Welcome, everybody. We're going to get started in just a few seconds, but as you know, it takes a little while for all of you to come on in, but welcome, welcome. Just watching the numbers climb. Thank you so much. Those of you coming in live, thank you for being here on a summer Friday. We're happy you're here. Just going to give it a few more seconds for you to join us. Feel free to jump in the chat and tell us where you're from if you like. The chat is going to be just for fun things, for chatting, for saying hi to your colleagues, for cheering on Lana. So all right, I'm going to get started. Thank you all again for joining us. You might be here live. You might be watching us from home in your PJs, and that is just fantastic. We're happy you're here. My name is Meg Natter, and I'm the Director of Community Colleges and Foundations here at CASE, and I am just so happy and thankful to welcome Lana Fontenot. She's a Vice Chancellor for Institutional Advancement and External Relations at South Louisiana Community College. She's also a member of the CASE Community College Leadership Committee, and just, Lana, you do so much for us, and you're just a ray of sunshine for me all the time. So thank you for organizing this today and for leading what is a very popular webinar. We have well over 100 folks have signed up for this. So why don't you get started and introduce your colleagues? Yes, thank you so much, Meg. I am so excited to be here. Again, this is a very popular topic. Successfully onboarding your staff, not only so they stay, but that they thrive. This is going to be a jam-packed hour. I do hope to present for about the first 40 to 45 minutes, and then we'll allow some questions. I am joined by two of my colleagues, who just so happen to be my direct reports, Ms. Anne Falgu. She is our Director of Strategic Communications, as well as Mr. Thomas Falgu. They are not related, not married, no relation that we know of, but Mr. Thomas Falgu, who is our Director of Development and Annual Giving. So let's jump in. Hey, Lana, I'm just going to jump in before that and say, when folks do have questions, we're going to use the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen, rather than the chat. And we're going to hold off, I think you said maybe 40 minutes or so. Lana has a lot to present. So if you could just hold your questions till maybe 45 minutes into this, we'll let you know when, and use the Q&A box at the bottom. So sorry, I forgot to mention that. No, no problem. No problem. So as Meg mentioned, I serve at South Louisiana Community College as one of their Vice Chancellors, and also duly serve as the Executive Director over the Foundation for SOLA-CC. As you can see in the bullets on the screen, I've been a case member for over a decade. I serve on several case committees, including the Case Center for Community College Advancement, which is led by Meg. And today's session is all about how to onboard your staff so they stay, but more importantly, again, so that they thrive. So I'm all about a good agenda. I'm very organized. And so here's what we're going to cover today. I want to talk about what I do to pre-board our team members in our Institutional Advancement Division, kind of what happens before day one, onboarding, how you can create a structured and strategic start, engaging, which is how to obviously keep people connected and committed, and then growing, ensuring that your team sees a future with you, your organization, and your department. So each of these stages really plays a role in building that culture that not only retains, but also empowers your talent. Okay, so why does this even matter? So if you're a fan of Simon Sinek, like I am, he talks a lot about the why we do something before focusing on the what or the how. And so before jumping in, I wanted to talk about why this is so important and give you a few stats. So turnover is extremely expensive, but it's truly just more than dollars. As you guys know, especially in the fundraising area, it disrupts relationships for our donors, for our college, it disrupts a lot of momentum. If we are in campaigns, it disrupts momentum of our goals, our strategies, and it just disrupts the culture of the department. Someone leaving can take an emotional toll on your team, good, bad, or otherwise. And someone new joining the team also impacts that culture. And then also just for managers, if you're a manager on this call, like, can we just talk about how turnover is absolutely exhausting for a manager? But here's a few stats that I wanted to share that I find concerning, but more importantly, even actionable. So as you can see, the average tenure for development professionals, as many of you know, is about 16 to 18 months, but more than half plan to leave their jobs within two years. And so that's a revolving door that I know I can't afford, and you probably can't either. But here's I guess the hopeful part for me is that when we really think about how much we need to invest in onboarding, in engaging and retaining talent, fundraisers, and again, that probably applies to other areas, but fundraisers in particular, with four to seven years of tenure raise about 50% more, and those with eight plus years raise 83% more. So retention matters, not just for consistency, but also for