Social adaptation
Social adaptation is a very important point, as it determines the well-being of the individual. Getting used to people and society is not such a simple thing, but the psychological health of an individual depends on the ability to adapt to changing conditions and new personalities.
Social adaptation can be considered as a one-act or multi-act process. What does it mean? A person who has successfully integrated into society will feel comfortable in any group if their values, rules of behavior and moral standards are approximately the same. If he changes teams, then we will be talking, rather, about easy readaptation.
Let's imagine that a person grew up in a Russian village, studied at a rural school and worked all his life in the same environment. His values were shaped by this environment, and his habits correspond to the rules of survival among people like him. If this subject decides to give up everything and go to New York, then an incredible number of surprises will await him here: a new language, a new mentality, a different rhythm, currency, values, prices, requirements, landscapes... All this provokes the development of completely new habits, manners, perceptions, plunges a person into extreme stressful conditions.
The concept of labor adaptation
Labor adaptation is a complex mutual process of a person’s adaptation to the work environment and the same environment to the individual himself. When a new employee starts work, he learns norms, rules of behavior, and a system of relationships within the team. At the same time, he learns to work effectively, masters new skills, and adapts to the regime.
Labor adaptation is a process; it combines social, professional, psychophysiological, organizational, economic, and cultural and everyday adaptation.
Some researchers consider labor adaptation as part of social adaptation.
The need for adaptation from the employer's point of view
Unfortunately, many business owners view most additional costs as an obstacle to increasing company profitability. However, in practice, the onboarding of new employees is critical to maintaining the sustainability of the organization. In particular, this makes it possible to reduce staff turnover, since the bulk of dismissals occur among employees who have been in the company for no more than a month. This may be due to the following reasons:
- Discrepancy between expectations from the position received and the actual aspects of the activity.
- The presence of psychological barriers when communicating with a new team.
- Difficulty in understanding the rules, features and corporate culture of the company.
- The need to independently understand work issues that may be obvious to other employees.
That is why adaptation allows you to increase your productivity.
In this regard, costs can be reduced. In addition, this allows the company to insure against risks, since new employees do not always correctly understand their job responsibilities and can bring losses to the organization. An important advantage of using the adaptation process is to increase the motivation of a new employee, the level of which affects the efficiency of the company.
Finally, this process allows the employer to develop a positive attitude towards the company in general and the team in particular, which will have a positive impact on the employee’s loyalty to the organization and the desire to improve the situation.
As an additional bonus, we can consider the fact that the level of team cohesion as a whole increases, and the potential of those employees who have been working for a long time increases due to the fact that they become more involved in the activity.
If you are interested in how dismissal due to staff reduction works under the Labor Code, read this material.
Detailed information about the corporate property tax interest rate is provided here.
Types of labor adaptation
Professional adaptation is the development of professional skills, improvement of knowledge that is necessary to perform one’s work in a particular organization. This type of adaptation includes the development of ethical and moral standards, the ability to solve complex professional dilemmas.
Social adaptation lies in the ability to form positive relationships with members of the work team and establish external labor contacts.
Psychophysiological adaptation is getting used to physical activity, the convenience of the workplace and space, the distance of work from the place of residence and planning your time accordingly, etc.
Organizational is getting used to the work regime and working hours.
Economic adaptation is the employee’s familiarization with the economic mechanisms of the organization, getting used to the size and mode of payment for his work.
Cultural adaptation is the participation of a new employee in various events that are not included in his working hours and direct responsibilities.
Persons responsible for carrying out this process
The best situation is one in which 3 parties are involved in the employee adaptation process - his manager, personnel service and a predetermined mentor . The boss must determine the responsibilities, goals and objectives for the employee, identify a mentor and constantly monitor the results achieved. The end result of solving these issues is making a decision about the quality of the employee’s work.
For HR, it should provide induction training on safety, internal procedures, etc., obtain feedback from the new employee during onboarding, train managers in mentoring skills, and help develop incentive schemes.
