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What if your company culture wasn’t just an HR buzzword but the secret weapon to scaling your business?
Welcome to Kan Talk Kulture, the podcast that dives deep into how remarkable company cultures are intentionally built and how they can transform your team, your business, and your bottom line.
Hosted by Kylie Anne Neal, founder of Kan Kulture and a passionate expert in people, culture, and leadership, this show is designed for business owners, CEOs, HR professionals, and anyone who believes that empowered people are the key to long-term success.
Each episode features real conversations with inspiring CEOs, business leaders, and culture champions who share how they’ve shaped their team environments alongside case studies, practical tips, and bold questions that challenge the status quo.
Whether you're looking to boost employee engagement, create a high-performance team, or align your people with your vision, this podcast will help you connect the dots between culture and growth.
At Kan Kulture, we believe in Kindness, Understanding, Learning, Trust, Uniqueness, Respect, and Evolving, and this podcast brings those values to life.
If you're ready to turn your team into your biggest brand ambassadors and create a workplace people love, this is the podcast for you.
Find out more at www.kankulture.com
Hi, I'm Kylie Anne Neal, founder of Kan Kulture and welcome to Kan Talk Kulture. In this podcast, I sit down with some of Australia's most. Progressive founders and CEOs to explore the heart of their company, Kultures, what drives them, what they value, and what it's really like to work for the companies they lead.
You'll also find occasional episodes packed with practical hr. To help you build safer, stronger, and more trusted workplaces. So whether you're a new team member, getting to know your workplace, curious about creating remarkable company Kultures, or just wanting to know more about implementing HR best practice, you are in the right place.
Let's dive in.
Hello and welcome to Kan Talk Kulture. I'm Kylie Neal and Georgina Walker is joining me again today, who's a people and Kulture consultant at Kan Kulture. Welcome again, Georgina. Thank you for having me. You are very welcome. Thank you for being here. So today, last episode we spoke about, uh, onboarding and we focused really on that first week.
Um, so induction. Really, as we would call it. Now, I wanna take a bit of a broader perspective for onboarding and let's look at the first six months. Mm-hmm. Uh, at can Kulture. We do class onboarding. We define onboarding for that six month period. What type of ingredients or things do you think makes a good onboarding experience?
Making the person feel welcome, making sure they. Know their role in and out or understand what their role should be, um, and making them feel like they're a part of the team.
And what type of milestones, for one of a better word, do you think are important during that first six months?
At can Kulture? We like to use the, the 1 3, 5 month check-in.
Yes. The one month is really a cultural check-in. To make sure that they, yeah. Again, feel like they're settling into the team. Have they been given the appropriate resources? What can we do to facilitate them? Basically, it's just a, it's a check-in for the employee and employer. Yep. Hmm.
Yep. What about the three and five months?
Three month. Again, it's, they're, they're both check-ins At the three month stage. They should start to feel like they're, they know their job, but again, it's, it's a check-in to ensure that they do understand their roles, responsibilities, what can we help them with? Did you, did we give you the right tools?
Did you need some more training? Those types of questions as well as any feedback to the employer as well. Yeah, I think. People see check-ins or meetings with managers as scary conversations, but especially the 1 3, 5 month, it's not just the employer, you know, sussing out the employee, it's, it's the other way as well.
Making sure that the workplace is the correct fit.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, the 1, 3, 5 months, they're really important. I think managers can have a tendency of after week one or week two. They just have an expectation that the new starter can be competent and confident in their role, but there's still things that they need to learn along the way.
And the more a leader invests in their new starters in those first couple of months, um, the more success they're going to have with being, um, highly competent and capable in the role. They're engaged to do. Mm-hmm. And it is, it is a journey, and I think it is being able to, it enables the leaders to understand, okay, at the one month mark, what should our expectations be of this new startup?
What, what's. Normal. And the normal thing is yes. Is the role what you thought it would be at recruitment? Are you having the right experiences for you to onboard? Are you enjoying the Kulture? Is the Kulture what you thought it would be? Is the job what you thought it would be? Is the job what you thought it would be?