results. All right, so let's dive into the first point, which is pre-boarding. So this is that critical window between when someone accepts the job and then their first day. I can admit, probably prior to about five to seven years ago, it was something I ignored as well. I didn't even think about it. And it is often overlooked by managers, but I did start leaning into pre-boarding. And again, why is pre-boarding important? If you can see that stat on LinkedIn, about 80% of new hires report anxiety before starting a new job. I know, I'm just a very anxious person. I get extreme anxiety before starting a new job, especially at a new company. And then 50% of candidates may ghost or back out altogether, which is kind of scary. And has that ever happened to anyone on the webinar? One out of two candidates backing out. It's so disheartening. Even after, though, accepting a job, you have to think about it. Most candidates still continue to interview with other jobs they've applied for, just in case a better offer comes along. So candidates are no longer just staying stagnant. It's a really critical time that we as managers now need to be aware of. And we need to use that time to build excitement, trust, engagement, while also reducing their anxiety about coming on to our teams. And so what we do in this window really sets the tone. And you want to assure that new team member that they've made the right decision. So here's what I do to pre-board. It is super simple. So each candidate at our college receives a minimum of three outreaches from our college in what we call the pre-board phase. So first, we have the call with the job offer. That's from me. Then HR does their outreach. And sometimes we get a little bit of outreach from our IT team, especially to get them started with all the technology, the logins, et cetera. But here's the really important part. The preceding week, the week before they start at SolaceC, they get a welcome email from me. And it's not just, oh, we can't wait to see you Monday. I'm so excited to meet you type of email. It's very intentional and strategic. I spend a lot of time on the contents of the email that you'll see in just a moment. It contains logistics, obviously, such as arrival time, parking instructions, expectations on the dress code. That can even be a big source of anxiety and a reminder about all the things they need to bring with them from HR, benefits, et cetera. But here is where I lean into the pre-boarding. I complete a whole first week schedule for them to review before day one. I don't know about you, but I get, again, super nervous about starting a new job and what I'm even supposed to be doing that first week, that first month, and so on. And so I don't know if you've ever sat at your desk that first day and just thought to yourself like, what now? What am I even supposed to be doing? And so I didn't want any of my new hires in my area to feel that way, lost, confused, doubtful. So I want to show you an example. This is actually a real example. Anne on the call will probably remember it. It was her welcome email that she received when she started at SolarCC as our Director of Strategic Communications. And so as you can see, it includes the arrival time, parking info, what to wear, where to meet me, who to meet, and then a draft schedule for that first week. And I'll talk a little bit more about this in the next couple of slides. But here's where I want to lean into that it isn't just logistics. It's truly an opportunity and a very intentional opportunity to say, we're ready for you. You matter already. You don't have to be perfect in drafting this. You just have to be intentional. And we all have stories, I'm sure, from our new jobs that we've started. But I'll never forget one of my first days in higher education. I'll just say it was not at SolarCC. I didn't know where to park on campus. I prayed that I was not going to get a ticket by campus police or worse, even get towed. No one knew I was starting. I finally found one person who showed me to my desk. I kid you not, my desk was one of those white plastic folding chairs from Walmart. And my supervisor wasn't even in the office that morning. So I just sat at my desk, reconsidering my life choices at that moment, and trying to look busy because I had no idea what I was really supposed to be doing. And so just to think about and reflect, had I received something like this before starting, especially a super detailed, you know, a first week schedule for someone who's super detailed like me, I think it would have been a huge sigh of relief and it would have made a big impression on me. So here's where we start the onboarding phase. They just arrived at your organization, and I want to make sure that we all understand this is different from orientation, right? Orientation is the HR process, walking them through the benefits, the official paperwork, all that jazz. Onboarding is truly the intentional, operational, and cultural integration of a new hire into your organization, your department, your division. But why is this even important? Again, thinking about the why, why do we even need to focus on onboarding as a manager? And whenever I found these stats, it's pretty clear because 20% of turnover happens in the first 45 days. And then when onboarding is