Onboarding in the age of COVID-19

Introduction

Starting a new job can be a daunting experience—no matter the number of circumstances that might be affecting an individual concurrently. From learning how the organization functions to determining who to trust or who to turn to for answers, there can be so much to learn that is unspoken or unwritten before a new hire can feel comfortable in their new environment. Some organizations have ways in which they introduce their new hires to the organization and its functions. In library hiring practices, we see the learning experience sometimes referred to as “new hire training,” “orientation,” “rapid onboarding,” or “onboarding”—all terms for the organizational socialization of a new member to the hiring group, which can include specific sets of tasks and goals. In this article, we argue that it is the careful selection of tasks and goals during the onboarding process that helps orient the new hire to their new position in the organization. With its requirements for social distancing, remote learning and work, and closed facilities, and in the authors' experience, this age of COVID-19 has made it even more difficult to learn about the relationships that exist within an organization. In short, the remote onboarding process that was developed incorporated aspects of in-person onboarding but, due to COVID-19, was quickly converted to a remote/virtual set-up. Most importantly, opportunities for socialization—both formal and informal—were included in the onboarding process.

Literature review

The literature review focused on searches in two distinct databases: Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA) and Business Source Premier. Table 1 presents the search results from these two databases, using two different sets of keywords.

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Table 1.

Number of search results from LISTA and Business Source Premier.

Keywords	LISTA	Business Source Premier
Onboarding	24	1087
virtual OR remote OR distance AND onboarding	3	43

Note the use of the term “onboarding” for this review, as opposed to “orientation” or “socialization,” for example. As will be discussed further in this review, onboarding has been defined as a broader term that encompasses orientation and socialization. Based on the activities designed for the new hire, “onboarding” was chosen as the more appropriate term for comparison, despite its relative newness in the literature.

Considering the results in Table 1, the texts that discussed onboarding in LISTA were outnumbered by those in Business Source Premier by a large margin. Looking more closely at the results, we saw that a much smaller number of the results were relevant to our search. For LISTA, only 11 results were relevant in our search for onboarding and none were relevant in our more complex search. For Business Source Premier, only 15 were relevant in our complex search, most of which were non-scholarly (a thorough review of the “onboarding” search results was not conducted). From a quantitative point of view, onboarding is not a process that is discussed much within the library literature but is a heavily discussed topic within the business literature. Something to consider as well is that when the databases were searched for virtual/remote/distance onboarding, there was a sharp decline in the number of results. Looking at the results more closely, the results from the library literature did not directly address the onboarding process, or merely addressed it in passing. In the business literature, despite 43 results being returned, only 15 were relevant to the actual search, with most of these being non-scholarly.

Of the articles found in LISTA, most presented the development of tools and resources that would help with the onboarding process—such as websites and guides that help the new hire become acquainted with the organization (Hall-Ellis, 2014; Lisbon and Welsh, 2017; Macnaughton and Medinsky, 2015; Winterman and Bucy, 2019). This type of onboarding tends to lead to a checklist-style series of activities that aim to get the new hire oriented with the processes and procedures of the organization. As previously mentioned, many articles described a checklist approach to onboarding, often using some online component to track these activities. One benefit of using this approach is the possibility of self-study for the new hire. This allows the new hire to learn and engage with the material in their own time and at their own pace. A drawback is that this does not allow for the development of connections between the new hire and the rest of the organization.

Methods

This article presents an exploration of the importance of the remote onboarding process of a new faculty librarian through an analysis of their personal experience onboarding at an academic institution during COVID-19. The methods used to explore this experience are autoethnographic, an approach that is used to research a cultural experience by systematically analyzing personal experience (Ellis et al., 2011). An autoethnographic approach is valuable in this case because it potentially diversifies and expands current understanding of the onboarding process as experienced by an individual in a new organization—that is, an academic library. As described by Waymer and Logan:

autoethnographies and autobiographies allow for detailed, personal, context-laden accounts that demonstrate how a…communicator not only makes sense of her work but also how personal value from the profession can be derived in the retelling of a personal organizational story. (Waymer and Logan, 2016: 1468)

Waymer and Logan (2016) also offer a thorough description of autoethnography as a research method, largely citing the work of Carolyn Ellis and Arthur P Bochner, and showcasing the power of autoethnographic research to describe lived experiences in a credible way. In this article, the lived experience is analyzed in an autoethnographic approach by using two methods. The first utilizes a first-person reflection from the new hire, highlighting the context, outlining experiences and moments which allude to potential lessons learned about this process, and discussing the tools or methods that could potentially be used to transform the future onboarding practices of new hires in a library organization. The second method is an attempt to quantify the total number of experiences as derived from the autoethnographic evidence. Overall, the autoethnographic method uses the onboardee’s memory and description of the social context to situate their experience of the onboarding process during COVID-19.

