Gone are the days when people worked for the same organization from the time they left school until the time they retired. Today, a career may include a wide variety of roles at a number of organizations. Some people may also decide to migrate from the corporate world to the not-for-profit sector — or vice versa.

There can be enormous career benefits in taking on new positions at different organizations. There are also benefits for a nonprofit in bringing in new people. However, it is also important to remember there can be a significant adjustment period for staff transitioning into a new organization.

What is organizational culture shock?

Every organization, like every family, has their own way of operating and this becomes almost unconscious to people who have been part of the organization for a long time. This is the organization’s culture. David Adcock, CEO of Emergency Relief and Development Overseas (ERDO) says that a lot of an organization’s culture is “felt rather than told” and that people often only discover what the organization’s culture is when they step over a line.

Workplace consultant Graham Lowe of Kelowna, BC notes in a recent Canadian Business article, “Over the last 15 or 20 years, there’s been such an emphasis on structural change in organizations and changing systems that the soft part of change really gets left behind. In order to [improve performance] you have to dig down into the way that people work together. That’s the culture.”

When a person enters a culture that is different from one they are used to — whether it is by travelling to another country or taking a job with a new organization — they can experience some degree of culture shock, which impairs their ability to perform well. Sometimes the small differences are the most difficult.

There are ways, however, to minimize this shock and to make the transition of new staff and leaders smoother.

Assess cultural fit before you hire

Like many leaders, Adcock uses intuition as part of the process for finding the right candidate, but he cautions that managers can’t simply rely on a gut feeling. After screening resumes, Adcock himself has a general conversation with leading candidates for the role, where they talk about such things as job description and salary expectations. He follows this with an interview with people who can determine skill set and competencies of a candidate. Sometimes the people who conduct this interview are not even staff of the organization: to hire an accountant, he relies on board and community members with practical, professional knowledge of accounting. Finally, a prospective candidate meets with other staff, where they can all talk about “fit and chemistry and culture.” At this interview, the candidate is presented with scenario-type questions and watched for how they react. The candidate is also given the opportunity to ask questions that will help them know whether the not-for-profit is a good fit for him or her.

Randy Dearlove, a human resources manager at World Vision Canada, uses the interviewing process to understand the motivation of people looking to work for his organization. Still, he describes several challenges: “Some people come from the corporate world to the nonprofit sector, expecting it will be a rest.” Others are so idealistic about the work of the organization that they fail to recognize that the day-to-day work of an accountant in a development and relief agency, for instance, is not that different from the work of an accountant in any other company.

Dearlove describes the human resources task of “bursting the bubble” in an interview situation, challenging idealism without destroying the good impulse behind it.

Nonprofits are, by nature, mission-driven organizations. One of the best ways of introducing a potential candidate to the culture of the organization is to share its mission and history. Dearlove of World Vision says, “We tell stories and talk about our core values and mission from our very first contact with a potential individual.” Potential staff are also given a book written by the head of World Vision: this serves as a “good primer for the DNA of the organization.” Tactics like this offer candidates a helpful glimpse of the organizational culture before they even complete the hiring process — so they can also begin to assess fit.

The use of objective measures

When hiring senior level staff, many organizations employ outside services to assess potential candidates. Toronto psychologist Franz Schmidt of the YMCA works with a wide variety of nonprofit organizations as they bring on senior staff, offering a battery of assessment and aptitude tests. Such tests are available to help hiring committees understand the personality profile of potential managers, to know whether such a person might fit into an organization.

Schmidt believes the cost of services like his far outweigh the costs of making a mistake in hiring a senior level manager who is a poor fit for an organization. He has seen companies spend six figures on hiring a candidate who is ultimately unsuited to the culture of an organization and who then leaves in the first year.

He has also assessed individuals from the private sector who are used to a more intense and competitive atmosphere and who are unable to work within a more collaborative approach or who find the long consensus-building process of boards of directors to be frustrating.

In addition to the financial losses of hiring an unsuitable candidate, the experience is also difficult for staff, throwing organizations into “interpersonal chaos” and inhibiting the work of the organization.

Sometimes it’s an obvious “no”

An organization’s culture is not simply about whether staff brown-bag their lunches or go out together to the local diner. Sometimes there are much deeper issues.

World Vision, for instance, has a policy about hostage taking; a candidate recently turned down a position because his family was not comfortable with the implications of the policy. Earthsave, which focuses its efforts on educating people about health, environmental and ethical consequences of food choices, asks applicants how their personal philosophy fits in with their mandate. This usually gives them insight into whether the applicant fits in with the organization. While they have at times deliberately hired staff who are not part of their traditional constituency in order to broaden it, it is not likely that a meat-eating candidate in favour of genetically modified foods would be a good fit for a role within the organization.

Welcoming staff on board

Adcock has worked for a wide variety of nonprofit organizations, and has hired people from other nonprofits to work with him. “How you on-board someone is very important. I’ve been personally on-boarded well and poorly in different places,” Adcock says, recalling an organization where his manager was away travelling on Adcock’s first few days of work and he had to find his own way around. “Having a sense of welcome is very important.”