strong, on the other hand, you really start seeing increases of retention and productivity by over 50%. And that's me with one of my employees, Breanne Hendrick, she's our Advancement Services Manager. So here's what I do for onboarding. Again, that first week is a very powerful one, and I truly take a lot of time to plan it out to a T. I would not recommend the first week as something we wing anymore, because it can really make a big impact if that employee stays or leaves. And so it gives me an opportunity as I'm creating this first week schedule, to not only clarify that employee's roles, their expectations, but I want to make sure that they feel set up for success. And so for most of my direct reports, I've tried to ensure that I'm present with them most of that first week, clear my calendar to make sure I can truly spend quality time with them and be accessible for any questions that they may have. And so, as you can see in the bullet, some of the things that I include, and I would also encourage you to if you don't have some type of a framework, the typical team introductions, literally walking them around, but also meeting with the top collaborators in other areas, those colleagues that are going to be for that position, those high touch colleagues. Also go through cultural pieces, like strategic plans, the mission, the vision of the college. This is not a plug, I promise this is a true story. And my folks on the call can even attest to this, but I spend time with every new hire on their very first week talking about CASE. I'm not getting a commission from CASE to say this. I just believe in it so much. This organization has truly been one of the top reasons for my success in development and advancement. And I really intentionally walk every new hire through their website, all of the tools that they can use to feed themselves and to learn from the best. We review their job description, again, line by line. I show them the org chart so that they understand where they fit in. And then I plan strategic check-ins at the end of day one, in the middle of the week, and on the final day. And then I also review that employee's 30-, 60-, and 90-day plan, which I'll be touching on. So I want to show you an example or some snippets of an actual first week schedule. You can see that I spend over 90 minutes here going over the key tenets of their job, reviewing their job descriptions, going through the 60-, 30-, 60-, 90-day plans, some logistics things, some mandatory trainings. Again, you could see I talk about CASE and how important it is. Then I take time to go through our departmental goals, going through our college's strategic plan, our core values, and how we in our department showcase. And we've really laid out how very specific behaviors in our division align with our college goals and what we expect in terms of behaviors with folks in our division. And then you'll see I have a snippet here of a meeting I had planned with some team members and what they're going to do during this meeting. This was, I believe, for Thomas on the call. And I wanted him to meet with our development slash foundation team to get to know a little bit more about their roles because we were going to be working very closely together. And he needed to understand what they did and how it fit into the bigger picture of our development office, our institutional development and advancement division, and the foundation. And then as a final snippet, I'm showing you kind of our closeout meeting for week one where I ask four key questions of that new hire. You know, do you have any questions? Most of the time they do, right? How are you adjusting? What are your obstacles thus far? And then how can I, as your supervisor, help you? Or how can our team help you? And then we start discussing what week two looks like for them. You'll also see at the end that we almost always, if it works with our schedules plan, a team lunch. We're big on celebrating. Maybe it's just that Louisiana hospitality and welcoming our team members. So I do want to call on Ann to, I think this really resonated with her, the first week schedule, just to give a little bit of a little bit of personal insight. Yes. So excited to be a part of this this morning. So when I joined the SoLaSiSi team back when it was SLCC, so you'll see a couple of references to that. We did rebrand our organization last year. I was coming in without really kind of lying because there weren't any tenured members of the marketing team at the organization when I joined. And so Lana was my eyes and ears to the organization and understanding not only tactically what my role was, but how it fit into the bigger picture. And I was so grateful for that because that context set me up for success. As I met people across the college, as I navigated all the requirements that come with being a new employee at an organization, I understood why I needed to do those things, how that improved the organization and where I fit with all of that. And that was so helpful. And I mean, I think all of you would probably, I would assume you're all members of some sort of advancement team and you know how high touch advancement teams are, whether you're in grants or marketing or development, you've worked with a foundation, you are going to be integrating with