Page 121 - Successful Onboarding

110 • Successful Onboarding

sound counterintuitive, our research has found that on a relative basis,
acclimation tends to be far easier for more junior employees. Why? For
starters, they typically enter as part of a group of new hires, and cohorts
tend to support one another navigating the new culture. Second, junior
employees tend to possess fewer cultural biases on account of their lim-
ited experience. Finally, junior employees are typically acutely aware of
how foreign the work environment actually is (because of their lack of
confidence); as a result, they apply more energy to observing and learn-
ing the culture—they prove to be more tuned into the activity. More
experienced hires enter with habits formed at prior work environments
with different cultural norms, and they are also more confident and often
less self-aware. Senior hires are also watched more closely, expectations
are higher, and people are less forgiving. Senior hires thus need messag-
ing that speaks about the firm’s organizational culture more sharply and
comparatively. And they need support structures (e.g., mentors) to play a
more important protective and advisory role.
Developing a world-class cultural component to an onboarding pro-
gram requires not merely the right message, but a coherent, systemic
approach to delivering that message. Earlier, we cautioned managers
against the urge to take some generic “best practices” and apply that to
their own firms. What worked for one firm might not work for another.
Here again, we don’t offer specific suggestions, but rather the second batch
of “best principles” to help guide you in developing the right tactics for
use in designing your own customized onboarding program.

Best Principle #5: Make it interactive.
Culture is vague and hard to distill. For new hires to assimilate it and make
it their own, they need to engage with it personally and creatively. A num-
ber of mechanisms allow for a more interactive experience of culture.
One-on-one mentoring is critical. Firms should solidify the mentoring that
already takes place with the following measures: establishing best practices,
deploying the mechanism widely, offering clear guidelines and discussion
points—specific to the new hire experience—for mentors to follow, and
offering opportunities to assess employees’ cultural learning. Firms might
also consider implementing a peer “buddy” program for new hires, team-
ing them with a slightly more experienced employee who possesses similar
job responsibilities. This more experienced employee would serve as a