The infographic above illustrates key strategies to support the Community of Inquiry for Leadership Development in a virtual training environment.  The strategies I’ve chosen support an environment where our operational leaders, who are geographically spread across all of British Columbia, have voiced their challenges and concerns with attending classroom training due to budget cuts, limited availability for travel to and from headquarters, ineffectiveness and ongoing capacity issues and time constraints.  Majority of our operational leaders in supervisor roles, spend time on the ground and on site with their crew managing and supporting day to day tasks.

As we shift into a new learning space leaders have suggested supportiveness, receptiveness, excitement and acceptance of training through virtual training platforms delivered both synchronously and asynchronously.

As the primary instructional designer and facilitator, I’ve listed some strategies, however will leverage many more not mentioned. I felt the ones on the infographic best support the leaders to be successful and will in the greatest outcomes in participation, engagement, trust, collaboration, meaningful and deeper learning.  In the Community of Inquiry if successfully integrated and facilitated with the interplay of social, teaching and cognitive presence can result and emerge the higher-order learning with purposeful and critical discourse (Vaughan, Cleveland-Innes, & Garrison, 2013).

Social presence where participants identify with the community, build and foster a trusting and safe learning environment, as well as share perspectives, stories and experiences will result in greater group cohesion (Vaughan, Cleveland-Innes, & Garrison, 2013).  Through a few strategies suggested such as acclimation to the learning environment, personalized introductions and activities promoting increased discussions and sharing will create learner motivation and engagement.

Teaching presence with its 3 elements of design, facilitation and instruction will support the necessity of the foreign learning environment many leaders voice concerns about and their aptitude level.  Through well-constructed learning environments, enriched discussions through effective questioning techniques, appropriate learning activities and leadership around content accuracy and expectations, it will support the social and cognitive presence desired (Anderson, 2018).

Cognitive presence is when learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through ongoing reflection and discourse. Through strategies such as modelling and encouraging divergent thinking, reflective and critical questioning, as well as encouraging debates and the dialogue around the possibilities of more than one solution will deepen and enrich learning (Vaughan, Cleveland-Innes, & Garrison, 2013).

References

Anderson, T. (2018).  How Communities of Inquiry Drive Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age. Contact North.

Vaughan, N.D., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Garrison, D.R. (2013).  Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry.  Athabasca University Press.  Chapter 3: Facilitation (pp. 45-61).

Design Plan

Design Challenge

To design a formalized and comprehensive new employee on-boarding program that makes employees feel welcomed, included, and aware of our expectations and their responsibilities.

In designing the new employee on-boarding program I’ll be focusing on 3 essential elements within the program; acclimate, guide and develop. For the purpose of this design challenge I will narrow the scope down to the element of acclimate, with a further foci on only one of the three components within acclimate, which will be socialization.  The other two components that will not be discussed in this assignment, but will be congruently worked on are administration and organizational philosophy.

Description

On-boarding starts when the offer letter is signed, not on the new hires first day.  If you wait until the employee’s first day, you miss the opportunity to build on the excitement generated during recruitment process, in turn stalling the new hire’s enthusiasm and their acclimation to the organization.

The purpose of Slack as a digital learning resource for acclimation – socialization is to provide an online communication tool to promote a sense of connectedness, inclusion, awareness and psychological safety for a new employee transitioning into their new role, new team and new organization.  Helping new hires move through their employee life cycle of pre on-boarding and on-boarding and offering them opportunities engage early on with the learning team, HR business advisers, their manager and immediate colleagues, other new hires, as well as other members of the organization reduces the anxieties that come with starting a new job. Slack will provide a chance to communicate and share with through group and private messaging information and questions, as we build out the learning community for the new hires who are starting their new hire journey together.

