 In his seminal book, Good to Great, author Jim Collins says, Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident in an organization than in the areas of recruiting, socializing, and disengaging employees in what is sometimes known as the employee life cycle. Let's take a look at each of these important areas. If we start with recruiting, the analogy that Collins uses in his book is that we first have to start with getting the right people on the bus. So we need to, in other words, bring the right kind of people into our organization and not just people that match up with certain skill sets, but people that match up with personality and other aspects of organizational ethos and development. When we think about recruiting, there are a few steps that we need to consider. First, it's important that we define the position, that we as an organization know exactly what it is that position does and task-wise what that person is going to be responsible for. We also want to identify the qualities of an ideal candidate. This would include, of course, the skill sets that are required to match up with the position that we've defined very clearly, but also what kind of personality are we looking for in a worker? Are we looking for somebody who's really hard-driven and kind of type A? Are we looking for somebody who's a little more laid back? What's going to fit in best with our organizational culture and who's going to be the best match with the team that they'll be surrounded by within that organization? So we ought to identify not only the skill sets that are required for the position and the effective functioning within that position, but also other qualities of an ideal candidate that we would like to see. Then we need to develop a recruitment plan. Where are we going to go to find this person? How are we going to advertise and exactly where are we going to put the word out? And how are we going to go about finding this person in a strategic way? What's going to give us the best chance of finding those qualities and the skill position-related task qualities that we're looking for in that person that we've identified previously? Once we have that in place, we can create an interview strategy. Once we get these people in front of us, what's going to give us the best option for seeing who they really are? Is it going to be mostly skills-based interview or is it going to be more of a behaviorally-based questions in the interview? What's going to give us the best opportunity to see that person for who they are and see what their real qualities are and how they match up with the identified qualities that we've put out for that position? Finally, we need to be prepared to provide a realistic job preview. One massive error that organizations make is putting only the best face on everything about the job and about the organization, and then when people get in there and they start to see some of the uglier parts, they're surprised by that. And it's not that we want to lead with the ugly parts of the job or downplay the job at all, but we ought to give somebody a realistic job preview so that they're not so shocked when they get into the job. Our purpose here in recruiting, starting with recruiting, really, is to avoid employee turnover. We want people to stay. We invest a lot in employees. We want people to stay as long as possible and to do as good a job as possible during that time. And that starts with giving them a realistic idea of what they're in for and not just giving the best glossed-over view of that particular job so that they don't have any idea that there may be some potential downside when they get in there. So if recruiting involves getting the right people on the bus, the Collins analogy extends to then once you have the right people on the bus, you have to get them in the right seat on the bus. You have to put them in the right position in the right place within that organization. So let's talk a little bit about organizational socialization. What we mean by this is how people fit in, how people are acclimated to that organization, how they're brought in, how they're trained and how they're worked into the fabric of that organization. So there are basically three stages of organizational socialization that were identified by researcher Frederick Javelin in 1987 and that's what we're going to use as our framework in our model. Javelin identified the first of these stages as anticipatory socialization, anticipatory socialization. And anticipatory socialization comes in two different forms. The first is vocational. There's vocational anticipatory socialization in which they anticipate what the actual job will be, what they want from their job, what kind of vocation they want to be interested in or want to be involved in and what kind of skill set they think they're going to bring to that job and just preparing them in essence for the job itself vocationally. Then there's also organizational anticipatory socialization where they're anticipating what it's going to be like to be a part of that organization, the specific organization that they are joining. So we think about these things as we prepare before we ever start in a job. We have this anticipatory socialization about what things ought to be, what we hope they're going to be like, what they ought to be like, what they should be like, what they ideally will be like. The next stage of organizational socialization happens when we actually start within that organization. We call it organizational entry and assimilation. And there are essentially three phases to this as well. First we have pre-entry, which is the idea that we have before we ever really start functioning in that position. This may start as soon as the interview and work through the pre-employment stages and into even the initial stages of when we first enter an organization. But then we also have what we call the entry. So we move from pre-entry to entry assimilation. And so this involves actually getting to know the job, getting to know the people around you. But you're still feeling like you're learning on the job. You're still feeling like you're learning what's best and how things work. This is what we call the entry phase of organizational assimilation. Finally, you have what's known as metamorphosis. Metamorphosis is seen when we look at somebody who's finally grown comfortable in their role and in the organization. They've become kind of this experienced veteran in that area. And the much more comfortable, you can just see kind of this comfort level in people as they enter the metamorphosis stage of assimilation. The final stage of organizational socialization is what we call organizational disengagement and exit. Essentially, this is where your employment with that organization or your tenure with that organization is ending either voluntarily, meaning you've