Socialization and Employee Turnover
Even with a realistic job preview and good fit, newly hired employees usually find the first few weeks at a new job stressful. There’s a new job with new processes to learn and new faces with new names to remember. There are new rules, a new culture, and new politics. There are new benefits, a new pay structure, a new environment, and a new boss to impress.
Your company may already have a program for new hire orientation that covers benefits and job expectations. But is your current program helping you manage employee turnover? Socialization practices—the methods organizations use to help newcomers adapt to their new work environment, reduce the anxiety associated with starting a new job, and acquire the desired culture and collected knowledge of the organization1—are important to a new hire’s subsequent tenure with the organization. There are six dimensions of the new hire socialization process that you can manage to maximize employee retention management.2 These six dimensions, which are discussed and explored in the following six principles, have been shown to reduce employee turnover, mostly through on-the-job embeddedness (as discussed in Chapter 3).3 When you are considering socialization practices, don’t leave out your telecommuting and distant employees. Their physical absence from other employees makes them even more prone to feel left out and less embedded in the organization. Carefully consider what the following principles imply for all of your newcomer employees, especially the telecommuters and distant employees.
Principle 1: Formal Socialization Opportunities Can Help Reduce Employee Turnover
With formal socialization practices, new hires are segregated into clearly defined socialization activities while they learn their roles. In contrast, informal socialization practices are characterized by on-the-job learning activities that are not clearly defined as part of the socialization process. Formal socialization tactics may help your organization reduce turnover among new hires.
The Research Evidence
Our research has shown that formal socialization practices reduce newcomer anxiety and uncertainty by providing them with a consistent message. This consistent message may also lead to shared values among newcomers that fit the culture and values of the overall organization. Formal socialization practices also send a signal to new hires about the importance of adapting to the new environment.4
Getting Started with Providing Formal Socialization Opportunities
To recognize the full effects of formalizing socialization practices, segregate new hires into activities set apart from day to day, ongoing work activities. This may involve activities such as offsite training, new hire luncheons, etc. Pay particular attention to the messages conveyed in formal socialization. Messages that inform the new hires about company culture, values, roles, and goals are of particular importance. Ensure that these messages are consistent across all socialization agents and socialization activities as well as back at the work site.
Principle 2: Collective Socialization Opportunities Can Help Reduce Employee Turnover
With collective socialization practices, new hires are grouped into cohorts that experience common socialization activities together. This is in contrast to individual socialization practices, where new hires experience socialization practices alone. Collective socialization practices may help your organization reduce turnover among new hires.
The Research Evidence
New hires often feel displaced and out of touch. They generally come into their new environment from a previous work environment where they felt at least partially embedded. A feeling of acceptance and being a part of the organization is important to new hires.5 Our research has shown that collective socialization can increase new hires’ feelings of belongingness as they experience the new organization together. This heightened sense of belongingness is associated with greater on-the-job embeddedness, an antecedent to reduced employee turnover.6 Collective socialization practices may also increase the links and social ties with others in the organization, thus making it more difficult to consider leaving the organization in the future.7
Getting Started with Collective Socialization Opportunities
To get started with collective socialization practices, organize new hires into cohorts that are hired around the same time and that are likely to work closely together once on the job. This will allow new hires to develop a sense of identity within the company and a sense of unity among themselves and can begin building the valuable social contacts they will need on the job. It can also provide needed social support from peers who are experiencing the same stage of acclimation to the new environment. Another tactic is to take advantage of social technologies to form online affinity groups or resource sites that enable new hires to share their experiences with one another.
Principle 3: Sequential Socialization Opportunities Can Help Reduce Employee Turnover
With sequential socialization practices, the sequence of socialization experiences and activities are defined and clearly communicated. By contrast, random socialization practices are characterized by an unknown sequence of events. Socialization practices that are sequential in nature can increase new hire retention by reducing their levels of anxiety and stress.
The Research Evidence
There are many unknowns in starting a new job that can increase the anxiety and stress levels experienced by new hires. Sequential socialization practices can add some much needed predictability to the crucial first few weeks on the job. Allowing the newcomer some control over the sequenced events may also add a sense of personal control over their new and uncertain environment.8 This may be done by establishing milestones (such as passing a training course) that the employee must accomplish before moving on to the next step. This technique can also help new hires establish routines as well as gain a sense of understanding of their role in the organization.
We once worked with a business unit that was experiencing 80% turnover. The majority of employees were leaving before they had completed their first 90 days. We implemented a sequential socialization process that included three levels of new hire training, each of which culminated in increased prestige, increased job responsibilities, and a higher pay rate. Once the process was in place, new hires reported a greater sense of control over their career and of their own role in the organization. Subsequently, turnover in the division was reduced to less than 20% and sequential socialization practices were implemented across the company.
