Feedback from professors

Axiom Action 1 Action 2 Action 3 Action 4

Intimacy Level in

Communication

Discussing less personal topics in the beginning with others

Further on discussing more personal and deeper topics

Meeting other professors and look for similarities

Noticing

dissimilarities in other people

Reciprocity Stakeholders and new colleagues to give same level and amount of information as received from newcomer

Stakeholders and new colleagues to try not to dominate the discussion

Similarity In meetings come across people with alike attitudes

When meeting people, find shared affect

In the long run spend your time with those you are alike with Liking Preference to

be with those who you like

Preference to be with those you like you

Table 5: Uncertainty reduction theory (Berger & Calabrese 1975) items in professor onboarding framework

The interviewed professors felt that looking back to their own onboarding period many of the contents in this new professor onboarding framework existed already back then on a thematic level. Though the inner content in many of them was improved a lot for the new onboarding framework and the practical way of conducting the onboarding to new professors.

Interviewed professor felt that the framework would have helped them a lot to understand the big picture of own onboarding and should be delivered to each new professor for that purpose. The new onboarding framework now has some additional elements that interested the interviewed professors, such as innovation orientation, collaboration orientation, campus tour, and networking elements. The new virtual experience of the university campus was one element that was considered very informative for new professor already in the recruitment phase. Especially if the interviews had to be arranged online like during a global pandemic.

Many of the professors had some specific wishes for the new professor onboarding framework, often based on their own experience and challenges. Group orientation was of interest to one professor who explained that the whole research group that he/she is leading was newcomers and they would benefit of orientation sessions together on for example research ethics. Many of the professors had had difficulties with creating research collaboration with industry, government or NGO’s. One of the professors had found a solution for this by inviting an interesting person from the industry to own course to lecture on practical side of things concerning the research topic. Then the professor would reciprocate by giving a presentation at the industry on the theoretical side of things. This is a good tool for starting collaborative work and this idea will be taken into account in the collaboration orientation of the

framework.

Networking was one of the themes that many of the interviewed professors had had problems with and which possibly still emerged. The new professor onboarding framework is concerning this topic heavily and many new efforts will be done at that area. One professor

contemplated that common events for all personnel and even all professors is not good use of time. Rather there should be more targeted events and more facilitation for finding new connections. An event for giving poster presentations was one suggestion for finding like- minded persons to network with.

One interviewed professor came up with an idea of a positive workplace training for all newcomers. The interviewed professor had had a previous experience of this kind of a training and recommended it for the case organization. That could actually be one way for utilizing onboarding as a tool for developing the workplace culture of the organization and a future development item for this professor onboarding as well.

An uncertainty reducing idea from an interviewed professor was to arrange a pre-visit during the preboarding phase to get to know the campus, the facilities and premises and importantly

the future colleagues. This will be included as a recommendation in the onboarding framework.

A welcoming feature suggestion by one of the interviewed professors was to initiate creating a webpage for the new professor and possibly the new professor’s research group already at the preboarding stage in order for it to be ready on the first day at the new job. To have a concrete space and online presence in the new organization would help the new professor to feel very welcome and part of the organization.

Professor’s own experience Common feedback on the framework and suggestions

1 • Meeting the dean was useful: told what to expect from work

• Faculty meetings were missing

• Very similar to what I had

• Event invitations should mention detailed its target group

• Poster presentations could be good way to meet people interested in same topics 2 • Onboarding buddy was good

experience

• A lot of interesting events around teaching

• Engaging with industry was hard, good that it is in the framework

• Information on how to join networking networks on certain research topics should be included

• I wish I could be orientated again with this framework

• New framework includes all I can imagine

3 • Did not meet much with my mentor

• Ethics was unclear to me

• Connecting with other people was up to own initiative

• I like that the new framework is more spread out time wise

• I would like to have group orientations for my whole research group as we all are pretty new

4 • I suffered from lack of help for industry and government collaboration

• Some of the components of the framework have been there before

• I had no office ready when I arrived

• One person was really making me feel welcome with e.g. handwritten card

• I would love the innovation orientation

• Campus tour would be amazing

• Do not forget the personal encounters in the onboarding

• At department policies, practices, rules should be written down to read

• Information should be in one place, not spread

Professor’s own experience Common feedback on the framework and suggestions

• HR fetched me from the airport and took me to a supermarket on first day. That made me feel welcomed and wanted.

