Leveraging Asana to Create Clearly Defined & Positive Onboarding Experiences for New Instructional Designers

Background

It is of no surprise to many hiring managers and instructional design leaders that swaths of applicants are beginning to have one thing in common: K-12 teaching experience. As of 2016, the majority of instructional designers active in the higher education field came from backgrounds in higher education teaching (Intentional Futures, 2016). Today, it doesn’t take more than a look on LinkedIn to know that the background and experience of incoming instructional designers has adapted as a result of the changing landscape of public education. With over 11,000 job postings for ID roles on LinkedIn alone, ID leaders may be asking themselves, “how can I support the new-to-the-industry instructional designer?”

This change in the applicant and new hire pool provides an opportunity for instructional design managers and coaches to build on the strengths of K-12 educators, and to identify specific needs they may have coming into a new industry. 

Problem

In our experience at Queens University of Charlotte, the most crucial point in supporting a novice instructional designer coming from K-12 has been the onboarding process. A well-thought out onboarding experience can lead to increased retention, confidence, and productivity (Hirsch, 2017). With this in mind, how do we adapt our onboarding processes to not only introduce new instructional designers to our institution, but also upskill their existing expertise to leverage strengths from the classroom? In doing this, how are we building capacity in new hires to conduct new instructional design work, as well? 

Solution

At Queens University, we treated our onboarding process like an instructional design project. We use the successive approximation model (SAM) to conduct the majority of our ID projects, as it allows us to maintain an agile and flexible system while building courses and resources for our community. If we were to mirror this process to our internal onboarding process, what would our product be?

Using a project management tracking tool, such as Asana, we built out the onboarding process in a clear and linear way. This allowed us to visualize the first 90 days of an incoming instructional designer’s orientation to life at Queens and within our department.

About the Session

During our conversation, we will share how instructional design leaders can build out an onboarding process using Asana’s free account, while incorporating a conversation around the skills K-12 educators bring to the instructional design world.  At the same time, the conversation will focus on the upskilling areas leaders and coaches can consider. Key areas of the session will include the tips and tricks to leveraging Asana as a project management tool, areas of strength many K-12 educators bring to the instructional design industry, on-the-job skill building led by instructional design coaches, and institutional know-how leaders can provide to new hires. 

Asana as a Project Management Tool

As one of the most popular project management tools on the market, many instructional design leaders are familiar with Asana for managing course design projects at their institution. But have they ever thought about leveraging this tool for the onboarding experience of incoming instructional designers? Incorporating your project management tool into the onboarding experience has two distinct benefits: it clearly defines the outcomes and process an new hire is expected to play an active role in, and in orients them to the digital tool they will likely leverage for their subsequent projects. 

In this conversation, we will focus our time sharing our experience using Asana’s free version to create a clearly defined and positive onboarding experience for our new team members.

Components of a Successful Onboarding Experience

In this session, we will discuss four main components of our onboarding process at Queens University: initial orientation, functional training, role & institutional clarification, and team assimilation. While none of these live alone in a silo, each category has specific outcomes we’ve determined are critical to the success of the new ID. 

Initial Orientation Outcomes:

• Identify key elements of instructional design processes used by the institution

• Meet with key stakeholders with the department and institution

• Explore Continuity Guide and identify its format

Functional Training Outcomes:

• Apply key elements of instructional design process to scenarios and guided discussions

• Practice technical skills required to develop content within authoring tools (systems training)

• Shadow instructional designers to understand the project management process at Queens

Role & Institutional Clarification Outcomes:

• Identify who’s who within the department and institution

• Identify resources for instructional design work (template gallery, Continuity Guide, job-aides)

• Discuss best practices when working with subject matter experts (SME)

Team Assimilation Outcomes:

• Connect with teammates 

• Identify areas of support within the team

Strengths of K-12 Educators

While many components in this discussion can focus on the broader sense of a novice instructional designer from various fields, we plan to weave in the importance of understanding the skills of an incoming instructional designer who is transitioning from K-12 education. It is crucial for instructional design leaders to understand not only the upskilling this new hire pool may need, but also the strengths they bring to a team. 

While K-12 educators’ experience is varied and diverse, our work with teachers transitioning to instructional design has highlighted several strengths. First, many public school educators are required to make a large impact with little resources and funding, promoting innovative thinking and an intrinsic curiosity to find the solution to ongoing challenges.

Additionally, K-12 educators are often tasked with teaching content unfamiliar to them due to staff shortages and school needs. As instructional designers, the ability to discuss foreign content promotes their confidence while working in highly complex disciplines. 

In our conversation, we will highlight these characteristics, as well as many more that K-12 educators bring to the instructional design field. 

On-the-Job Skill Building

As stated in the aforementioned outcomes, a large component of planning an onboarding experience is identifying areas for which a new instructional designer can practice key skills needed to function successfully in the role. We will highlight two distinct strategies to support this effort: shadowing and practiced learning. 

Shadowing is a highly impactful strategy to support new instructional designers. A key skill cited by many instructional design leaders that requires improvement among new hires is project management. To support this endeavor, we expect a new team member to shadow projects alongside a veteran teammate. Additionally, following shadowing experiences up with debrief sessions further cements important concepts and offers new hires an opportunity to ask questions they may not have felt comfortable asking in front of a stakeholder. Moreover, shadowing also provides a pathway to giving new instructional designers practice learning tasks, such as building small learning objects within the authoring tool. 

Practice learning opportunities come in a variety of shapes and tasks. Sometimes, they can be premeditated low-stakes tasks set aside for new hires, whereas other practice learning opportunities come as leaders begin to determine which skills new instructional designers need to work through, such as communication with SMEs (i.e. ask the instructional designer to create a communication plan for the upcoming project) or visual design skills (ask instructional designer to use style guide template to update an existing slide deck for a project). The key for a successful practice learning opportunity is to ensure there is purpose to the work (nobody likes busy work) and to provide an opportunity to coach and debrief (formal or informal). 

Some on-the-job tasks may be hard to add to Asana, as they come up unexpectedly. Many though, can be anticipated if provided the time for reflection. Throughout the discussion, we ask attendees to brainstorm with us possible on-the-job skills they would add to Asana. This may provide others with ideas and inspiration for their own onboarding plan.  

Institutional Know-How

As many instructional designers who’ve worked at multiple institutions can attest, much of the onboarding experience can be summed up in, “this is how we do it at XYZ University.” While there is and should always be a place for innovation and new ideas, it is very important for new instructional designers, especially those coming from the K-12 industry, to understand the landscape in which they will work at their new institution. At Queens, much of this is discussed via weekly check-ins we have with new hires. Sometimes, this is 1:1 with the manager, where there is better opportunity for coaching and feedback. At other times, it is with the whole team, as other instructional designers and teammates can provide different perspectives on key issues and/or nuances to working at the institution. Within our onboarding plan in Asana, we dedicate time to conduct these meetings. 

 

Closing the Loop

Many instructional design leaders know that the end of the traditional onboarding experience is just the beginning of what can be an exciting opportunity for a team. Instructional designers coming from K-12 bring with them excitement for learning, curiosity for new information, and dedication to their work. By leveraging these skills within an onboarding experience, leaders can welcome new team members to this wonderful field. 

 

References:

Hirsch, A. S. (2017, August 10). Don’t underestimate the importance of good onboarding. SHRM.

Intentional Futures. (2016). The State of Instructional Design: Instructional Design in Higher Education. Intentional Futures.