In this lecture professor Roloff presents a set of strategies that organizations employ to implement change including socialization, performance appraisal, incentivization and personal influence. Roloff’s discussion of socialization (a.k.a. “onboarding”) outlines two forms: individualized and institutionalized. Individualized onboarding is characterized as a personalized experience, tending to be random, and without protocol or sequence. Institutionalized onboarding is characterized as collective, linear, fixed, and standardized. Both forms of socialization are designed to repopulate the employee base and make newcomers feel less stressed-out during transition. Roloff concludes that employees who go through institutionalized onboarding end up fitting in better than those who experience individualized socialization.
Throughout my professional career I have experienced both types of socialization. In my career at Northwestern University, I participated in both mandatory orientation sessions. Across both sessions all references to values and best practices remained consistent, but facilitators often reminded participants to refer to norms within our individual units. In my department the socialization was extremely individualized. Since my employment transition was from temp to hire, I was considered to be “onboarded by association” and subjected to inconsistent standards, messaging and conflicting information from my peers. This was similar to my experience in smaller companies where socialization was “on the job,” or completely non-existent. For this reason, I became vocal about developing an internal onboarding plan for our department. The impact was not immediate, but my concerns did not fall on deaf ears. What we have now is better than nothing and has resulted in greatly reduced turnover.
LO 4: Apply communication-centered scholarship to strengthen communication effectiveness.
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