Finally, a mentor is an experienced employee who teaches a new employee how to effectively achieve results. Its goals are to familiarize the employee with the functions of the department, get to know the team and provide consultation during the work process. A mentor not only allows a newcomer to better navigate his future activities, but also develops his management skills.
Stages of labor adaptation
The first stage is considered to be familiarizing the new employee with the enterprise as a whole, with the norms of behavior, with how certain actions are evaluated.
The second stage is the new employee’s adaptation to the new internal laws of the organization and team, but at this stage he is still guided by his personal or previously acquired attitudes and rules.
At the assimilation stage, a new employee enters the team. At this stage, a person already identifies himself with this group.
And the last stage is identification, which is characterized by the coincidence of the goals of the new employee and the organization.
How long does adaptation take?
There is no clear answer to this question, since there are different levels of complexity of the duties performed, different methods of adaptation of new employees in the organization itself, types of temperament of the employee himself, his psychotype, work experience and attitude towards work.
Some companies are interested in quickly adapting a new employee, so they use various methods that help a person quickly integrate into the work process and work productively. These same organizations are least interested in staff turnover, so they provide not only professional but also personal growth, pay attention to the arrangement of the employee’s workspace, choose the most suitable schedule for him, etc. In such cases, the adaptation process is the least painful and can last from two weeks to one month.
Budgetary organizations are less likely to be interested in quickly adapting a new employee, and the process itself is the result of the interest of the team and administration itself.
Personnel adaptation methods
Managers who realize that the basis for the successful work of an organization is a strong workforce, implement effective adaptation programs that involve a number of activities designed to form two types of motivation in newcomers: external (economic) and internal (personal).
Everything is clear about economic motivation. The employee must receive financial remuneration that corresponds to his professional level, quantity and quality of labor expended. Bonuses, bonuses and other one-time incentives are also very effective - they increase employee loyalty to the company.
Internal (personal) motivation is the employee’s desire to grow and develop within the organization. The following tools help to form such motivation:
- Briefing. A beginner will be able to get into the work process faster if an experienced employee or a specially trained instructor explains and demonstrates the necessary work techniques;
- Mentoring. This is a traditional method of vocational training, widely used throughout the world. The newcomer is assigned a competent mentor who supervises his work. In the first days, the mentor can meet with the newcomer every day, gradually introducing him to the situation, taking an interest in his achievements, helping him cope with difficulties and leveling possible conflicts;
- On-the-job training. The method is distinguished by its practical orientation. An employee, under the guidance of experienced colleagues, becomes closely acquainted with his production functions, gradually taking on solving increasingly complex problems. The method is ideal for mastering skills for performing everyday work, but it is sometimes insufficient for developing the employee’s potential and developing new professional experience. For this reason, off-the-job training activities are often more effective;
- Educational courses, trainings and seminars. These forms of training are aimed at developing in an employee certain qualities and skills that will allow him to solve production problems more effectively. There are many different options for conducting such events - classroom training, webinar, etc.;
- Coaching. Coaching aims not at direct training, but at maximizing the full potential of the employee to master new horizons in development. A coach teaches how to move towards a goal and solve larger problems;
- Corporate parties, outdoor recreation and other non-work events. They provide an opportunity to meet colleagues in a non-work environment, which simplifies and speeds up the process of entering a new social environment.
Signs of an adapted employee
Often people call the process of labor adaptation with the understandable word “joined”: joined the team, joined the work. When a person fulfills his direct duties without much difficulty, and being in a team does not cause him a feeling of discomfort, it can be argued that he is adapted.
What does “without much difficulty” mean? There are professions and positions where results are impossible without a lot of effort. There are situations that are far from the template, and their implementation requires a creative approach... The main difference between an employee who has successfully completed social and labor adaptation is his confidence that he will be able to resolve all issues (even if at the time of their occurrence he does not have concepts about the solution path).
A sign of social adaptation in a team is not the complete absence of conflicts, but the ability to resolve them constructively. Productive activity should be accompanied by disputes and discussions, but not turn into confrontation. A socially adapted employee knows how to defend his point of view, including if it does not coincide with the opinion of the masses, but at the same time maintain friendly and positive relationships with group members.