Kathline Holmes, human resources professional and principal at Gailforce Resources, says “We assume because someone’s been selected and passed all the tests, they automatically know what to do, but it’s just not true. On-boarding new staff is a timed, well-planned process with the goal of embedding a new person in the organization.”

On the first day, the main task is introduction. Introduce new staff to people they will be working with as well as people in other departments. Set a new employee up at their work station and ensure they have all the tools, supplies and resources they need. Go over basic policies and procedures. Anything more is overwhelming.

Every new employee at Lutherwood, a Waterloo, Ontario-based social services agency with nearly 400 employees, receives a handwritten card from the CEO – welcoming them and thanking them in advance for what they offer to the organization.

The work culture extends beyond the office to the day-to-day field work of many organizations and World Vision considers it a good investment to take new senior managers overseas early in their role to see their programs in action.

Whether the new employee is a receptionist or a CEO, confidence issues can arise just because of uncertainty and because it takes time for a person to see how they really fit into the organization. Holmes suggests having a check-in point for questions in the first few days or weeks of a new employee coming on board. This can be casual, but it ensures the employee has what they need to do the job. Providing clear expectations, outcomes, role clarity and regular checkpoints for feedback early on does a lot to provide needed guidance and support while the person acculturates.

Every quarter, Lutherwood leads new staff through a human resources orientation, a customer service orientation, and an agency orientation. The human resources orientation teaches new staff about the organization’s policies and a full day is spent learning about Lutherwood’s emphasis on customer service. Perhaps the favourite part for new staff is the agency-wide orientation day when Lutherwood hires a bus and drives all new staff to each of its eight diverse sites. Here they are given tours by the managers of the site.

Shelley Westerman, human resources generalist at Lutherwood, says “The beauty of the bus tour is that everyone is new — they’re all in the same boat — or bus. A large part of this is to introduce people to our culture — when new staff see that managers take time to tour them around and answer their questions, it helps them understand that we are there to support them. It also helps staff appreciate different aspects of what we do and meet people face to face that they might otherwise, in the course of their work, never see face to face.”

Social events smooth integration issues

It’s also important to remember that bringing new staff into an organization has the potential to create a certain amount of friction. Organizations often resist the new energy and ideas of new staff and managers, while the new people may fail to get to know the organization’s history and culture.

Social events can prevent some potential integration issues. Holmes suggests planning an informal welcome lunch so that people can get to know one another in a relaxed setting. She also points out the importance of helping a new person’s family feel at home, especially if the family has moved into the community for the job. She recalls an organization where an executive was thriving in the new role but had an unsettled family, so left the position to return to the previous community.

“If you provide a good on-boarding and training program, you’ll be checking in regularly for the first three months to see what’s working and what’s not,” Holmes says. “Your process helps you know if the person doesn’t fit. You might have a gut feeling two weeks in that the person isn’t working out, but if you don’t have a process in place, you can’t identify the issues to see if they are deal-breakers.”

Set up a buddy system

At all the organizations he has worked for, David Adcock promotes mentoring. He has an expectation that all staff will find someone, whether inside or outside the organization, to help them develop professionally and find a good work-life balance. Holmes suggests that mentors need to understand the role of the new staff person and need to know the organization intimately.

Lutherwood recruits peer mentors from committed, respected employees, and offers training to peer mentors so that they can help new staff by modelling skills and behaviour and offering support.

“The learning curve is steep,” says Chris Sellers, manager, marketing and communications for Lutherwood, “but it is very much supported.”

The case of small organizations

In a large organization where multiple people are involved with similar tasks, a new staff person or manager can take time to adjust to the culture of the organization, but in a small organization, there is less room for error.

Adcock advises that managers at small organizations should think very carefully and take a long time to hire for a position. They should be very clear on the role of the new staff person, and be able to provide close involvement at first, gradually letting go. Challenges can arise when a new role is created, because the temptation is to micromanage. Adcock talks about the tendency for managers to keep the interesting and creative aspects of a task for themselves, and to hire staff to do menial or repetitive tasks. He says, “If managers are able to let go of some good stuff, the job becomes attractive for people with creativity and energy.”

Hiring new staff and managers requires some degree of adjustment, both for the individual and the organization, but if the process is managed well, the organization will benefit greatly from the immersion of new people.

“Hiring new people who are a good fit isn’t rocket science,” says Dearlove. “At the same time, there are definitely ways to make the process of hiring and bringing people on-board much easier.”

“Investing in new staff doesn’t have to be expensive,” Sellers says. “Lutherwood’s biggest expense is renting a school bus. The value of that investment, however, is huge. At the end of the day, our goals is to make people feel welcomed, give clear expectations, give them people to talk to if issues arise — that’s what makes our organization successful.”

Editor’s Note: Look for upcoming articles on creating and ensuring a culture of diversity at your workplace.

Susan Fish is a writer/editor at Storywell, a company that helps individuals and organization tell their story well. She has written for the nonprofit sector for almost two decades and loves a good story.

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