Learning Goals

Using Slack as a digital learning resource to acclimate new hires during their employee life cycle of pre on-boarding and on-boarding will result in new employees being able to:

• Get familiar with using Slack as a primary enterprise online communication tool
  • Embedded within HRIS & LMS
  • Desktop & mobile application accessible
• Connect with learning team, HR business partners and manager
• Watch welcome message from immediate team members and executive team
• Build new connections with new hires starting on the same hire date and cohort session
• Become familiar with expectations of day one and 3-day orientation session
• Identify key contacts and networks during on-boarding phase
• Learn and sign up for upcoming company and social events
• Ask questions before you even start and during your on-boarding phase
• Influence and share your opinions, ideas and thoughts to elevate new employee on-boarding experience
• Engage in learning discussion forums
• Stay informed on all your required learning requirements as part of your new employee learning journey

 Intended Audience

As Slack will be an enterprise solution for ALL employees within the organization, my focus will drill down to a Slack channel that will be created specifically for new hires.  Therefore it is important to note that new hires could possibly be invited and be part of other Slack channels from their team, manager, projects and enterprise.

For my design challenge I will specifically narrow it down in suggesting that there will be a specific Slack channel created for each new hire group.  We offer 10 new hire intakes per year, so there would be 10 new hire Slack channels set up and new hires will be invited appropriately in to their specific new employee on-boarding cohort Slack channel.

With new hires as the intended audience, there will be one learning & development team member facilitating this closed channel.  The facilitator from the learning team will be responsible for managing, maintaining and supporting new hires in this channel for 90 days, at which time the channel will be archived.  The facilitator will also be responsible to reach out to other members of the learning community to support answer to unfamiliar questions and/or invite them as a guest.

Rationale

As part of the new employee on-boarding program, acclimation – socialization becomes a critical, essential and significant focus in helping new employees feel a sense of belonging, safety, connection and support as they transition in to their new role, new team and new organization. From when they accept the role to their first days and months on the job, you want to ensure their excitement and engagement doesn’t fall flat. Having a digital learning resource, such as Slack, will enable stronger acclimation, collaboration and communication during pre on-boarding and on-boarding with those that are going through a similar journey as them.  Cultivating a culture of connection and feeling a sense of belong is vital.

Tool

The digital learning resource tool that will be used for this design challenge is Slack.  The reason for moving ahead with Slack is that during the empathy, define and ideate phases there was several ideas and many will be pro-typed and tested, however focusing on the acclimation – socialization portion of this design challenge and the use of a digital learning resource there was a unified and collective voice hoping for some sort of social collaboration tool where new hires could join, connect and learn as community, in turn suggesting it would help and improve their new employee on-boarding experience.  To find a tool that can help make connections even before starting and arriving on their first day, to just being able to ask questions during the pre-on-boarding and on-boarding phase, and receive and access information related to their new employee on-boarding and learning, as well as connect with people who may be going through a similar experience would be very useful and extremely helpful in their acclimation – socialization.

Interesting enough the organization was retiring the use of Hip-chat as the new employee on-boarding projected initiated.  The IT team at that point were exploring Yammer, Slack and Microsoft Teams as some of options.  With lots of analysis, not to mention our HRIS and LMS having Slack integrated already as the social collaboration tool within software application, Slack has been decided as the enterprise solution.  With a launch date of September 2019, I have the opportunity to leverage Slack as a digital learning resource and tool, integrate and design it as part of the new employee on-boarding program.

As we will be going with Slack as an enterprise solution, I will be leveraging several capabilities offered through Slack such as creating a private channel for each new hire cohort, having specific topic-centered discussions, reaching out to the whole group or just individuals directly when needed, using audit and video call features, desktop sharing, polls, file sharing and even inviting guests.

Assessment & Evaluation Plan

The success of this digital learning resource will be assessed and evaluated through several types of methods.  The active participation and usage within the private channel set up will be a great indicator of possible levels of engagement, even challenges with logging in as a new user and new application for some.  There will be opportunities to also see who is participating in the formal discussion chats as part of pre, during and post course work and assignments.  For instance during the 3-day orientation workshop, which is hosted as a blended classroom training, will have some required pre-work discussion on our compliance and mandatory training.  Another example under acclimation – socialization could be sharing an introduction of yourself on Slack.  We will also amend to our new employee survey that is sent after week one and 45 days and 3 months on the job and in that survey we’ll incorporate sections on acclimation – socialization, administration and organizational philosophy to gather qualitative and quantitative data.  There will also be opportunities to engage in conversations with new hires and get insights through polls, as well as interviews and ongoing feedback.  We will also review exit survey data and employee engagement surveys for indicators and comments suggesting good or bad ratings related to new employee on-boarding.

