A Study of the Organizational Socialization Strategies Used by the Civil Service Commission

Abstract

Everytime employees enter an organization and join the workforce they undergo the inevitable and significant process of learning about their task, their role, and how to relate well with their co-workers. This process is called organizational socialization. It is the process where organization members learn or acquire the things relevant to them and to the organization, and its success or failure is a major determinant of the level of productivity, commitment, and turnover. A lot of learning is involved in organizational socialization but they can be classified under the three areas, namely the Task, Role, and Interpersonal Areas. Further, since the demands of the three areas pose the major sources of organizational stress, then successful socialization can result in a stress-free organizational life for the employees. To ease and hasten the employees' learning process, managers of organizations initiate activities that facilitate organizational socialization. These activities are the organizational socialization strategics. Organizations can, be creative and innovative in coming up with different activities for the employees, but all entail investment (in terms of time, money, and manpower) on the part of the management. Because of this, management needs to identify the organizational socialization strategy that has the best ability to socialize the employees so as to save on resources but still derive quality results. For government offices, such as the Civil Service Commission, this need is even more significant and urgent due to the limited budget appropriated them. Recognizing the above, the researcher conducted a comparative study of the different organizational socialization strategies of the Civil Service Commission to be able to identify the strategy that can best socialize the employees. Using the five parameters set in the three areas of organizational socialization, this paper aimed to answer the major problem "Which of the organizational socialization strategies used by the Civil Service Commission has the best ability to socialize the employees?" The researcher had also set objectives to answer the major problem of this paper. They are the following: 1. To find out the different organizational socialization strategies used by the Civil Service Commission to socialize its employees. 2. To determine the employees' level of awareness and pa1iicipation to the organizational socialization strategies of the CSC. 3. To find out the perception (in terms of sufficiency, need for improvement and additional strategies) of the employees regarding the organizational socialization strategics of the CSC. The data gathering for the study was conducted at the Central Administrative Office of the Civil Service Commission, and the qualitative-quantitative design of the paper was achieved via the questionnaires given to the employees and the interview schedule conducted with the management for the quantitative part, the measure used was frequency and percentile. Findings of the study revealed that the Civil Service Commission uses several organizational socialization strategics, namely: CSC Orientation Course and ALAS Induction Program; Continuing Seminar on English Skills; Information Technology Training; Regular Meetings and Assemblies; Supervisory Development Course; Local Scholarship Program; Values Orientation Workshop; Mass; Sports Programs; Social Activities; and Hasik-Diwa. It was also found out that the employees of the Central Administrative Office of the CSC have different levels of awareness towards the different organizational socialization strategics, with the required activities (like the CSC Orientation Course and ALAB Induction Program) receiving the highest level of awareness. The same also applies with the level of participation of the employees which also varies from strategy to strategy but with the compulsory activities receiving the highest level of participation. In general, the level of awareness and participation is just around fifty percent with the level of participation even lower than the level of awareness. The results also showed that, generally, the employees perceive the current organizational socialization strategies as sufficient, and majority indicated that the activities do not need any improvements nor is there a need for additional organizational socialization strategies. Finally, the study yielded that the strategy with the best ability to socialize the employees is the Values Orientation Workshop, which maintained relatively high percentages in all the three areas. It is followed by the CSC orientation Course and ALAB Induction Program and Regular Meetings and Assemblies. Then, the Information Technology Training came in third, while the Continuing Seminar on English Skills ranked fourth. Meanwhile, the following activities were, ordered from the fifth to the least able organizational socialization strategy starting from the Social Activities, to the Sports Programs, then the Hasik-Diwa, and finally the Mass.