In summary, the autoethnographic evidence refers to the review and interpretation of Daisy Muralles' personal documents, created during the onboarding process and reflective of their onboarding experience. In the section below titled “The onboarding experience: present and future,” Daisy Muralles describes their perspective of the new-hire experience to add contextual information by personal reflection. The reflection included in this work incorporates information from notes gathered during various one-on-one meetings with colleagues, journal reflections, calendar events, and other written or recorded documentation that the onboardee created during the onboarding process.

In the following section titled “Identifying data in the onboarding experience,” the data derived from the autoethnographic evidence is categorized and describes the total number of interactions between the new hire and members of the library organization within a given time frame, as well as the total number of workshops and other training sessions the new hire attended during the onboarding process. One of the key themes interpreted by Daisy Muralles from this data is the value of taking a relational approach in onboarding new hires, as has been already recommended in some onboarding literature (Rollag et al., 2005). The autoethnographic evidence also highlights the value of deep relationship-building and identifying short-term goals, and a need for feedback related to the new hire’s onboarding progress.

The onboarding process: past and present

Historically, onboarding in the library under study has been an afterthought: the organization considered important tasks and training for the new hire, but a plan or agenda was never developed that could be replicated with each new hire. This was because new hires typically trickled in one at a time, which did not necessitate a big push to codify many of the things that were done. However, this made it more difficult with each new hire, as organizational memory was relied on to develop the onboarding plan each time, and sometimes tasks were forgotten or training might be skipped.

The typical onboarding process is outlined below. One thing to note is that there is no formal timeline for this onboarding process. Historically, however, everything has taken place within one term (either one quarter or one semester):

The new hire starts in the summer (July or August) and is assigned a mentor from among the library faculty.

With the latest hire, the library had to consider how to replicate the onboarding process remotely/virtually. Much of the onboarding process outlined above would take place in person or serendipitously—either through formal meetings with the faculty chair or mentor, in passing in hallways and offices, or in large group meetings. With the difficulty of replicating serendipity in an online setting, the decisions and activities had to become more intentional.

A historical example would be the informal structure of checking in with the new hire—typically, by them just running across their mentor or other librarians and being asked how everything was going. In this age of COVID-19, a consistent check-in schedule between the new hire and their onboarding mentor was cooperatively developed that allowed the new hire to feel connected to the other library faculty. This checking-in was not meant to be a formal meeting—one where progress in onboarding was measured. Rather, it acted as an opportunity for the new hire and the orientation mentor to have an open forum for frank conversations about onboarding and the needs of the new hire for support.

Similar to other studies found in the literature (Hall-Ellis, 2014; Lisbon and Welsh, 2017; Macnaughton and Medinsky, 2015; Winterman and Bucy, 2019), an online repository was created with links to resources, training, and other materials for the new hire to review in their own time. The collaboratively developed online nature of this repository ensured that up-to-date information was always available and at hand for the new hire. Knowing that this information was online and that it was easy to access reduced the stress on the new hire and the orientation mentor to keep track of all the resources, training, and materials.

One of the more unexpected aspects of onboarding is socializing (Franklin, 2019; Nyakale, 2016)—not only getting to know your new colleagues, but also being socialized into the culture of the organization, knowing who really does what and who to ask to get things done. In person, this occurred through lunches away from campus with the new hire, allowing them to feel comfortable with their new environment. In an online setting, it feels strange having this type of activity occur—eating lunch with colleagues through a video call is not quite the same. However, consideration should be given to replicate some aspects of the socialization process of onboarding. One way this was done for the most recent hire was to order a lunch delivery, which replicated the financial side of taking someone out to lunch, but did not quite get there when it came to conversation.

The onboarding experience: present and future

According to Daisy Muralles, the new hire’s reflections are described in the first person, as the experience of onboarding can be a very personal and self-reflective experience:

Since 2013, I’ve worked professionally in libraries, which has given me the opportunity to explore different approaches to onboarding students and staff into a new group in an academic library. However, today, as I continue to transition into my new role in my new library at my institution, as a newly minted librarian, I am realizing that I have specific needs for the onboarding process. The experience of the “onboardee” is often an unwritten/unrecorded aspect of the onboarding experience. I hope that by sharing the rollercoaster of emotions and thoughts I had up until writing this article, others might gain some insight into what they might be able to negotiate or ask for in their onboarding process, should they be new hires at a new library.

To begin with, I expected some anxiety and other emotional labor in the process of my acculturation in my new institution but, given our current COVID-19 health crisis, the Black Lives Matter protests taking place after the murder of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd by officers of the law, and the rise of emboldened white supremacists, the so-called “alt-right,” in the USA, my role as the Equity and Open Access Librarian took on a new meaning for me, which I continue to wrestle with as I continue my onboarding to this day. And I ask myself on a daily basis: What is the role of the Equity and Open Access Librarian today, tomorrow, and the next day and the next day?