almost every division, every department of the college. And unlike typical onboarding that I had been a part of, I didn't just meet the folks in my realm of influence, right? I was able to understand who was going to be interacting with my department most frequently, how we were going to be working together. They got to put a name with a face and it started us on a very, I think, robust relationship as a marketing person with the rest of the college. And so this first week was really so much anxiety about being a part of the organization because after that week, I knew exactly who I was, how I fit in, who I needed to know and how to really make the most of my time with the organization. So I can definitely say with confidence that this model is successful, more successful than most. So I really appreciated it. Awesome. Thank you so much, Anne. And just as a reminder, these are just snippets. The actual first week schedule is about six to seven pages long. And as you can imagine, it's a lot of work planning these meetings in advance for this person, but it is well worth it. And again, that first week schedule is attached to that initial pre-board email so that they can review, they can get excited and know what to expect. All right. So one of my favorite onboarding tools that I've been using for a while now has been the 30-60-90-day plans. I know Case has a book out. I think it's a little bit more specific to marketing, what a marketing professional needs to know for the first 30-60-90 days. But I use this tool for all of my positions in institutional advancement. It sets clear expectations, goals, milestones that that employee has to meet the first three months. It gives employees that structure, and it also lets you measure their progress. And so as you're reflecting, if you don't do something like this, think to yourself for each of the positions, especially if you have some new hires coming on board, what should they know? What should they be doing? How should they be improving by day 30, by day 60 and by day 90? In just conversations I've had with these new employees, it seems to build confidence for them. It also provides clarity in what they need to be doing and it also gives them from you accountability. And also here's just a little team photo from our brand reveal last year that Anne was talking about when we moved from SLCC to SOLA CC. So here's what an actual 30, 60, 90 day plan looks like in action. I have two that I'm going to show you. This one is the actual plan for Brianne Hendricks who is our Advancement Services Manager. As you can see, it's a super simple one page document that's divided up into three sections, month one, month two and month three. Each section first includes my overall expectation of that employee. As you can see in their first 30 days, they're getting to know the team and their role and then it's divided up into key assignments, their goals. And again, I keep it very, very high level. That's not just everything they're gonna be spending their entire time doing, but this is some really big things that I want them to start meeting. Next is key performance indicators and then next steps. And so let me show you the one for Thomas who's on the call, our Development and Annual Giving Manager. So let's just look at the 60 day mark. He can see that my expectation of him is that not only did he get to know his teammates and his role in the 30 day mark, but I'm also expecting him to start demonstrating progress and understanding of his role. Then his top two assignments for month two are to assist with our benefactor of the year planning and execution and then to start preparing very quickly his six months goals for my review. I also have two quantifiable goals that I wanted him to meet, visiting one of our nine campuses. We're a multi-campus institution, nine campuses in eight parishes or counties. So he needed to start, like Anne said, knowing the players, who he needed to know on each of those campuses, get to know those communities. And then again, as you can see, just a big case fan. I wanted him to complete two case webinars. I did not change this. This is his actual 30, 60, 90 day plan. His 60 day KPIs were to reach out to 10 donors whom we haven't touched in about 90 days, or maybe someone who didn't give in that year, which was 2023. And then as you can see, his next steps during each timeframe were outlined. And so this is, again, not the only things that they do during this time, but it's really a guide. That's what the purpose is. It's supposed to be a guide for them to know what I expect out of them and the milestones that I need them to hit. And so Thomas, I'm going to pause here to see if you just want to add any context to this 30, 60, 90 day plan, especially since it's yours. Yeah, I mean, it really is truly a roadmap. And I can remember being at a few other jobs over the years where, whether you were leading an organization whenever you were hired, and then the people who hired you were like, okay, yay, we got our person and they left. And you didn't know, you're kind of juggling on what needs to be happening. This was really helpful because I remember on my first day, meeting people and seeing people and doing stuff, and then looking at this and looking at this every time, pretty much every day