This master’s thesis investigates the process of unlearning during onboarding. The research aims to explore the case of military veterans who are being onboarded into civilian workforce. The research questions relate to the process, barriers, and facilitators of unlearning and ways of optimizing the onboarding process accordingly. Semi-structured interviews with military veterans were employed to explore their lived experiences. Findings indicate that the unlearning process of military veterans includes awareness through environmental responses and self-conscious ways of awareness, as well as cognitive and behavioral unlearning. Barriers to unlearning include a lack of reliable sources of information, perceptions of military veterans, unaccepting organizational culture, exclusively military social circle and the embeddedness of previous routines. Facilitators to unlearning include a mentor, an open organizational culture, feedback, time allocation, 'comrade in suffering', awareness, proactivity and conversation with a partner. According to military veterans, the onboarding process in the context of unlearning could be improved by allocating time and space for open discussions, tailoring the process to the individual, peer support groups, providing continuous mentorship and implementing a better time allocation of tasks.
|