I think it is a common understanding that for any new position there is going to be self-doubt, fears, and expectations held by the new hire. The fear of not being enough, not accomplishing enough, or fears of not meeting the expectations of peers or the community can be very isolating. I had/have all of these fears and starting my new job during this coronavirus pandemic, during Black Lives Matter protests, during a point in our society where we need to stand for what is right ever more fiercely, adds a whole other set of additional fears of working in a public institution where its mission is to provide equitable access to information and information resources to students going through the same rollercoaster we are all on—students who, despite all the chaos, continue to pursue their right to an education and persevere. So, I feel a great responsibility and the deep need for community, support, personal connections, and time for reflection.

Thankfully (and forever grateful), relationship-building and open dialogue have been a core component in my onboarding process. Starting my onboarding completely remotely after years of working in a very contact-specific discipline, in special collections/archives, has been difficult. At first, I was thinking the difficulty emerged from not having a sense of place, being unfamiliar with the organization in general. But I am now realizing that the difficulties were there because I did not have access to the unspoken physical cues I would normally pick up from my colleagues. There is so much learning that I do from observing others working together, how my colleagues communicate and interact with each other. I was also missing those small reminders that I am part of a team working on a shared vision when we pass each other in hallways or run into each other on our way to a meeting. These are small moments I took for granted when I was working on-site, which can contribute to establishing a sense of community and support. And there are definitely ways that these moments can be recreated online but, as a new employee, I don’t think I had the confidence to engage “so boldly” in new methods of communication, especially during a time when folks were trying to adjust their work and their ways of working.

It might be my archives background or the fact that there was a collective move in the archives world to document what had been happening to us at the start of COVID-19, but very early on in my onboarding, I knew that I wanted to document how I was feeling while starting my new job during the age of COVID-19. This practice was encouraged by my faculty chair and my onboarding mentor. However, it wasn’t until I started preparing for a meeting with a prospective library and information studies student that I realized that my documentation had only been documentation, and what I really needed to do was reflect on my experience.

To help me in the reflection process, I used the storytelling structure as described in Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods, by Shawn Wilson (2008). I decided that I would also write a letter—a letter to the student. This allowed me to take time to outline my relationship with that student, the experiences I’d had leading up to my new position, and the process of me recognizing I was still onboarding three months after my start date. It allowed me to frame any advice I had for this student in a way that allowed the student to interpret my experience as a new faculty librarian at an academic library from their own understanding of who I was. It felt like a deep reflective practice, and the act of writing this letter also helped me prepare my thoughts and feelings about my experience before I spoke with the student. This reflection also gave me some insight into how I could describe these feelings to my onboarding mentor.

Up to this point, my mentor and I had clocked in several hours of one-on-one conversations, think sessions, and reflection, which allowed me to express the feelings I was having about my onboarding in a very open and honest way. I found myself saying that I felt like I was feeling seen and unseen in the work I was pursuing or wanting to do. I was able to express that I was still going through the in between and becoming comfortable very slowly. I was able to express that I was feeling that I was not accomplishing enough or being enough in my role at the library. This correlated with a need for feedback on my progress as a new librarian.

These are going to be ongoing conversations that my mentor and I will likely continue to have. I think these types of conversations are important to have as needed in the onboarding process, particularly for new roles. During this time of COVID-19, I’ve realized that we need to be patient, flexible, and compassionate, and allow ourselves time to adapt with the changing expectations that one might have for themselves and those they interpret others have of them. What I realize has mattered most to me in this onboarding process is the need to develop relationships with my colleagues that center clear expectations of communication, of the type of support.

Below, I outline “data” (i.e. categorizing and counting moments and experiences) I tried to extract from the first few weeks of my onboarding experience. I tried to review this data as a way to reflect on my progress in building connections with my colleagues. What I have learned from this data is that the onboarding process is about building relationships—ones in which I have an equal say. I am trying to embrace that process rather than aim for a “final product” of a successful onboardee, one who is a confident, well-acculturated librarian who is the expert in equity and open access at my institution. Instead, my aim is to be a librarian who is learning how to continue developing relationships to be able to successfully fulfill my roles and responsibilities around equity and open access.

Identifying data in the onboarding experience

Over a span of 31 days, in the first month of the new hire’s employment (1–31 July), the new hire was able to engage in 14 distinct one-on-one meetings with library staff, as documented by the new hire’s personal calendar. According to the library’s most recent organizational chart, there is a total of 36 library staff, which includes library faculty and directors but excludes library student assistants. Most of these interactions were self-initiated and required the new hire to reach out individually to their new colleagues. It must be noted that this was the preferred option of the new hire. It was initially offered that these meetings would be arranged by a senior faculty member, but the new hire opted out of this for the flexibility of scheduling. In the cases where the meetings were not initiated by the new hire, department heads and directors had been encouraged to reach out to the new hire to introduce themselves.