Learning Theories & Instructional Design Principles Used

Learning Theories

Slack will encourage learning interactions with new hires by having them engage in asking questions, responding and sharing information, as well as participating in discussions.  Those interactions can occur between one or more new hires, between the new hire and the learning & development team member (facilitator / teacher), as well as with the new hire and the content shared in the channel.  The Social Constructivism Theory suggests that “active engagement by the learners is critically important, and that multiple perspectives and sustained dialogue lead to effective learning” (Anderson, 2016, p.38).  As Slack will be a formal and informal platform for new employee on-boarding, being leveraged as part of pre-post discussions from a classroom or virtual learning event, as well as a tool for informal collaboration and discussions to take place between new hires, content and instructor there will be a reliance on new hires to embrace this tool to help in their on-boarding experience, supporting their acclimation into their new role, new team and new organization.  “The instructor becomes a facilitator and a guide in learners’ interactions with varied resources to resolve problems and gain personal understanding.  Heutagogy Theory thus emphasizes self-direction and focuses on the development of efficacy in utilizing the online tools and information available” (Anderson, 2016, p.42). Finally, leaning on Connectivism Theory, as one of the primary outcomes of the new employee on-boarding program design revolving around acclimation is socialization.  This theory suggests “learning environments are created and used by learners to access, process, filter, recommend and apply information with the aid of machines, peers and experts with the learning network.  In the process, learning expands based on the power of the network to create and personalize knowledge, connections and artifacts of those within it” (Anderson, 2016, p.43).

Instructional Design Principles

There will be various instructional design principles leveraged and incorporated in to the design of the formalized new employee on-boarding program and the 3 elements; acclimate, guide and develop.  Within the element of acclimation and its 3 components of socialization, administration and organizational philosophy I can confidently suggest learning outcomes will be developed based on Blooms Taxonomy, ensuring the classifications are satisfied at the appropriate cognitive and affective domain.

As Slack will be integrated in to the new employee on-boarding program and leveraged as a tool not only for socialization, but also for administration and organizational philosophy, the courses and learning solutions designed for this blended learning program will have within the DACUM chart and Lesson Plan, where, when, why and how Slack will be leveraged as part of the learning outcomes during the formalized portions.

Lastly as there are several moving parts to this program, that will eventually be leveraging more than one digital learning resource other than Slack such as our LMS called Ulti-Pro Learning, Panopto, LinkedIn Learnings, e-Learnings, Videos, webinars, to name just a few, I will be using the SECTIONS model as a framework for making effective decisions about the choice and use of media for teaching and learning.

 Instructions for Use

Once a new hire accepts their offer and we have received a signed copy of their acceptance letter, we will have them added as an active employee in to our HRIS, which would also include access (single sign on) to our LMS.  They will be certain user restrictions and access to our HRIS, as they have not officially started, but once they start on day one, they will be granted full access as a new user.  During the pre on-boarding phase, new hires will receive an invitation to log in to the HRIS portal, which will give them access to the LMS.  They will use their user name provided, employee number, company email address and temporary password.  Once logged on they will have limited access to their profile, new hire letter, welcome video and LMS.  They will also at this time be asked to accept the Slack invitation sent for their appropriate private Slack Channel.  The user will also be provided a one page internally customized standard operating procedures (SOP) document, as well as generic tools and resources offered by Slack for getting new users started.  At two weeks prior to their official start date as a new hire cohort, a L&D team member, I will be engaging with them through group a discussion, followed by a few other connection points before they arrive for their first day on the job.

