

It is vital to have a successful organization and powerful culture. Leaders must be mindful in ensuring the OS process is not left to chance. Instead, it needs to be studied, understood, planned and structured. There are three stages of OS: getting in, breaking in and settling in. Here is an overview of each stage.

1. Getting In: Also known as the anticipatory socialization stage, this is the first phase a potential employee experiences. It happens before the employee joins the organization and is like a "preview" of the organization's culture. Individuals are thinking about what it would be like to be members of the organization and picture themselves in their new roles.

Now is when organizations have an enthusiastic individual who wishes to join their team, and that individual will come with certain values, attitudes and behaviors. Now top that with their preconceived ideas about how awesome it will be to join that organization. If they are faced with a toxic OS process, this will eventually cause that individual’s collapse.

2. Breaking In: This is also known as the encounter stage and occurs within the first few weeks. To illustrate the stage when an employee breaks into an organization, I'll use an example from my EMS days.

I was honored to be part of an outstanding organization; it was the gem, the holy grail of EMS positions. There was a hard interview and testing process to even be offered a position, and once hired, there was a demanding 25-week, new employee orientation process. The new employee would receive guidance from a more seasoned employee. Once this was completed, you had the opportunity to be assigned to your own ambulance.

As a new employee, you are not considered an “official member" of the organization until you have worked there for at least one year and two summers. The summer months were a difficult time to be an EMS professional working on the streets. Nevertheless, it was a rite of passage when you hit this milestone. Every new employee had to prove their commitment to be considered a full member of the organization.

Imagine how something like this could positively affect a motivated, enthusiastic new employee.

3. Settling In: Also known as the metamorphosis stage, this is the final stage in the socialization process. This is when the new employee understands what the organization is about and begins to identify themselves with the organization. They become a contributor in reaching the organization's goals and objectives. On the flip side, if their OS was based on negativity, bad habits and unprofessionalism, how productive will this employee really be, and moreover, how likely are they to actually stay in the position?

It is these stages that will eventually affect a new employee’s productivity, commitment and behavior within an organization. Socialization needs to be a continuous process and is paramount for the ultimate success of the business. Successful organizations need to restructure and retool their OS process regularly. This will help keep a finger on the true pulse of organizational culture and keep up with the transformations of an ever-changing environment.