Getting Started with Sequential Socialization Opportunities
To get started with sequential socialization practices, make sure that expectations for progressing oversteps along the way are clearly communicated. This can reduce the stress and anxiety associated with the perceived chaos that often comes with starting a new job. Giving employees a level of control over the ability to pass from one milestone to the next can also be beneficial in generating a sense of self-efficacy (feelings of job mastery) and ability to succeed in their new role.9
Principle 4: Fixed Socialization Practices Can Help Reduce Employee Turnover
With fixed socialization practices the timing of progressing through socialization stages is predetermined and communicated to new hires whereas with variable socialization practices the timing is unknown. This is similar and related to the sequential socialization practices just discussed. The difference though is that with sequential practices the socialization stages may be known, but the timing of such stages may be unknown. However, with fixed socialization practices the timing of events is known. Like sequential socialization practices, fixed socialization practices may also reduce employee turnover by reducing anxiety and uncertainty among newcomers.
The Research Evidence
Like sequential practices, fixed practices can help clarify the new hire’s role in the organization as well as the time that will be required to become a full-fledged insider.10 To the extent that completing steps throughout the socialization process is related to greater status within the organization, fixed and sequential practices may elicit a greater sense of belongingness and ease of integrating into the organizational community. Finally, the timetable associated with fixed socialization practices reminds new hires of the time they have put into the process of becoming a fully accepted organizational member. This sacrifice of time put into the organization may also make the prospects of leaving and starting over anew with a different organization less appealing.
Getting Started with Fixed Socialization Opportunities
To get started with fixed socialization practices clearly identify and communicate the timing of the stages within the socialization process to new hires. Pausing to celebrate promotions across the various socialization stages can effectively anchor the milestones (along with the sacrifices, status, and acceptance associated with each milestone). This can provide the new hire with a sense of sacrifice, accomplishment, and belongingness that will make voluntarily leaving the organization less appealing.
Principle 5: Serial Socialization Opportunities Can Help Reduce Employee Turnover
Serial socialization practices include experienced organizational insiders as mentors in the socialization process. By contrast, disjunctive socialization practices do not involve experienced organizational insiders in the process. Research evidence indicates that serial socialization practices may help you reduce employee turnover.
The Research Evidence
Serial socialization practices allow new hires to begin building relationships with experienced organizational insiders. These relationships allow the new hires to start building important networks within the organization that increase their embeddedness on the job. This embeddedness builds a sense of belongingness and reduces the attractiveness of severing these ties by voluntarily leaving the organization.11
Additionally, experienced role models and mentors can help new hires make sense of their new environment during the socialization period, which reduces anxiety and uncertainty and increases the new hire’s sense of the organization being a good long-term fit.12 Both decrease the attractiveness of voluntarily leaving the organization.
Getting Started with Serial Socialization Opportunities
To get started with serial socialization practices, choose experienced organizational insiders who are sociable and politically savvy organizational leaders. Social, outgoing mentors lead newcomers to associate a sense of friendliness with the organization. Politically savvy mentors can be of great assistance to new hires as they try to navigate through their new unfamiliar environment. When high-level organizational leaders actively participate in the socialization process, it signals that the new hires and their acclimation into the new environment are of utmost importance to the entire organization.
Principle 6: Investiture Socialization Opportunities Can Help Reduce Employee Turnover
Investiture socialization practices provide newcomers with positive social support and feedback, while divestiture socialization practices provide more negative feedback during the adaptation stage. Divestiture practices have their place in strong organizational cultures where conformity and rule following are important. Divestiture is most commonly used in military or similar settings. However, in the majority of organizations, investiture socialization practices generally yield fewer turnovers among new hires.
The Research Evidence
Research has shown that the positive feedback associated with investiture socialization tactics is associated with an increased sense of competence and confidence.13 This increased self-assurance, or self-efficacy, can provide newcomers with the confidence they need to stay with the job through the hard times.14 The early positive interactions with insiders provided by investiture socialization practices facilitate organizational adjustment and fit among newcomers as well.15 Finally, the social networks developed when organizational insiders provide newcomers with positive feedback have been shown to build a greater sense of community. All of these benefits of investiture socialization practices can reduce turnover intentions and subsequent turnover of new hires.
Getting Started with Investiture Socialization Opportunities
To get started with investiture socialization practices, provide ample opportunities for the success of newcomers followed by positive feedback from organizational insiders. Providing at least some of this positive feedback in social situations can enhance the sense of community among newcomers. This sense of community will encourage newcomers to stay with the organization.
In Summary, Socialization Practices Can Help Manage Employee Turnover When They Are:
•Formal—clearly defined, set-apart socialization activities,
•Collective—common, cohort-centered learning experiences,
•Sequential—the sequence of activities is set and clearly communicated,
•Fixed—the timing of learning activities is set and clearly communicated,
•Serial—experienced organizational insiders act as role models, and
•Investitive—positive feedback and social support are provided.