The Art of the Start
There is something special about the beginning of a journey. Perhaps it is the excitement that comes with jumping into something new and unknown. As a prototype program, we generally try to take this adrenaline rush to the next level. Our onboarding was no exception!
Onboarding
For XFN, and in general, onboarding is a key piece for successful integration into a new program or team and is often a missed step. For us, we had a few specific goals for our experience which you can read below, but in-short we wanted the three days to prepare participants to jump into their assignments with two-feet first while feeling the support of the program behind them.
The Experience
So, what did we do? From March 27–29, 2019, the XFN participants learned about each-other, themselves (gaps and strengths), and how to make the most of their XFN experience.
Some tweeting was done and I have decided to share, as it is a decent visual recount of some of our onboarding journey:
What worked well
A post-onboarding survey was sent to participants to supplement the feedback received in-person about their experience and to measure that experience against our assumptions above.
Overall the three days were successful, but like all aspects of our prototype there was room for improvement. Some of our big onboarding wins were:
- creating a cohort identity/establishing a community and generating momentum/excitement;
- opportunities for introspection to inform steps forward participants would like to take and goals they would like to set for their XFN experience; and,
- teaching participants and host managers how to leverage the developmental mindset frame (edge, home and groove) to excel in assignments and achieve their learning goals while making a valuable contribution to their host team.
What didn’t work
Some of our lessons learned were:
- too much content for three days;
- need to be realistic about how long activities take to do them properly; and,
- some activity objectives were unclear/confusing, particularly when we did case studies to practice/learn how to work with colleagues that have a different working style than you.
What next?
For now, we are not iterating on our onboarding content, but we definitely will when we start recruiting for our second cohort.
That being said, what we are doing is sharing the material that was developed. Whether that be with departments hosting program participants or other existing development programs such as, GC Entrepreneurs and the Advanced Policy Analyst Program.
If you are interested in accessing our resources, please e-mail me at amanda.bloom@canada.ca.
If you have made it this far, thank you for reading and following our prototype journey!
