The Social learning is a process that greatly facilitates the integration of new employees in order to make new hires quickly productive.
Humans are social animals that need to be part of a community to survive. And the community needs individuals to continue to develop, progress and cope with the vagaries of its environment.
What is the relationship with a company? Each employee needs their mentors, peers and colleagues, in other words their social group, to develop their skills and thus “survive” in the world of work.. For its part, the company needs to see its employees evolve and improve their skills in order to take advantage of them and thus continue to develop in an increasingly competitive world.
A good integration experience is based on the sharing of knowledge, but also on the social aspect of learning. The objective is to get the individual to quickly find themselves in a comfort zone so that they feel they are an integral part of their new environment and contribute to their development, both internally (working relationships, management) and externally (company results).
Learning through observation
The Social learning is largely based on observation. Thus, offering a new recruit to support an experienced employee to see how they work is an excellent introduction.
It is also possible to use the “shadowing” technique, that is to say let the new collaborator come and go as he pleases, follow a particular person or put yourself in a predefined place in order to observe the behaviors of other collaborators without informing them of the identity of the new recruit.
Supporting recruits
During an integration, the new employee can be drowned in the information and elements to remember. Between the processes to know, management methods, team rituals and potentially, depending on your position, the documents to sign or submit: it is complicated, if not impossible, to memorize everything.
To facilitate this integration, it can be useful to provide the person joining your team with a roadmap with the elements to be integrated quickly, those that will be addressed, with whom and in what framework it is necessary to use them.
Emphasize rituals and informal learning
THEinformal learning offers good results and facilitates integration into a team. A breakfast planned for the arrival of the new hire, a lunch or a drink in the evening after work are all events you can organize. For newcomers, this type of meeting is an excellent way to discover team members, to develop certain affinities, to know the interests of other individuals and to benefit from the advice of employees who have been with the company for some time.
Building a sense of belonging is key to improving retention rates and reducing long-term training costs.. This must be done as soon as the new employee arrives in the company, by increasing social interactions during the onboarding process.
