Six (6) workshops were held among the service personnel in each school of the case
university. The objective of the workshops was to spread knowledge of the current, recently mapped state of new professor onboarding at the university, spread the understanding of the importance of a well done onboarding and to start solving most relevant problems in the new professor onboarding at each school. In each workshop 3-4 themes and pain points were chosen for root cause analysis and problem solving. Through teamwork resolutions were developed and these challenges were taken seriously as a timetable for further actions was also created along with division of responsibilities for the actions. After the workshops the newly developed ideas were delivered to all the 6 schools of the case university for all of them to utilize in their professor onboarding. Fortunately, the topics for development were mainly different in all the workshops thus benefiting all of the schools with getting as many as 12 or more resolution ideas for challenges in new professor onboarding.
The data created in the workshops was used as part of the data in the thematic analysis of all the material in this development project when forming the new professor onboarding
framework.
5 New professor onboarding framework
The new framework was created together with the people that had been onboarded as well as with the people who were responsible for the onboarding orientations and those who were doing the actual hands-on onboarding and orientations. Lumpkin (2014, 203) wrote that
“When faculty members enter the academy, they become socialized into the norms,
traditions, and beliefs or culture of higher education. To help address any isolation that may occur and to facilitate socialization, colleagues can help new faculty learn about role demands, adjust to group expectations, and gain insights into the norms of their new contexts.”
When creating a new employee onboarding, one needs to first understand what new
employees need to learn and, based on the nature of those learning needs, design programs to facilitate the successful acquisition of that content. (Klein & Heuser 2008.) In this thesis we have both gathered the needs of the professors but also from stakeholders of what they believed were the most crucial topics for incoming professors to learn.
The old way of pouring loads of information on people in orientation is outdated. The new style is discussion and involvement centered. As Caldwell-O’Keefe et al. (2020) recognize that we need to move away from the overwhelming “fire-hose” programming of orientation if we wish to create the necessary conditions for people to want to engage with the organization.
The new orientation model should involve inclusive pedagogical practices and include many welcomers to the new professors from different functions of the university.
“Faculty orientation programs traditionally take place on-campus in a single, real-time event, ranging from a few hours to a few days. For new faculty, the event is often information overload, too much to process effectively. And this only supports new faculty members who can attend such on-campus orientation events”. (Moore 2020, 67.) Therefore, in this thesis development work a program was created, which includes smaller modules such as meetings, events and trainings for the first 6 months and even one year. Each orientation module includes elements of independent learning as well as a meeting with concerning person to discuss, learn more on the topic, network and open the channel for future discussion and collaboration.
In interviews some of the professors desired for a 2-3 days onboarding program when they start. At the case university, new professors start their work at any time of the year, not necessarily in the beginning of the academic semester. This would exclude many of the new professors from the orientation program if it was held twice a year in the beginning of each academic semester. That is why this idea of several days consecutive onboarding program was excluded from the development work.
Bradt and Tavis (2010) have collected the essential points for successful onboarding. They are namely providing the newcomer with input and direction about stakeholders, messages, and priorities before they start, on their first day and on their one hundred first days. As well as providing a newcomer a total onboarding plan which is beforehand aligned with stakeholders of the newcomer. All these aspects were taken into consideration when creating the new professor onboarding framework. The stakeholders were mapped, and their tasks,
responsibilities, collaboration, and compositions of their orientations were reconsidered. With most of the stakeholders a meeting will be arranged or at least some self-learning orientation provided for the new professor. A plan for the onboarding will be sketched and future events and meetings will be booked in new professor’s calendar as early as possible and for as far as possible to guarantee onboarding continuation long-term not just the first few weeks.
Diversity of new professors will be taken into consideration when planning the onboarding.
Based on the new professor’s background and experience the ingredients of the onboarding plan will be finetuned. For example, professors with international background will receive more extensive and thorough onboarding program concerning Finland, university campus, university organization, management, decision-making and its guidelines. Those new professors who are previous employees of the same university will go through onboarding as well, but their plan is somewhat narrower as they are familiar with many things from earlier experience.
The new onboarding for professors can be executed both online and with physical face to face meetings and events. The preferable way of onboarding would be to meet physically to gain the maximum return for the time spent. Moore (2020) argues that adding a fully online version of faculty orientation would provide an alternative that would have benefits. Those professors that participated in an on-site orientation could recap their knowledge and those who are not able to participate on-site can independently go it through. This is an idea for the future development for this case university’s professor onboarding. The increase of online material, training, events and meetings will be in any case actualized.
Mentoring was a theme that arouse from the professor interviews and it was very much longed for. Some professors had a mentor, but many were not able to get one or the relationship was not very effective. Mentoring will be included in the new professor onboarding framework model. According to Sun and Simon-Roberts (2020, 81) “At an
interpersonal level, mentorship is important for the emerging professionals to gain feedback, evaluation, and space for professional growth.” “There is a positive correlation for job satisfaction among the new faculty members when they are mentored and find mentoring relationships beneficial.”
Sun and Simon-Roberts (2020, 82) state that “The university-wide tactics have a more significant effect on new faculty network development than those situated within departments and colleges or specific to a discipline”. This is similar to what this thesis development work is aiming at, setting orientation actions at different levels of the university, many meetings with different people but also independent learning. Morrison (2002) points out referring to other researchers that several scholars have argued that an important way in which socialization occurs is through social interactions between newcomers and "insiders," or more experienced members of their new organization. This asserts that in this thesis and the new professor onboarding framework, networking with more experienced employees must be an included item. In Morrison’s study in 2002 newcomers were more committed to the organization when their friendship networks contained individuals from different subunits and levels of the organization, and social integration was stronger when newcomers had larger rather than smaller networks.
To be able to constantly develop the new professor onboarding model, further two elements were implemented. Firstly, the new professor will receive a request at 4 months from the start of employment to fill out a survey concerning own onboarding experience and possible further wishes. Another tool for feedback that is implemented in this new framework is an informal interview and discussion with HR Manager of own school at 5 months from start of employment. The HR Manager will ask the new professor on the onboarding experience so far and what further orientation would be beneficial. On top of these, the new professor will also discuss with own manager every month on own wellbeing and performance, and twice a year in a development discussion to set goals and review performance on earlier goals.