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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 cultures, 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 insights 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 cultures, 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 I have Georgina Walker with me again. Again, who is a people and culture consultant at Kan Kulture. So today, Georgina, we are talking about day one and beyond. Mm-hmm. And how onboarding is a culture setting moment. So we wanna elevate the experience of onboarding from it being purely an administrative or HR driven task to a leadership moment.
Mm-hmm. What ingredients do you think are important when we think about day one and beyond? Let's just focus on induction. Let's just focus on the first few days or the first week. Mm-hmm. Of a new starter coming on board.
For me, it's the wow moments or moments that matter. Um, so first impressions do count, and that goes both ways.
So if I am a new starter coming into an organization, I, I wanna feel welcomed. I want to feel like people know I'm, I'm coming into the office. It's not just something random, who's that person? Uh, and then vice versa as well.
Yeah, absolutely. And there's so many little touch points that can create those moments that matter.
Mm. You know, I think from a day one perspective, having somebody's computer set up, having their workstation set up, having, um, bits of stationary there that they might need. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, I've started at places where they even, you know, have a welcome sign sitting on your desk. Yes. Like it is that, um, that.
It's the warm and fuzzies really that you want to experience. I think when new starters start, they're, they can be a bit apprehensive. They don't know what to expect. Yes, they've been through the recruitment process, but day one is about really showcasing. What the organization is all about. Um, and it really does set the tone for the rest of their employment.
Really, it is that emotional attachment that people have when they come in on day one, bright eyed, bushy tail eyes wide open. Um, they're absorbing a lot of information on those first few days. Um, but it is the, the, the energy and the vibe and the culture is what really matters. Mm-hmm. So. I think that's where lead, it is a leadership moment.
Um, it is the responsibility of the leader to orchestrate those first few days in a way that's really meaningful for them. It's about the leader positioning themselves as their leader. Mm-hmm. Um. You know, if we, we talk a lot in can Kulture about having rituals and having a rhythm of work and having the moments that matter and about that embedding of culture activities, um, and if the leader can carry that new starter.
When we, when we, when we did the podcast on recruitment, we talked about, um. Our role in taking that candidate through the journey. It's the leader's role during onboarding to take the employee through that journey.
Yes. I think it's certainly a team effort.
Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes. Yes. Have you had any experiences where the, you've gone through a recruitment process, you've led it, so it's been amazing.
Of course. They've had such a great experience and they've started in an organization and. Things have fallen over pretty quickly.
Um, I, to be honest, I can probably only speak for myself when it comes to starting at an organization. I've had really great onboarding experiences. With Kan Kulture. I came in, you were there, you had everything set up for me, a little coffee cup, a notebook.
I felt very, I felt the fuzzy feelings. I felt very welcomed and a part of the team straight away.
Amazing.
Um, on the other hand, I've had experiences where I've walked into a job, no one knows I'm coming. Yes. People are literally looking at me like, who's that girl? I have to try and find the manager. And it's, you feel pretty crap.
Yes. Um, you don't feel welcomed. You almost feel like you've walked into the wrong, wrong door and that sense of really negative tone. Um, and in that particular experience of mine, I, I carried that negative vibe and ended up. Leaving the company,
right?
Yes.
Yes, yes. And I think, uh, I can't note anything specific.
Mm-hmm. But there is a lot of, uh, research that's done on the way that we emotionally attach to organizations during those first impression moments, which onboarding is absolutely one of those. Um. I always like to think of it of when managers are setting up the induction schedule. So the first couple of days, you know, what are the activities that don't overwhelm, but that do provide really clear structure.
Some managers don't like to work that way, so. Sometimes it doesn't always land with them. Yeah. Um, but from my perspective, I think best option for um, leaders is to set out those first two or three days to make sure there's a really nice mix of being introduced to people, but being introduced to people on purpose.
