What is Acculturation?

aka Socialization. aka Indoctrination. aka Yet Another Portal.

Acculturation is an onboarding process that gently and methodically introduces an employee into a new role. Acculturation has also been called socialization and indoctrination. It's purpose is clear: expediently transition an employee into their new role, introducing them to their new team, introducing them to their new job, and if onboarding an employee from outside the organization, introducing them to their new company. The value of acculturation is to get the employee up to speed and effective as quickly as possible, which is both a boon to the company, and a boon to the employee: studies have shown that good acculturation creates happy employees, which means better retention.

Acculturation onboarding vendors typically offer this functionality through a new onboarding portal where the new employee can find the tasks that are expected of them, learn about their new company, and meet their team. At Emerald Software our approach to acculturation onboarding is different. Instead of putting your new employees in front of a new and separate proprietary onboarding portal, doesn't it make more sense to put them in front of the portal they will work in as a permanent employee? Isn't it preferable to acculturate employees in the company's Intranet or Employee Self Service Portal? Does it makes sense for HR, HRIS, and IS to support yet another portal?

Emerald Software embraces a modular approach to software, and our onboarding product will work with your existing company intranet (which is more than likely Microsoft SharePoint) or your HRMS system's Employee Self Service portal. Employees still have access to Emerald's award-winning paperless forms processes, but they can also learn about their new company, their colleagues, their new job and their projects, all while in the portal environment they will continue to work in years beyond their onboarding experience. We believe this leads to even quicker, more effective acculturation and socialization. And our customers tend to agree.