for the next 30, 60, 90 days, what did I not do? What did I need to do? If something was maybe a little bit off, I still needed to make sure I did it. It gave me the opportunity when looking back now, especially the stuff like right away, reaching out to donors, that gave me the, I've done donor reaching out, but not through a college. So it gave me the stories. It gave me the opportunity to let me hear what the donors had to say. So I got a perspective on which direction I need to go in or continue going in, going forward. And it just really was a, I would highly recommend this for any employee that has to hire people because we're all busy, we're all have things. And what it also did, it did not, in a lot of places, you think of the person, your supervisor is too busy, they hired you and now they want you to get started. Well, here's how you can get started because you don't have to juggle, think what's, it's laid out for you. And there were questions along the way, obviously, but it also, there were other, because I was meeting other people, some of those questions could be geared to them and not my supervisor sometimes. So it made it a lot better to have this roadmap. Oh, thank you, Thomas. Absolutely. I have this for a lot of different positions in our development shop. And again, I could send you literally the Word document where you can just change the name and populate it as you need. So the third point is engagement. And so, as you know, retention isn't just about the beginning, it's really about relationships, especially with supervisors as you move in up into management. And so regular one-on-one employees are critical. And just to look at that stat from Gallup, Gallup says employees who have regular one-on-ones are three times more likely to be engaged. And so here's what we do in our shop at Sola CC to engage employees. With our shop size, we're a shop of about 10. We do full team weekly meetings. We begin at every Monday morning at 9 a.m. It's our sacred time. We have it held on our calendar every Monday morning for an hour. And every team member knows it's sacred time. It occurs regularly. We call it our Monday morning meeting, our triple M. And we kind of look at it from a past, present, and future perspective. We first celebrate our wins from the previous week. That's kind of our celebration time. We really get things kicked off on a super high note, clap for everyone. We debrief on any events that have occurred. And then we discuss things that are happening that week, right? The present. And then the final part of our meeting, we start discussing things that are a little bit more on the horizon or that need planning and discussion, which again is that future text. But here's really for us where the rubber meets the road. And Thomas and Ann do this as well with their direct reports. But we have very regular one-on-one meetings. I have four direct reports and they meet with me biweekly. I hold my calendar every Monday afternoon. That is my sacred time that I'm holding for my employees. I do two employees one week, and then I do two employees the following week. And then we just continue repeating. And I truly make it clear, as you guys can see in here, it's that space for them. This is their meeting with me for their direct reports. You know, that's sacred time that Ann is holding for them to meet with her. It's their meeting for Ann. They own the agenda. And then we use this time for updating me on tasks, getting feedback from me. But we also use it, oh goodness, to problem solve, to set goals, and coaching sessions if necessary. So I have a template, a pretty aligned, an organized template for all of my one-on-one meetings. I use this with Dr. June, I think Thomas and Ann and my other folks, they use it with their folks. It's made up of six components that I wanna walk you through. So first, the first area is what has that employee been working on the last two weeks since we met? What have been the results? Second, what will they be working on in the next two weeks before we meet again? What do they need to do? What are their projected results? Do they need anything from me in there? Third, kind of what are those horizon projects that they really need to start thinking about? It's a little bit past that two-week mark, may even be several months out, but let's kind of start talking about it, pre-planning, be really proactive about it, and start strategizing. Fourth, I include in the template discussion topics. So it can be very tangible or it could be very big picture, but it's things I either ask them to add throughout the two weeks. Hey, Ann, can you please add this to your agenda for a discussion topic? And then she'll pop that in there. It's not something that may be super pressing, but something that I just really wanna take time, dedicated time to talk to her about, or vice versa. As you can see, they can add things in this area that they would really like to have intentional time to discuss with me, not just kind of a quick flyby in the hallway. Fifth is a reflection section. I'm gonna dive deeper into that in the next slide. That's one of my favorite sections. And then last is, as you can see, we complete these quarterly, where they update me on where they are with their annual goals. Are they progressing towards their