Has. Met your expectations, vice versa at the three month mark. Yes, you're right. More capability and competency to do the role. So at the three month mark, you would assume that someone can do pretty much all the elements of the role to a. Almost satisfactory level. There might be some gaps, but at the three month mark, they should have had exposure and experience with all the tasks that are aligned to the job description.
At the five month mark, it should be pretty clear as to whether they're. Wholly competent in the role or not, and why? Five months Kylie? So four, five months. Because if we look at a probation period or a minimum employment period, it is six months. Mm-hmm. So having a check in at five months does give the opportunity of space for a really purposeful check-in to make that call.
For both sides. Yeah. Is this the job that you applied for? Mm. Is this, you know, are things going well for you? Same as the leader sitting down and saying, okay, are you pretty much fully competent in your role? Are there things that we need to address or. Do we not think that you are going to have the capability or the potential to, uh, work competently in this role?
Mm-hmm. And that gives a, a month to be able to course correct anything that needs to be surfaced in those conversations. So they are really critical, particularly that five months. And it is really, you know, after a couple of months people forget that they're in that minimum employment period or that probation period.
The leaders forget that they're new to role because they, they, you know, can quite quickly seem like part of the furniture, but there is still a learning process that's going on. So it is that, you know, kind of forming, um, competency and capability in. That environment, which can be different, even if they're doing exactly the same job in another environment, it can look very, very different.
Mm-hmm. So the onboarding process is really, really important and it's really important for managers to, not on repeat, but make sure that they're being really clear. About the priorities of the role, not making assumptions that the individual knows how to do the role.
Mm.
Um, you know, they're in a, they're in, they might be in environment that they've been in for a long time, so things are really automatic to them, but they need to stop and pause and put themselves in their new starter shoes and fill the gaps where they can.
Yeah. And how do you ensure it's not just a. A tick box thing. I've done my one month check-in. I've done my three month check-in. I've done my five month check-in, tick box,
good old tick and flick. Hey, anybody that says check-ins, performance reviews, one-on-ones are a tick and flick are treating them as tick and flicks.
Yeah. And. That's on them. Mm. It's often not on the process. It's not the template. It's not a tick and flick, and there's only two people that need to understand that. And then the two people engaging in the conversation. Yes. Yeah. So for if there's a, if there's a, a Kulture of this performance review is just a tick and flick.
Mm. For us as HR professionals, it's a really telling sign that either they don't understand the purpose of the check-ins or the one-on-ones, or the performance reviews, or there's something missing in, uh, the meaningfulness of the conversation and the interaction.
Mm.
And that's a big educational piece for leaders, I think.
Yes. If they have that. Mentality that it's a tick and flick. It's going to just be a tick and flick. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. We see that a lot too, too,
too much.
We do see that a lot, and it is the implications, like we talk about Kulture, we talk about moments that matter, we talk about rituals we can provide.
Remarkable environments for our clients through the people practices that we, um, help educate them on and the practices that we put in place for them. Mm. But it's up to them to translate that in a meaningful way. It's up to them to sit in a room during a check-in or a performance review and respect that.
Respect that space. Mm. Like actively listen and take on the feedback. Listen to the words, listen to the meanings of what's being spoken about and what's being raised. Because it is a different conversation to an everyday, an everyday task related, and it can get so much out of it. Mm. Um, but there needs to be two willing participants for it to be meaningful.
I'll
be honest with you. Our one, three and five month check-in. I was so scared before each one, but after the conversation, you just feel so connected to each other. You feel like there's more trust between the two of you. But yeah. Not gonna lie, there are definitely nerves before each of those conversations.
Yes.
Yeah. And you know, it's that feeling afterwards. Mm-hmm. And the, the feeling of. Um, anticipation or angst? Yes. Prior to that emotion is coming from a place of passion. Mm-hmm. Because you want things to be right. Mm-hmm. Like, you wanna know that you're on the right track. Mm. And you know, we talk about the experience of you and I and our check-ins like they have been in, in my view.