Concept and types of personnel adaptation. Stages of the onboarding process
Types of adaptation
Labor adaptation is a multidimensional phenomenon that includes:
- social adaptation, i.e. obtaining information about the values, norms of the organization, its formal and informal groups, leaders, acquaintance and inclusion in the system of business and personal relationships in the team. The information is correlated with the employee’s past experience and value guidelines. The result of the adoption of group norms is the employee’s identification with the team or with one of the formal or informal groups;
- organizational adaptation, in which employees become aware of their role in the overall production process. This is achieved by becoming familiar with the peculiarities of the unit’s activities, its place in the overall organizational structure, operating mode, management system, as well as the functioning mechanism of the entire organization;
- professional adaptation, which is characterized by the development of a certain level of professional knowledge, skills, cooperation skills, the formation of the necessary qualities and a positive attitude towards one’s work;
- psychophysiological adaptation, i.e. adaptation to new mental and physical stress, sanitary and hygienic production factors, labor rhythm, etc.
There are two directions of labor adaptation: primary and secondary.
• Primary adaptation is carried out by young employees who are starting their professional activities for the first time and have no work experience.
• Secondary adaptation – adaptation of employees with certain professional experience who, due to various circumstances, change their place of activity or position.
In the context of the functioning of the labor market, the role of secondary adaptation increases. At the same time, it is necessary to carefully study the experience of foreign companies that pay increased attention to the initial adaptation of young workers. This category of personnel needs special care from the administration of organizations. Most often, professional adaptation is considered as the process of introducing a person to work within a certain profession, including him in production activities, assimilating conditions and achieving labor efficiency standards. However, adaptation cannot be considered only as mastery of a specialty. It also provides for the adaptation of the newcomer to the social norms of behavior operating in the team, the establishment of such cooperative relations between the employee and the team that best ensure effective work and satisfaction of the material, everyday and spiritual needs of both parties. Types of adaptation and factors influencing it are shown in Fig. 1 .
Rice. 1. Types of adaptation and factors influencing it
Stages of adaptation
The following stages can be traced in the process of labor adaptation:
- familiarization, i.e. obtaining information about a new situation, criteria for evaluating activities, norms of behavior;
- device, i.e. the new employee assimilating the core values of the organization while maintaining most of his own attitudes;
- assimilation, i.e. full adaptation of the employee to the group;
- identification, i.e. identification of the employee's goals with the goals of the organization.
In addition, there are four types of human behavior when included in an organization:
- The first type fully accepts the norms of behavior and values of the organization and tries to ensure that its actions do not conflict with the interests of the organization. The results of this person’s actions depend mainly on his personal capabilities and abilities and on how correctly the content of his role is defined.
- The second type does not accept the values of the organization, but behaves in accordance with the norms of behavior accepted in the organization. He is a good, but unreliable employee, capable of leaving the organization or committing actions contrary to its interests.
- The third type accepts the values of the organization, but does not accept the norms of behavior. Difficulties arise in relationships with colleagues and management. With a liberal attitude towards certain forms of employee behavior on the part of management, they find their place in the organization and work successfully.
- The fourth type does not accept the norms of behavior and does not share the values of the organization and therefore constantly creates conflict situations. Such people most often make life difficult for colleagues and can cause harm to the organization, but they are not completely unacceptable in it.
The adaptation period depends on many factors and can range from one to three years. At this time, a person, drawing conclusions from the consequences of his previous experience, consciously adjusts and changes his behavior. This is reflected in the fact that a new employee, learning his functional role, learns to place emphasis in the work he performs from the position of its importance for the organization.
Difficulties in adaptation or its disruption are usually called maladjustment. The consequences of maladaptation include destructive conflicts, indifference to the work performed, leaving the department or organization. In addition, an adaptation crisis may arise due to a significant discrepancy between knowledge and skills and the requirements of the position.
The results of adaptation are assessed by quantitative and qualitative indicators of labor, in relation to the employee’s attitude towards the organization, which is manifested in his orientation towards a change or maintaining a job, profession, position, or advanced training.