goal? Have they already met or exceeded their goal? Are they struggling? Do they need my help somewhere with one of their goals or has their priority changed, right? And so, Thomas, I think you wanted to add something about this one-on-one agenda. Yeah, it's exactly like you said. If I was to not have this tool, I would probably be in your office a lot more often because I ask a lot of questions. This tool, I don't wanna say forces, but it does not mean I do the right word, but it keeps you on track. And for me, every two weeks when I'm getting ready to prepare for this, this tool lets me tell you everything I need to tell you and probably then some, but it just allows me to put things in an agenda format and then let you know what's going on, if I'm having trouble with something, if I wanna tell somebody, hey, good job, those kinds of things. The sixth section of the agenda, I put my annual goals that come to my performance review and I put them on there and they stay there all year. And as I'm going throughout the year, whatever I met, whatever I updated, and that's why I like it in a Word document too, because it allows you to continue and add and grow or modify, change, what have you, but it has been tremendously helpful. I wish that I had this in lots of other places when I manage people. Thank you so much, Thomas. Yeah, he has very robust agendas. He writes every word down, which I love. It's so thorough. So that piece that I was talking about, I think it was section number five, here's where I really love to have some intentional time with my direct reports. And I like to ask them four questions every two weeks, and I wanna even touch on why it matters. So I asked them, what's working well? This piece really helps me discover what's working, where are we achieving success? It's kind of like, what things do we need to keep on doing? And then the flip side is like, what's not working well? Or maybe it's not that it's not working well, but is there something standing in the way of your success? And so I can easily see that there's a barrier that I could possibly remove so that they can go out and be great. I mean, there was a situation last week where my grants director had to contact or needed the signature of our system office president. Well, I have just about a direct line to his second in command. And so through a quick phone call, our grants director was able to get that signature in time to submit the grant. And he was like, Lynn, I don't know what I would have done. You helped me in removing that barrier in a very, very quick amount of time. The third question, are there staff members across the college or departments that I should recognize? It's an opportunity for me to provide recognition to others. Employees have loved filling out this section. I get a lot of positive feedback also from the folks who are receiving this recognition. I shoot them a quick email. Hey, during my latest one-on-one with Caleb, I asked him if there was anyone that he wanted to recognize for going out of their way at the college. And he mentioned you, and then I tell them why. And things I get back in terms of replies are like, oh my God, Lana, this made my day. Or I appreciate that my work and my value was seen here at the college. It definitely pays off. It definitely allows us to put some positivity and some engagement in other areas. And then time you wanna take off. This is really about employee wellbeing. I wanna make sure someone's taking enough time off. Thomas and I have already had that conversation. Thomas, you need to plan some time out of the office this summer, you're a workaholic. But also it's proactive planning for vacations. Like, hey, if someone's gonna be out a week and a half, we need to make sure that we have sufficient coverage in our department as well. So, all right. And then how does all of this translate into performance reviews? This is so important. The performance reviews, as we all know, but we don't always practice it, it should really reflect what happened all year, not just the last month or two that we can remember in our minds. So I use notes for these one-on-ones. They bring me a copy, they keep a copy. And I make notes that highlight growth, wins, challenges, coaching moments. And I have a folder kind of looking like that on the screen for each employee. And I review those agendas and all of my notes as I'm going through the performance evaluation process. That way I'm able to give very specific feedback on their performance during the entire year, not just the last two months that I can remember. And I think this approach really strengthens the fairness, the accuracy, the trust in the review process. And I want Anne to just chime in because she does employee evaluations really well, utilizing her one-on-ones. And so I give Lana all the credit for this. I gave her the credit publicly in front of all the leaders. So I wanna give her credit to this team too. So recently we had an all college leader meeting. It was about 50 of us at the college, just senior leaders. And we had a conversation about evaluations and the only two people who had appropriate well times, truly audit-proof evaluations were two of Lana's director boards. And so we know that this works and it is becoming the model at our college. And the idea