Plan for Use

The use of Slack as a digital learning resource will be to support the acclimation of new hires during the new employee on-boarding program and phase of their journey.  The use of Slack will be for internal use only by new hires for a period of 90 days.  New hires can interact with one another, with the content and the facilitator.  There will be formal learning and informal learning taking place in this Slack Channel as part of the new employee’s on-boarding process.  It will be a closed group, however the instructor can invite guests to the channel if and where deemed appropriate or as part of the learning.  The use of this Slack Channel is to help new hires in their new employee on-boarding experience by making them feel welcomed, included, and aware of our expectations and their responsibilities.

 References

Anderson, T. (2016). Theories for learning with emerging technologies. In G. Veletsianos (Ed.), Emergence and innovation in digital learning: Foundations and applications (pp. 35 – 50). Edmonton, AB: AU Press.

Bates, A. W. (2015). Chapters 2 In Teaching in a digital age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning. Vancouver BC: Tony Bates Associates Ltd.

Bates, A. W. (2015). Chapters 8 In Teaching in a digital age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning. Vancouver BC: Tony Bates Associates Ltd.

Moving from empathy interviews to distilling and synthesizing in the define phase of the design thinking model, I’ve quickly learned my initial perspectives and assumptions are forced to be put aside in order to hold the space with a beginners mindset; one that is unbiased, non-judgmental and untampered enabling it to be extended, shifted, surprised and enriched from the diversity of thoughts.  Through observations, information receiving, dialogue, questioning, and learning’s from the end users it is rewarding and equally invigorating on how much comes up.  Design thinking as a tool and method enriches the instructional design process resulting in a better solution that will have a greater chance of adoption.  As Eli Woolery commented, “it can be a powerful way to create innovative design solutions to challenging problems and even create new and disruptive business models never considered” (Woolery, 2017).

image by: Supriya Nigam

As part of my design challenge I’m focusing on ways to support the acclimation of new employees through digital learning technologies to create greater opportunities for socialization in order to help increase interpersonal relationships, connectedness and networks as part of a new employee’s on-boarding experience.   Our organizations data from 90-day new hire engagement survey’s to exit survey’s suggested low engagement scores and people leaving the organization because of a poor new employee on-boarding experience, alongside leadership and management.

In the initial phase of designing a new employee on-boarding program, exploring acclimation as one of the three key objectives, followed by guide and develop as the other critical areas will hopefully result in reducing the higher than average voluntary turnover and low engagement scores that the organization has been trending over the past couple of years.

During the empathy phase, using the interview for empathy method I was able to conduct 1:1 sessions in person and video Skype for 30 minutes each with 22 end users in the month of June.  The end users consisted of individuals who were recently hired from less than a week ago to 6 months on the job, from different departments and locations.  In addition, among the 22 end users, two individuals were ex-staff that were classified as ‘extreme users’ who had left the organization recently and were open to the idea of having a discussion to share their perspectives to help build a successful new employee on-boarding program.  Upon gathering all the various stories, responses, thoughts, ideas, challenges and even solutions from the 22 participants, I was able to group end user responses in to themes and common issues and concerns within a timeline of when these were occurring from the time they were hired.

Moving in to the define phase, which is intended to help develop a deep understanding of the end users and the design space, as well as come up with actionable problem statements that can be leveraged in the design and creation of a successful solution (d.school, 2016), I took some time to reflect on the initial design challenge and the problem, which was with recent increased trends in new employee voluntary turnover and organizational engagement and exit surveys, employees have expressed challenges and concerns with the lack of a new employee on-boarding program and orientation to help support their acclimation in to the organization, team and role resulting in feelings of abandonment, lack of support, uncertainty and disengagement and asked if this still was true based on what was collected from end users.

 Using the Point of View (POV) and How Might We (HMW) methods created a space to re-frame the design challenge into an actionable problem statement that will support generative ideation and design vision (d.school, 2016).

Using the POV formula suggested by Stanford University Institute of Design

[USER – be specific] needs to [USER’S NEED – user verb] because [SURPRISING INSIGHT – observation and interpretation]

further supports building out HMW questions, which creates opportunities broad and wide range of solutions, however narrow enough to come up with specific and unique ideas.

