Socialisation

” In fact, the socialisation gives us the tools to fill our evolutionary roles. They are our building blocks.”

– Warren Farrell

Human Resource Management plays a major and vital role in new employees induction and orientation. Socialisation in an organisational context is a process of adaptation to a new culture of the organisation. Socialisation may be defined as a process of making new employees aware to the new environment of the organisation. Socialisation is a method of making people learn about the organisation and adjusting them to the knowledge, skills, attitude and expectations that is required for a new or changing role within an organisation. Socialisation is done in order to reduce the anxiety that new employees may experience during their first day. This attempt should be made to integrate the person into the informal organisation. Socialisation process may be short or long. If the new employees adjust with the organisation in less time the process of socialisation may be short otherwise it may be long. It depends on the will and ability to adjust. In simple terms, socialisation is a process of adaptation, adjustment, making arrangements for setting one employee in the organisational environment. The process of socialisation may be different for different organisations. In the same way, the purpose of socialisation can be distinctive from firm to firm. In reality, induction or orientation is only a small part of the overall socialisation of a new organisation member. This can be understood from the following lines that induction is confined to the new recruits only, whereas socialisation covers transfer and promotion as well. Some of the assumption of employee socialisation are:-

• It helps in influencing employee performance and organisational stability.
• It provides information to the employee regarding how to do the job and ensuring organisational fit.
• Motivating them to learn the culture, values and norms of the organisation and reducing their anxiety.

The content of anything is very important. So, the content of socialisation can be divided into following categories:-

• Preliminary Learning – Generally this includes that learning will be necessary, what to learn, how to learn and whom to learn from is very important.
• Learn about the organisation – This includes learning organisational goals, values and policies.
• Learn to function in work group- This includes the values, norms, roles and friendship within an organisation.
• Learn to perform the job – This includes the skills and knowledge necessary for a particular job.
• Personal Learning – Is what you learned from your experience with the job and the organisation like self-image, self-identity, motivation, etc.

There are many organisational norms and values which can be transmitted in employees in a number of ways like in the form of stories. It is one of the most common way to communicate with the people and work with their experience. The stories tell the perspective of the organisation and not that what is written in organisational documents. The next way of socialisation is material symbol. The various material symbol used by the organisation convey specific meaning. It is quite common to provide rooms of different sizes, tables of different sizes, etc. The next way of socialising with employee is language. Many organisations use language as a way to identify members of a culture.

Socialisation has many importance too and they are:-

• Helps in Understanding Culture – Socialisation helps the new employee so that they can understand the values, processes, culture, tradition and environment of the company and prepare them according to that. This also helps in making them fit into the organisation and establish productive work relationship.
• Contributes to Long-term Success – Socialisation helps in contributing to the long-term success of the employees. As a person who is socialised in terms of their organisational role are more satisfied and more adaptable.
• Help in Employee Engagement – It also helps in employee engagement. A well socialised employee fits well in their jobs, work group and organisation and are more engaged.

So lastly, Socialisation is very important for both employee and the organisation.