The total number of interactions between a new hire and members of the library organization within a given time frame might help define a type of threshold that can be correlated with a new hire’s successful onboarding. The total number of meetings, as a sole indicator, cannot be the only measure to determine the success or the completion of a new hire’s onboarding process. But this number can indicate if steps have been taken to meet a threshold for successful onboarding. In the end, the perceived goal for many of these meetings is to establish a connection and exchange information that might help the new hire build a broader understanding of their role in the organization’s functions. However, more importantly, these meetings give the new hire the opportunity to form individual relationships and partnerships, or simply to understand the network of potential support.

Another measure that was identified during the onboarding process was that of the number of training sessions or learning opportunities the new hire participates in. An explicit definition of what is considered a “training session” should be described in order for it to be used as a quantitative measure, and this measure can then be used to set up a threshold that should be met to determine the progress of a new hire’s onboarding process. There are different types of training that are required by individual employee contracts and campus policies. However, there are also training sessions that might help the new hire to be inspired, gain confidence in themselves, or broaden their knowledge on a particular subject or skill, which are often attributes that are not found in required onboarding training sessions. These are aspects that can come from collaborative training sessions or networking events, community events and campus activities. These social group meetings can often be an indicator of campus culture.

Over the span of 31 days in the first month of the new hire’s employment (1–31 July), the new hire was able to participate in 51 hours of learning outside of operational technical training or other committee work, as documented by the new hire’s personal calendar. Operational technical training and other committee-work training are necessary in one’s job function. However, additional opportunities for learning and engagement outside of the library’s technical or human resources training are critical for a new faculty librarian to build community relationships. This is particularly true during this time of COVID-19 where those relationships are more difficult or not possible to build in person. This training provides the new faculty librarian with a different understanding of another key component of their work—their relationship to their research and learning—while also providing the opportunity to situate their role in a purpose within the campus and the broader community. The broader community includes the broader information professional community and the communities the new hire wants to directly serve locally.

Discussion

The themes that emerged from the autoethnographic data include the need for relationship-building, identifying short-term goals, and for feedback related to the new hire’s onboarding progress. Additional insight into the importance of relationship-building may be gained from a further review of the autoethnographic data. The total number of interactions between the new hire and members of the library organization within a given time frame might help define a type of threshold that can be correlated with a new hire’s successful onboarding. In addition, the total number of workshops and other training sessions might help establish a different threshold that needs to be met for the successful onboarding of a new hire. Making progress in meeting other colleagues in the library or on campus, in understanding ideas, relationships and purpose from the community, requires dedicating time—intentional time—to learning about others and these new communities. It might appear to be easier to put a new hire to work on day-to-day operations but, if meaningful time is provided for them to learn about the community, a deeper connection can be made between the new hire and their work. This deep investment in relationship-building and establishing trust among individuals is a critical element in the successful onboarding of a new hire in a library organization.

One of the unexpected difficulties of the remote onboarding experience is the lack of unspoken physical cues. Given the remote nature of the new hire’s onboarding experience, the lack of physicality was expected, but it was the lack of unseen, unspoken physical cues that was felt the most. None of the articles found during the literature review address this, perhaps due to the nature of their data collection or the difficulty of parsing this information from surveys or interviews.

The collaborative nature of this onboarding experience was an intentional decision by the onboarding mentor—something that is not seen or discussed in the literature. By relying on ongoing conversations between the onboarding mentor and the onboardee, issues or concerns related to the onboarding experience can be addressed quickly. This creates a positive experience for all involved, with the onboardee feeling seen and heard and the onboarding mentor learning more about the onboardee.

The best practices to consider for onboarding remotely include the following: (1) engage in scheduled reflective practice; (2) when possible, seek regular feedback on progress from mentors, colleagues, and key people on your projects; (3) schedule regular meetings with colleagues, ideally with a loose agenda, which will allow for opportunities to brainstorm, process, collaborate, and check in with each other; and (4) acknowledge that we are, for lack of a better term, in unprecedented times and that there will be challenges to building and maintaining strong relationships with colleagues and others.

Conclusion

The goals of the onboarding process—building relationships and skills training—ultimately lead to the development of trust: trust on the part of the new hire in the organization, trust on the part of the organization in the new hire, and trust between the new hire and other staff and faculty. The ideas discussed in this article are not new concepts. They are instead established concepts that have been reconfigured to help individuals who are entrusted with ensuring the successful socialization or onboarding of new hires in their organization. By focusing on creating opportunities centered on building relationships, the hope is that the new hire will be engaged, succeed in their work, and become the best version of themselves that they can be.