• Code of conduct should be more detailed, especially around what is bullying and sexual harassment

• Positive workplace training should be compulsory for every new employee 5 • Not many people have approached

me to meet

• Senior colleagues help me with teaching and research issues

• I have frequently discussion with the head of the department

• It took me a lot of time and energy to find an apartment for my family in the beginning

• Still after 1,5 years I don’t know who all the members of my department are.

Good to enhance the meetings and networking in framework.

• To build collaboration, a professor could invite someone from industry as guest lecturer to own course to present the practical point of view and then professor can reciprocate by going to industry to speak about the theoretical side, and so the contact has been built.

6 • New professor is interested in who are the people that they are going to work with.

• Building trust when starting company collaboration is hard.

• Looks like a lot but when you start you don’t know what you should know: this framework is now a big picture of all of it.

• Visit during preboarding is great at lowering uncertainty and initiating networking.

• Usually professors have most time during the first year so emphasis for the

onboarding during that period is good.

• Good to get to know things before they hit you.

• During preboarding the research group’s webpage creation initiation: to be ready when starting in job.

Table 6: Main feedback comments from the six professors of the university on the renewed professor onboarding framework

Based upon the feedback from the professors the framework was finetuned somewhat. The refined framework is illustrated in Figure 18. The done refinements in recruitment phase were to include the virtual campus tour. In preboarding phase to include the pre-visit and the own webpage creation initiation. Other refinement suggestions from professor interviews will be delivered by the thesis author to the stakeholders of the professor onboarding at the case university. For this new picture there was also one refinement to the time of 1-2 months

changed into 2 weeks – 2 months, as this was unclear in the previous version of the picture.

The idea is to start the main elements of onboarding only after the first two weeks as it is reserved for initial networking, settling in and possible relocation issues onsite.

Figure 18: The refined new professor onboarding framework after feedback interviews with professor

6 Conclusions

The process of developing the framework for new professor onboarding at the case

organization was longer and broader than initially expected by the author. Literature did not offer a ready-made example for new professor onboarding in a similar higher education setting. The work needed to be done more extensively by the author. Thus, the example of this development task will act as good reference for others willing to develop their professor onboarding in higher education.

Interviews and literature provided the solutions to this development task. Topics that arouse there were collected and used as the guiding principles throughout the work. Some of the research articles that might have contained relevant information to this topic were not openly accessible or obtainable only by purchase. They were left outside of this thesis. The author had access through own university to much of the materials.

The overarching research question for this development task was ”What does a successful onboarding framework consist of from both the new professor’s and the organization’s perspective?“ The new framework creation has involved both the stakeholders and the new professors in bringing these aspects into it. The final answer to these questions will be received only after taking the onboarding framework into use.

For creating the new professor onboarding framework, organizational socialization and uncertainty reduction theory were used as theoretical background. Organizational socialization is the phenomenon of new employee arriving to a new organization and it provided good basis for the whole onboarding framework. Uncertainty reduction theory dates back in the 70-ties but was still valid theory for cross-checking the onboarding framework for including its important elements in relieving newcomer stress and anxiety. Also, more recent articles and research were used to help mold the actual framework elements.

Service design method provided customer friendly and co-creative tools for the whole development project. The customers’ experience was the most important data in this development work. Customers’ feedback showed many of the resolutions to the new

onboarding framework. Not each individual wish of the customers could be fulfilled but many of the most pressing issues could be solved with developing the framework further. A

professor’s work should be quite similar globally, varying a bit in the amount of workload in teaching, research, and administrational work. This fact made the creation process for the professor onboarding framework and the result well usable in other higher education institutions worldwide.

The framework for onboarding new professors at the case organization will be utilized all over the case university. This is going to be an eagerly expected improvement, but it will take some time to implement it in every unit. The benefits this improvement brings to the university are undeniable. To enable new professors for a smoother start, with more knowledge and better network they are sure to become productive sooner but also fond of the university to stay there for a long time content, with the goal of contributing in creating solutions to world’s wicked problems.

Another silent mission with this thesis development work was to nudge the service personnel in different units to collaborate and work together on this topic. This mission was

accomplished in the workshops and it continued after that, and the goal is that it will continue and spread to other collaboration topics as well.