administration
How to integrate junior employees without office culture
There are ways to make a hybrid business a win-win proposition
Publish date: Monday, February 20, 2023 – 12:03
sShortly before the Salesforce layoffs, Salesforce co-founder and co-CEO Marc Benioff sent out a company-wide letter complaining about the low productivity of recent hires made during the pandemic and asked, “Aren’t we building tribal knowledge with new hires?” Without an office culture?
Salesforce allows a high degree of flexibility for employees: teams and their leaders choose the type of work arrangement that best suits their needs. But does this flexibility threaten the development and integration of newly hired junior staff?
This is a concern raised by many of the companies I advise about moving to permanent mixed working arrangements. They recognize that research shows employees are more productive working remotely, but they worry that this may not apply to entry-level employees, who have yet to learn the company’s systems, processes and practices. They are also concerned about the professional growth and cultural integration of junior employees; After all, the future of any organization depends on developing its junior employees into future leaders.
Thus, several leaders join Benioff in expressing serious reservations about a flexible hybrid model. Instead, they advocate a return to the office as a way to address such concerns and revitalize what Benioff calls “office culture.”
I tell these leaders that their concerns are real and need to be addressed. However, there is no reason to flush a child with the bath water. Flexibility helps improve productivity and retention while lowering costs. It is important and feasible to find a win-win approach that retains these benefits while facilitating the development of junior employees.
In fact, the return of a full-time office is more likely to have a negative impact on entry-level employees than a positive one. According to the ADP Research Institute report, “People at Work 2022: A Global Workforce View,” Gen Z are the age group most likely to say that “If my employer insists that I return to my workplace full-time, I will consider looking for another job,” by 71 percent. By contrast, 56 percent of those ages 45 to 54 said they would consider looking for another job.
Instead, the solutions I work on with clients involve a more targeted approach — one that’s tailored to the needs of entry-level employees. It involves new employees who come into the office often, but not randomly. They won’t pick up company culture and work habits by osmosis, especially considering that more experienced employees won’t attend as often as entry-level employees.
What is required is a deliberate, deliberate and structured program to facilitate their development and integration into the company culture while maintaining flexible hybrid working arrangements. This policy is different from the company’s onboarding program, but you must build on it and communicate it so that entry-level employees transition smoothly from the onboarding program during the first several weeks to the development and integration program during the first two years.
On-the-job training
A major component of the hybrid development and integration program includes on-the-job training. This training comes primarily in the form of senior staff responding promptly to questions and concerns raised by recent hires – showing them how to carry out the tasks associated with the role, directing them to best practices and unwritten rules and standards, and introducing them to important internal matters. and external stakeholders. Likewise, this training involves senior staff who monitor the performance of junior staff and proactively provide them with feedback and suggestions for improvements.
Fortunately, such on-the-job training can easily be done in a small group style, with one senior staff member helping to train six to eight junior employees. Senior employees must coordinate schedules with junior employees to come to the office on the same days, and then work in the same open office space.
All employees will work on their individual tasks. When a recent employee has a question, they ask it, and the experienced employee answers and explains the context; Doing so ensures that the entire group benefits from the explanation, without the senior staff member having to repeat it to everyone in a one-on-one training environment. In addition, the Senior Officer will occasionally walk around and check in on junior staff assignments, providing guidance and coaching as needed. Again, this helps the whole group learn how to do the job.
This type of activity does not hinder the competence of the senior staff and must be taken into consideration when evaluating their performance as a service to the company. But this handicap is relatively small due to the dynamic of one teaching a lot to many new hires at once. No one should be overburdened with training; This task should be distributed to a number of senior employees who are known as good on-the-job coaches. It is beneficial for entry-level employees to receive on-the-job training from a variety of senior employees rather than just one individual. New employees get multiple perspectives and tactics for achieving business outcomes while learning and communicating with various networks and stakeholders within the company.
guidance
As part of the development and integration programme, it is also helpful to provide formal orientation for new employees. Most mentoring should take place in the office because it’s easier to have conversations where new employees can feel comfortable acknowledging a lack of trust face-to-face, rather than via videoconference.
Ensure that there is one senior employee from the junior colleague’s immediate team. The goal of the senior within their team is to assist the person in learning during the specific work of team tasks and in the context of team dynamics. Also include two from outside the team. One must be from a junior business unit, and the other from a different unit. At least one location should be in a different geographic area, if the company is large enough. These two mentors will be needed to overcome one of the major problems revealed by research on corporate culture in hybrid work: the decline in cross-functional connections between employees.
Having three mentors reduces the burden on each of them, allowing for meetings once or twice a month with each of them. As a result, this formal orientation can be easily managed for experienced staff.
Digital co-working
What about the days when new employees work remotely? To facilitate on-the-job learning through virtual settings, as well as to promote effective team collaboration, use digital coworking. This includes team members who spend an hour or two per day working on their own tasks while on a video call with their teammates.
To start a joint digital session, team members must first join a video call. During this call, each team member should share their plans for working on their own tasks for the session and then turn off the mic but keep their speakers on (optional video). Then, team members work independently on their own tasks while still being able to communicate with each other by turning on their microphone if they have a question or comment. Then, more experienced team members will respond to the question, including using screen sharing or a virtual whiteboard to show you how to complete the task. Digital coworking helps replicate the experience of working alongside co-workers in a shared office space, which is useful for on-the-job training for entry-level employees.
Benioff was not wrong in posing the challenges of developing entry-level employees in a hybrid environment. However, the solution does not include getting everyone back in the office to ensure an “office culture”. Rather than taking a broad approach that sacrifices flexibility and its benefits for retention, productivity, and cost savings, my clients find it helps to take a narrow, targeted approach that addresses the problem. The solution is a structured program that seamlessly moves new hires from recruitment in the first several weeks to integration and development in the first two years, with training and mentoring in the office, on the job, along with digital co-working.