chosen to leave for whatever reason. But you've made that choice to walk away from that organization and pursue something different. Or it could be involuntary, meaning you've been usually fired or something like that. Or it could theoretically be that you passed away. That would also be disengaging from an organization in an involuntary sense, right? If you've passed away while you're still working or involved with this organization. But in some way, everybody's involvement with every organization is going to end at some point. It's not a question of if it's a matter of when and how. And so we know that they're voluntary and involuntary forms of disengagement. And those carry with them different different roles and different factors in the way that they're carried out. So these are the three stages of organizational communication, organizational socialization that were laid out by Jablin. Again, it is 1987 study. But so let's talk a little bit about some of the different tools that we can use for socialization. When we're working, especially in that pre-entry and entry phase of organizational socialization, what are some tools that we can use to help smooth that out and help it go as well as possible? Again, the goal here is to help people feel at home, help people feel comfortable so you have less turnover. That's the ultimate goal that people stick around and that you retain that institutional knowledge. So first we can have orientation, these formal senses of orientation where we have a planned program for bringing somebody on board for teaching them not only their job, but about the organization and the important things that they need to know to be an effective part of that organization. Then there's also other sorts of formalized training that will take place both early on in somebody's career or tenure with that organization, but also throughout then their tenure with the organization. There's formal training that will go toward socialization. You can engage in mentoring. You assign someone to work with that person, someone with more experience in that job or in that organization to work with that person and kind of guide them through the formal and informal aspects of how things work. We can look at communication networks and things like information giving, information seeking, relational development, role negotiation. These are all important aspects of socialization that take place through different communication networks that we've discussed in a previous video with formal and informal communication networks. A lot of socialization happens through these types of communication networks. The final aspect when we've touched on this already is what we call disengaging from an organization. At some point, you're going to get off the bus. If we continue that analogy, we've got to get the right people on the bus. We've got to get the people in the right seats on the bus, but then also sometimes we've got to get the wrong people off of the bus or in some regard, somebody's going to be leaving the bus at some point. So that door is open. We've got to be open to that and look at disengaging from an organization. As I mentioned, there are two types of disengagement. There's involuntary and voluntary. And once again, just briefly involuntary is that you're leaving but not by your own choice. You've been fired or you've passed away or whatever. And it was not your desire or choice to leave that organization, but it's happening anyway. Voluntary is that you've chosen, you've submitted your resignation, you've decided to leave or you've decided not to participate in that organization anymore. That is voluntary disengagement. And at some point though, one way or the other, we're all going to leave every organization that we're a part of and everybody's going to leave. We're going to see turnover eventually. The goal is to slow that down and not have turnover be as frequent within an organization. So there are different steps of disengagement that happen ideally. First is kind of the pre announcement where the decision has been made, but it hasn't even been expressed maybe out loud or maybe it has, but just in a limited way to your boss or something. But so there's this pre announcement area where we haven't really made the announcement public, but the decision is made to leave the organization or the decision is made to cut someone loose from that organization. After that, you would have the announcement where you're informing people, letting people know and taking active steps to start that disengagement process, the separation process. You have the actual exit where somebody's leaving. They've left the organization and so everything that goes along with that for better or for worse. And then finally of the post exit where you have this looking back and the way that things change or don't change. And we all have this sense of, well, this place will never run without me, but the truth is places run all the time with when people leave and we have turnover. And it's very rare for somebody to actually be irreplaceable, but that's what we tend to think of. So but then one of the adjustments that are made when someone leaves, that's the post exit area where somebody has left and disengaged from the organization, whether voluntary or involuntary. And so now we have to adjust both that person has to adjust their new life outside of that organization, but also the organization adjusts. It fills in that gap, that knowledge gap, that skills gap, that personality gap, that role gap, whatever it is. All of those things begin to morph and change and the organization figures out a way to fill in those needs. So we can see that there's separate areas, but they're really all connected. Recruiting, socializing, disengaging are all very much connected to one another. Again, the idea is to promote stability and continuity within an organization. So you have less turnover and that starts with recruiting. Recruiting the right people is the best way to keep people around. And then once you have the right people on the bus, you want to socialize them, get them in the right seat on the bus by doing socialization effectively, through orientation, through training, through leadership opportunities and things like that. And then we want to think as well about disengaging. What happens when this person leaves or is gone and what happens for them? What happens for the organization? And how do we handle those things in the best way possible? All of those things feed into one another and will promote the greatest amount of stability and structure and continuity within an organization. If you have questions about recruiting, socializing or disengaging organizations, please feel free to email me. In the meantime, I hope this has been helpful in your understanding of the life cycle of employment within an organization.