Mm-hmm. Um, meaningful. Like they definitely, they have been really respectful. Mm-hmm. And I think we've been able to. Raise any inconsistencies. We've been able to respectfully put things on the table. Yeah. I felt heard by you. Mm-hmm. And I felt that I could listen to you ever very easily and. We, you know, which are highlighted in our last check-in.
I feel like we do have a lot of trust in our relationship and it's because we Kan hold the space for each other to have those meaningful conversations. Mm-hmm. Um, some managers that perhaps aren't as experienced, experienced mm-hmm. Or don't see the purpose of them. Kan sit in a room and have a very, uh, yeah.
Yeah. You're doing a good job. I don't even know why we're having this meeting. Okay, cool. See you. Um, yeah, just gonna send this email while we're talking. Yeah. It's, it's disrespectful and it doesn't, it doesn't hold the space for the person that's in there. So Yeah. Have having that space 1, 3, 5 months for 45 minutes.
That's another thing that I think really comes up with leaders is. Let's do it for half an hour. Not for an hour. Yeah, which is fine. If that half an hour is gonna be really meaningful, but they're normally doing it because they're focusing on time and they're focusing on getting it out of the way. Yes.
The tick, tick and flick, tick and flick. Leaders do not tick and flick in any type of review, like you've gotta, it's, it's a two way street. Yeah. Like, you know, purposeful. Purposeful. Absolutely. Because we expect not just new starters, and I know that we're kind of getting a bit broader than onboarding here, but we, we have an expectation that everyone in the organization is gonna have the same purpose and passion, and we don't need to question it.
We don't need to ask about it. We have an expectation. We have an expectation that they're going to be living the values if we tell them the words. It's not the case. There are, um, so many times when we have an expectation of leaders to show up. Um, and that's not about going through leadership courses to know how to show up.
Like it's the human elements of just. Giving people space time. Mm-hmm. And respect to be able to sit and have the right conversation with the right touch points. Mm-hmm. We give them all the questions. We, you know, yeah. We enable the journey. And, you know, leaders, they just need to really lean into it. I get, I get very passionate about this because I think there's, you know, so many leaders that don't, but then they say, oh, you know, so and so's not engaged.
It's like. You wonder why. Mm-hmm. Why are they not engaged? Mm-hmm. Because you're not facilitating. You're not facilitating the right journey for them. You're not facilitating a really enriching employee experience. So retention, they will go. Mm, they will leave. So drawing that back to onboarding. Mm-hmm. It is those first six months where you need to.
Build the trust. Trust is, trust is something that's spoken about a lot in workplace Kultures, particularly today, um, with hybrid working and people not, you're not, you're not seeing them. So are they working? Um, and trust is a really big thing. People wanna be trusted, they wanna be seen, they wanna be heard.
Managers use that onboarding space to set the foundations for a really solid, meaningful and purposeful relationship with your new starters. Yeah. So thank you very much for joining us for this episode. It's something that's very true, true to my heart. And at Cone Kulture, we've spent a lot of time really refining onboarding, haven't we?
Yes. We spend a lot of time with our clients on, um, what induction looks like, so what that first week looks like and what these 1 3 5. Um, touch points need to look like. We have guides, we have templates galore. It's something that we are really passionate about because it really does set the scene for a really healthy workspace
and always listening to feedback and updating.
Always keeping that cycle
going. Yes. Yes. And not just listening to the feedback. Yes. But showing evidence of acting on that feedback as well. Mm-hmm. Is really important where you can. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. So thank you everybody for listening, and we'll see you next time. Thanks for joining me on Kan Talk Kulture.
I'm Kylie Anne Neal. I hope today's episode gave you a clear review into the values driving your workplace, or sparked new ideas about building a remarkable company Kulture. If you're a founder or CEO interested in sharing your Kulture story. Or if you are looking to build a safer, stronger, and more trusted workplace, let's connect.
Visit Kan Kulture.com. That's K-A-N-K-U-L-T-U-R e.com. To learn more, please hit that subscribe button to hear more real conversations with founders and CEOs and hands-on episodes. Full of people first Kulture advice. I look forward to connecting with you on our next episode.