Tips For Bringing A New Employee Into Your Company Culture

Onboarding new employees can present a challenge. They are immediately inundated with new procedures, new expectations, new coworkers, and a new environment. In this process, culture can take a backseat to matters that seem to have more practical significance. However, it’s just as important to bring a new employee into your company culture during these early days. 

How do you get this done? How do you inculcate your values and vision, while still taking care of the important operational steps required when a new employee joins the team? 

It’s not as hard as you think. Here are a few tips for bringing a new employee into your company culture: 

Start as Early as Possible  

Launch the culture discussion as early in the process as possible. This should happen even before you make a hiring decision. In other words, bring up culture during the recruitment process. Let your candidates know exactly what you are looking for, and tailor questions in the interview to determine whether the candidate presents a good cultural fit.  

Once you choose someone to hire, continue the cultural education prior to the first day at work. This training should only intensify once they reach their official start date. By that point, hopefully, you have set the stage for a smooth transition. 

Establish Clear Directives 

Accomplishing something is easier if the target is clear. This is true in terms of operational output, and it’s true about other goals, like those related to corporate culture. The more concrete your cultural expectations, the simpler it will be for your new employee to embody them.  

As such, lay out what do you expect in transparent terms. Provide resources that your new employee can review, letting them learn more about your culture, while, at the same time, reinforcing the lessons you have taught. These steps will make it easier for your new hire to internalize your culture. 

Lean on Your Brand 

Providing detailed information about your cultural expectations will make it easier for your new employee. However, that doesn’t mean that your message should be overly complex. In fact, your culture should derive fairly obviously from your brand.  

Let that touchstone represent the guiding principle your employees use. They should be able to look to your brand as they make their day-to-day decisions. The stronger and clearer your brand, the faster your employees will be able to make it a central force in their professional lives. 

Create a Mentorship Program 

When a new employee starts out, it’s difficult for them to know who to follow. They need role models from the veterans on your staff, people who can show them how to operate on a daily basis. Without guidance, you leave a lot up to your individual workers to figure out on their own. 

Eliminate this uncertainty by assigning a specific contact for your new employee. Give them somebody to lean on as they get settled. Create a mentorship program that allows new team members to learn from the best people you already have on staff. 

Provide Online Resources  

New employees can get shy. Figuring out the nuances of corporate policy comes with a high social barrier. Fresh recruits might feel uncomfortable asking questions, especially queries they deem stupid.  

Take this pressure off. Create online resources where they can look up information on their own. Then, they can reserve their questions for higher-level issues that couldn’t get solved by a simple FAQ. 

Creating a meaningful corporate culture leads to many concrete benefits. It improves retention rates and can boost innovation and productivity. Getting to that point requires having the right people on staff. Partnering with a top-flight staffing agency, like SmartTalent, ensures that you get the best team members possible. 

Contact SmartTalent today to find out more.