Labor activity as the main method of adaptation
If you think about it, the process of introducing a person into any society occurs through work. Be it mental or physical skills, without them an individual cannot be an effective unit in any given society.
The learning process can also be safely equated to work activity, since it requires significant mental and sometimes physical effort of a person. Having a certain amount of knowledge and skills, a person speaks the language of the profession. Adaptation in work activity is one of the most effective ways to integrate into society.
The main problems of beginners
Coming to work in a new organization is not an easy moment in a psychological sense for every person. The main concerns of people are related to:
- With uncertainty in their professional knowledge and skills, with fear of making mistakes and blunders due to insufficient knowledge and experience;
- With the risk of losing your job, failing to cope with assigned responsibilities, not meeting project deadlines, etc.;
- With the problem of integrating into a new team, with creating business and friendly contacts with the boss and colleagues, with fears of not gaining authority among colleagues.
The employer must provide favorable conditions so that the adaptation process occurs as smoothly as possible. If the process is not controlled, there is a high risk that the newcomer will spend too much time integrating into the company, or even decide that the job is not suitable for him and want to quit. Psychologists say that of all the employees who quit in the first six months to a year after taking up a position, 80% of people made their decision in the first weeks of work, i.e. precisely during the adaptation period.
Some advice for a new employee
- Don't be afraid to make mistakes. During the period of familiarization with your profession in the workplace, small and large gaps should happen. Make an effort to quickly master the necessary skills, but do not strive to do everything primly perfect. Why? Everything is very simple. Firstly, by showing the maximum of your capabilities in the first days, you set a high bar for yourself, and if you lower it even a millimeter, you will seem like a loser or an emotionally burnt-out employee.
- Don't try to please every member of the team and everyone will like it. Many new employees experience stress during their first days at work; in order to drown it out, they try to acquire a support group. One of the effective ways is to help everyone. In two weeks, people will get used to your services and any refusal will be perceived as an act of protest. There can be no talk of any full adaptation of the employee in the future.
- The other extreme is to show your character and get into trouble over every little thing. Such a personality immediately becomes surrounded by myths and hostility from employees. If a new employee causes fear or discomfort among others, then sooner or later measures will be taken to remove this “foreign body” from the organization.
Labor adaptation in prisons
Many researchers call the labor adaptation of an employee at an enterprise one of the types of social adaptation. It is noted that this is a two-way process, since consensus is sought between the person and the organization in order to reduce the adaptation process to a minimum. The more successful the adaptation, the sooner the employee will begin to act fruitfully. The goal is to quickly receive a product or service.
Labor adaptation centers for convicts pursue slightly different goals. Of course, the process is accompanied by both social and psychophysiological adaptation, since the individual has to join the society of convicts and get used to a very harsh regime. Labor adaptation in places of deprivation of liberty is of a corrective nature. It would not be entirely correct to use the expression “successful adaptation of prisoners,” since a person does not have to adapt to such conditions, he only has to change himself and learn a lesson.
If we take the example of the film “The Shawshank Redemption”, we can see that successful adaptation of prisoners still exists. This takes not two weeks or two years, but decades. The thing is that with age, a person’s ability to adapt decreases, and any change in conditions, for the better or for the worse, requires flexibility of the psyche and perception.
Career guidance
Career guidance and labor adaptation are two interrelated concepts. The first is aimed at young people and those looking for work to make it clear: what type of work is suitable for them, what kind of workload they can withstand, determine their area of interest and areas of competence.
If a person does not have the ability or desire to do some kind of work, then adaptation will be sluggish and long. An employee can perform another type of activity at a high level, but this work may turn out to be too energy-consuming or morally difficult for this person, which will lead to rapid burnout.
Career guidance is also necessary for a person to soberly assess his abilities, since everyone can cross-stitch, but not everyone can withstand this monotonous work for 8 hours a day.
There are individuals who manifest themselves in monotonous work, and there are those who are effective in variety. Each new activity arouses their enthusiasm and desire to bring rational suggestions.