For example my initial design challenge could now sound like, “A new employee needs to feel connected, supported, and a sense of belonging to the organization, team and individual because it will result in a greater on-boarding experience, resulting in higher engagement, increased retention and trusting relationships.”  As a result of this statement it can result in questions such as the following:

• How might we create a connection with the new employee once they sign the offer letter and before their first day on the job?
• How might we leverage our HRIS (Human Resources Information System) and/or LMS (Learning Management System) or other technologies to engage with our new hire during pre on-boarding and on-boarding?
• How might we be able to connect recently graduated new hires with brand new employees during on-boarding?
• How might we create a learning community and network for new employees to connect with once they have joined us?
• How might we look at acclimation – socialization during the different timelines of pre on-boarding, day one, week one, first month to engage, connect and support new hires?
• How might we want create and define the new employee on-boarding experience?
• How might we remove any waste and undervalued processes within the new employee on-boarding phase?
• How might we create engaging learning solutions during the orientation session within the new employee on-boarding program?

 As part of the design challenge, experiencing the empathy and define phases and furthermore the four phases within empathy which are discovery, immersion, connection and detachment as suggested by Kouprie & Visser were such invaluable step and experience to support the instructional design process.  It truly evokes curiosity, exploration, feeling and emotion, explicit and implicit intentions, increased understanding and meaning, leading to a more wholesome and accurate picture of our end users and greater interpretation and ideation.

References

Kouprie, M., & Visser, F. S. (2009). A framework for empathy in design: stepping into and out of the user’s life. Journal of Engineering Design, 20(5), 437–448. https://doi.org/10.1080/09544820902875033

Stanford University Institute of Design. (2016). bootcamp bootleg. Retrieved June 13, 2019, from http://dschool-old.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/METHODCARDS-v3-slim.pdf

Woolery, E. (2017).  Design thinking handbook.  [Blog post].  Retrieved from https://www.designbetter.co/design-thinking/define

 

Reflecting over the past nine weeks in Leading Change in Digital Learning this course continuously challenged the status quo of what I came to expect or knew from past and present experiences.  It has served me with greater content, resources and learnings only to provide me a with more meaningful and greater depth and breadth of knowledge within topics of leadership, change management and project management, ones that I encounter daily in my workplace.

With the attitude of a growth mindset and continuous learning I felt I have gained new perspectives and appreciation of my own leadership behaviors and tendencies, enabling to further elevate and apply new found skills and knowledge.

I look back to my initial post after reading The Leadership Challenge and what most people look for and admire in a leader, someone whose direction they would willingly and easily follow (Kouzes, J. & Posner, B., 2012) and validated if I still believe my top attributes of inspiring, honesty, intelligence, supportive and competent hold true for me nine weeks later.  With careful consideration I see making a shift to add the attribute of forward looking in to the fold of my top leadership competencies and attributes. Knowing how much change is intertwined into everything I do, and leadership playing such a critical role in successful change, having the ability to look forward allows for more preparedness, proactiveness, and the ease in to welcoming the change, considering we are constantly facing change as part of the norm.

This speaks to adaptive leadership where “adaptive leaders do not just make changes, they carefully recognize potential changes in the external environment and consider the best path that will positively affect the organization” (Khan, 2017, p.178).  I translate this to suggest, why wait for it to change to happen, recognize it and be the change.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” ― Barack Obama

Another opportunity that awaits my leadership repertoire is reflective leadership.  Being a reflective leader provides me with the chance to consciously and consistently make time to practice reflection with the intentions of improving organizational performance.  So many times, I find myself constantly just running and not taking the necessary moments to be more self-aware, mindful, and tap in to my personal intuitions and wisdom (Castelli, 2015).  By doing this it allows for greater accuracy in assessing strengths and weaknesses with the intentions of making positive improvements, enables a greater sense of awareness, and good judgement.

The other aspect of leadership I see myself learning to master is resilience.  Change is tenaciousness and aggressive yet part of organizational normalcy where I currently work.  With a pragmatic and optimistic perspective, I view change as invigorating, inspiring and equally exhausting and sometimes frustrating all bound together.  Resilience allows the measurement of the persistence of things coming at us and the ability to absorb change and disturbance, while still maintaining the same equilibrium (Weller, 2013).