Chapter 8

Socializing, Orienting, and Developing

Employees
Introduction
 Socialization, training and development are
all used to help new employees adapt to
their new organizations and become fully
productive.
 Ideally, employees will understand and
accept the behaviors desired by the
organization, and will be able to attain their
own goals by exhibiting these behaviors.
The Insider-Outsider Passage
 Socialization
 A process of adaptation to a new work
role.
 Adjustments must be made whenever
individuals change jobs
 The most profound adjustment occurs
when an individual first enters an
organization.
The assumptions of employee
socialization:
1. Socialization strongly influences employee
performance and organizational stability
2. Organizational stability also increases through
socialization
3. New members suffer from anxiety, which
motivates them to learn the values and norms of
the organization.
4. Socialization needs to be consistent with the
culture
5. Individuals adjust to new situations in remarkably
similar ways
 Socialization is influenced by subtle and
less subtle statements and behaviors
exhibited by colleagues, management,
employees, clients and others.
 Individuals adjust to new situations in
remarkably similar ways.
 All new employees go through a settling-in
period.
The Socialization Process
 Prearrival stage: Individuals
arrive with a set of values,
attitudes and expectations which
they have developed from
previous experience and the
selection process.
 Encounter stage: Individuals
discover how well their
expectations match realities
within the organization.
 Where differences exist,
socialization occurs to imbue the
employee with the organization’s
standards.
 Metamorphosis stage: Individuals have adapted
to the organization, feel accepted and know what
is expected of them.
The Insider-Outsider Passage
A Socialization Process
The Purpose of New-Employee
Orientation
 Orientation may be done by the supervisor, the
HRM staff or some combination.
 Formal or informal, depending on the size of the
organization.
 Covers such things as:
 The organization’s objectives
 History
 Philosophy
 Procedures
 Rules
 HRM policies and benefits
 Fellow employees
The Purpose of New-Employee
Orientation
 Learning the Organization’s Culture
 Culture includes long-standing, often unwritten
rules about what is appropriate behavior.
 Socialized employees know how things are done,
what matters, and which behaviors and
perspectives are acceptable.
The Purpose of New-Employee
Orientation
The CEO’s Role in Orientation
 Senior management are often visible during
the new employee orientation process.
 CEOs can:
 Welcome employees.
 Provide a vision for the company.
 Introduce company culture -- what matters.
 Convey that the company cares about employees.
 Allay some new employee anxieties and help them
to feel good about their job choice.
The Employee
Handbook
The Purpose of New-Employee
Orientation
HRM’s Role in Orientation
 Coordinating Role: HRM instructs
new employees when and where
to report; provides information
about benefits choices.
 Participant Role: HRM offers its
assistance for future employee
needs (career guidance, training,
etc.).
Employee Training
Definitions
 Employee training
a learning experience designed to achieve
a relatively permanent change in an
individual that will improve the ability to
perform on the job.
 Employee development
future-oriented training, focusing on the
personal growth of the employee.
Employee Training
Determining training needs
 Specific training goals should be based on:
 organization’s needs
 type of work to be done
 skills necessary to complete the work
 Indicators of need for more training:
 drops in productivity
 increased rejects
 inadequate job performance
 rise in the number of accidents
Employee Training
 Determining training needs
 The value added by training must
be considered versus the cost.
 Training goals should be
established that are tangible,
verifiable, timely, and measurable.
Employee Training
Determining Training Needs
Employee Training
 On-the-job training methods
 Job Rotation
 Understudy Assignments
 Off-the-job training methods
 Classroom lectures
 Films and videos
 Simulation exercises
 Vestibule training
Employee Development
 This future-oriented set of
activities is predominantly an
educational process.
 All employees, regardless of level,
can benefit from the methods
previously used to develop
managerial personnel.
Employee Development
Employee development methods
 Job rotation involves moving employees
to various positions in the organization to
expand their skills, knowledge and
abilities.
 Assistant-to positions allow employees
with potential to work under and be
coached by successful managers.
 Employee Development
Employee development methods
 Committee assignments provide opportunities
for:
 decision-making
 learning by watching others
 becoming more familiar with organizational
members and problems
 Lecture courses and seminars benefit from
today’s technology and are often offered in a
distance learning format.
Employee Development
Employee development methods
 Simulations include case studies, decision games
and role plays and are intended to improve
decision-making.
 Outdoor training typically involves challenges
which teach trainees the importance of teamwork.
Organization Development
 What is change?
 OD efforts support changes that are usually
made in four areas:
 The organization’s systems
 Technology
 Processes
 People
Organization Development
 Two metaphors clarify the change process.
 The calm waters metaphor describes unfreezing
the status quo, change to a new state, and
refreezing to ensure that the change is
permanent.
 The white-water rapids metaphor recognizes
today’s business environment which is less stable
and not as predictable.
Organization Development
OD Methods
 Organizational development facilitates long-
term organization-wide changes.
 OD techniques include:
 survey feedback
 process consultation
 team building
 intergroup development
Organization Development
 Survey feedback assesses
organizational members’ perceptions
and attitudes.
 The summarized data are used to
identify problems and clarify issues so
that commitments to action can be
made.
Organization Development
 Process consultation uses outside
consultants to help organizational
members perceive, understand, and
act upon process events.
Organization Development
 Team building may include:
 goal setting
 development of interpersonal relationships
 clarification of roles
 team process analysis
 Team building attempts to increase trust,
openness, and team functioning.
Organization Development
The Learning Organization
 Values continued learning and believes a
competitive advantage can be gained from
it.
 Characterized by:
 capacity to continuously adapt
 employees continually acquire and share new
knowledge
 collaboration across functional specialties
 teams are an important feature
Evaluating Training and
Development Effectiveness
Evaluating Training Programs:
 Typically, employee and manager opinions are
used,
 These opinions or reactions are not necessarily valid
measures
 Influenced by things like difficulty, entertainment value or
personality of the instructor.
 Performance-based measures (benefits gained) are
better indicators of training’s cost-effectiveness.
 Evaluating Training and
Development Effectiveness
Performance-Based Evaluation Measures
 Post-training performance method.
Employees’ on-the-job performance is
assessed after training.
 Pre-post-training performance method .
Employee’s job performance is assessed both
before and after training, to determine whether
a change has taken place.
Evaluating Training and
Development Effectiveness
Performance-Based Evaluation Measures
 Pre-post-training performance with
control group method.
 Compares the pre-post-training results of the
trained group with the concurrent job performance
of a control group, which does not undergo
instruction.
 Used to control for factors other than training
which may affect job performance.
International Training and
Development Issues
Cross-Cultural Training
 Necessary for expatriate
managers and their families:
 before assignments (to learn
language and culture)
 during, and after foreign assignments
(to adjust to changes back home).
International Training and
Development Issues
 Cross-cultural training is more than language
training
 Involves learning about the culture’s:
 History
 Politics
 Economy
 Religion
 Social climate
 Business practices
 May involve role playing, simulations and immersion
in the culture.
International Training and
Development Issues
Development
 Often, organizations do not do a good job of
planning for the return of overseas managers.
 Leads to the managers’ being frustrated

 Returning expatriates can:

 be assigned a domestic position
 prepare for a new overseas assignment
 retire or be terminated