Yes. You know, with purpose, with something. To talk about, don't just shove them in a room together. No. And you know, we talk about meet and greets. Yes. They need to meet them. Yes, they need to have, um, small talk and get to know each other. But I think just a topic to talk about, set some structure so that they're not just.
Putting names to faces and the, the context of their first couple of days being nothing more than that because they're excited. They wanna, they wanna get in, they want to, they've just walked into their new community, to their new tribe, to their new team. And really being able to help them structure that with the right people and the right activities on the first few days is really crucial.
So what do you think are some common onboarding? Pitfalls that can lead to early
disengagement. There's actually a statistic, I think 20% of people resign within the first 45 days. And I think that is due to a poor onboarding experience. And like I said, I spoke to my experience, lack of awareness of a person.
Starting not knowing your role specifically. Yes. I think there's, there's so many things. Yeah.
There. There really are because I think people will underestimate the emotional attachment. Mm. And people underestimate the ability to attach a new starter to the culture of the organization. If there's any doubts of.
Role clarity or who they're supposed to be in the room with, or you know, if they're not, if they're sat in a corner and told to watch training modules for the first three days because nobody has time for them, that. Tells them that's a really good indication to them that the business doesn't have time for them.
That the business doesn't want to invest in them, they just wanna sit them in the corner so that they can self-train. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, it's great for people to be autonomous. You know, we, we, we live in a digital world, so there should absolutely be digital components and digital training and all those types of things.
But the way it's orchestrated and threaded through the experiences of the first few days in the. First week is, is really, really important.
Mm-hmm
Mm.
So how would you plan your first week? What's a perfect first week? The perfect first week I think. Having a lot of structure around the first three days is important, and then towards the end of the week you can kind of taper it off to give them time to catch up.
Uh, digest.
Digest. Yeah. Yes. I think there's a real balance between, um. Not putting too much in an induction structure. Mm-hmm. Like an, an induction schedule. So making sure that it's not back to back, to back to back. And you've got eight meetings. Mm. Um. Each day for three days. Um, but having a, you know, a couple of catch ups that are purposeful and intentional with really clear definition as to how each other's roles mm-hmm.
Um, align with each other. Having the right introduction to the company's strategy, um, understanding that the person coming in doesn't know the broader picture of the organization. Um, and I think sometimes without, um. Uh, you know, without the background of the company and without starting from scratch, hiring managers sometimes lose that, and then they just go, okay, well this is what we're doing today and this is the project that we're working on today.
Without giving that background, it's not taking them on the journey of how the company started, what the journey of the organization has been to get it to where it is today, and then you start. With it being more task orientated. So I think it is taking, starting from broader picture where the company's come from over the course of the three days to where the company's at today, and then to hone in.
Um, and this could be on day three, honing in on the actual job tasks and. Almost going through line by line and not saying, I'm gonna sit down with your job description. Yeah. But having enough, uh. Practice and examples of what the tasks look like that they, that they Kan do within an induction schedule, I think is really, um, important.
And also, you know, understanding from a cultural element. There is rituals and there is a tribe that they're joining. So, you know, having morning teas or having team lunches or showing them where the, where the good places are to get lunch, like coffee shop.
The coffee, yeah. The coffee shop, the coffee shop, the barista's name, exactly.
The, the little coffee cards that have the buy five get one free. Yes. All of those things are very, very important.
Mm-hmm. Yes. No one standout for me is the team dynamic. Um, so with one of my clients, they, on my first day took me out for a team lunch and I felt like. The most important person Yes. In the world.
Yes. Um, and it just created that instant team dynamic for me. Yes. So what about beyond the first week? Yes. First month, first three months, what?
Well, that's what our next episode is all about. Ah, perfect. Yes, the first 90 days. So we're gonna cut it up. So stay tuned for the next episode where Georgina and I continue this conversation and we go beyond that first week and we go into the full structure of onboarding.
So thank you for joining us today, 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. All sparked new ideas about building a remarkable company culture. If you're a founder or CEO interested in sharing your culture 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 culture advice. I look forward to connecting with you on our next episode.