How to Keep the Culture When Bringing in New Employees

A combination of shared beliefs and values established by senior management and then reinforced through various methods makes up culture.

Ultimately, culture shapes employees’ perceptions and understanding of how a company behaves. 

Here’s how you can keep the culture when bringing in new employees:

1) Reflect culture in the pre-hiring process

Don’t rush the hiring process! When a business hires a new employee, there’s a possibility that it can improve the overall culture of the company. However, this isn’t always the case. Change to the existing workplace culture can be detrimental to your business. This highlights why the recruitment process plays a large role in effectively preserving the culture in the organisation. The hiring process will help you establish whether candidates share the same values as your business.

By identifying this early in the process, you can eliminate any potential threat to the existing culture of the company. During the interview process, discuss your core values and display your organisation’s culture with candidates. Discussing your core values during the interview stage will help you identify which candidates will be a great culture fit. These are the ideal employees that can contribute to a successful workplace.

2) Onboarding

An employee's first day is considered to be one of the most memorable events at a workplace. First impressions are everything. The first kind of engagement a newcomer should encounter must be warm and welcoming. Introduce the employee to the core team members, and department leaders and guide them to the facilities where they will work. Schedule a time to give the employee insight into the company culture, leadership, mission, vision, and process.

Once the new hire has familiarised themselves with workplace practices, you must start to instil existing culture into their day-to-day routine as an ongoing process.

Below are a few points on how you can instil existing culture:

• Involve employees in decision making

Give new employees a sense of belonging in the system. When communicating new aims and goals, involve them by asking for their input. Tasking new employees with contributing to creating shared goals will give them a feeling of being valued. Continued involvement in this process will leave employees wanting to be more committed to achieving team objectives. Once the employee understands the short and long—term goals of the company, culture will become the engine of the organisation’s purpose.

• Acknowledgement, reward and recognition

Motivation is a great way to get new employees to adopt the culture and values of the organisation. Providing performance evaluations can affect workplace culture. Acknowledgement of practices will help outline what is expected from the employee. Clear feedback will teach newcomers the company’s value system, norms, and desired behaviours.

Final thoughts

To get a sustainable competitive edge, you must win the confidence of employees. Demonstrate a better working environment that attracts talented people to join and contribute to the organisation’s success. Employees are the backbone of any company, so build your team around the right culture that will drive your business to success.