here is that all the work we do, all the progress we make is scaffolded. So we have our goals that we set at a divisional level that becomes departmental goals, which become individual goals, which we monitor their effectiveness every other week bi-weekly. We talk about as a team on the other bi-weekly weeks and then there's no surprises, right? So all of this information feeds into our evaluations. There's never a point where we feel like there's a gotcha moment, right? I know we've all probably been in evaluation situations where we were unsure of what to expect, but that does not happen here with the way that we structure this. So I go into a one-on-one and if I have hurdles that need to be knocked down and barriers that I need to be dissolved, it puts the responsibility on me to ask for that. If there's good news or successes to share, it puts the responsibility on me to share that. And then that arms Lana with what she needs to not only evaluate my effectiveness as an employee, but look for opportunities for advancement, which we all know is so important as we lead teams, opportunities to be coached, professional development. We build our professional development plans based on our effectiveness or our shortcomings. And so everything is just so linked and it never feels, and this is the most important part, it never feels like we're checking a box. I think we've probably all, whether right out of college or you had a bad manager, been in a situation where you felt like some of these things, whether it was evaluations just for the sake of evaluations or whether that decided what your pay was, salary increases, things like that, promotion opportunities, it felt just irrelevant, impersonal and not really based on, like Lana mentioned, the past few weeks you can remember, it didn't feel like it was based on who you were and where you were at the beginning and how you've improved since then. And so this takes all of that away. It's very clear. We spend a lot of time doing evaluations. I think probably more than the industry standard, but we do that because we collect so much data throughout the year. And then that makes our evaluations audit proof. There's no reason why the human resources is gonna come back to me and say, well, your person doesn't deserve this ranking. You were too hard on them or you weren't hard enough on them because it's all, we have all those very specific details that we've gathered throughout the year in our one-on-one conversation. So I love this. I have a quality management background and this feeds my soul. It just makes sure we're focused on continuous improvement and always meeting the standard that we set together. And so it's a great tool. I highly recommend the staff learning system like this. Yeah, absolutely. And Anne, I think the words that were used for you and Caleb's evaluations were model and best practice. So that made my heart super, super happy. Another part under engaging is review those job descriptions annually. When was the last time you reviewed your team's job descriptions and had them review it as well? I encourage an annual review. Our institution actually mandates it during our performance evaluation process. We had received feedback a while back at our college that what employees were actually doing day-to-day was not aligned at all with our job description. And so, as you know, there can be morale issues, disengagement issues, trust issues, misaligned or outdated job descriptions are a major source of disengagement. And so it should begin with your employee. I allow them to review it first. They redline it, take out things that they're not doing, or we have a discussion, should you actually be leaning into this? Or they add things that, hey, I'm spending a significant amount of time doing this, but it's not even reflected in my job description. And so it ensures alignment and gives you the chance to even update HR if their duties have involved. And then if it has in a substantive way, it could even impact pay. And so just like Thomas, his was a new position whenever he came in. And so some natural evolution and progression may and probably should occur in different roles. And then, again, why is it important from Gallup when employees are not doing what's in their job description or when their job description is either inconsistent or unclear, they are significantly more likely to disengage and eventually leave. And so there's a lot at stake. They have to know what they're supposed to be doing. And then as we start to conclude, the last section is growth. Again, this is strategic and intentional. Those are the two words I can leave you guys with. It's about supporting an employee's personal and professional development so they can really reach their full potential. And I want to make it clear that I tell employees, again, this is some of our team, and you could see Anne in here, that if I cannot support their growth within our organization, just because we're such a small shop, I am going to do everything in my power to support their growth to where they can spread their wings and fly outside of our organization. And so, again, why does it matter? The number one reason employees leave is because of a lack of career development, and we can change that as managers. So this is a new piece that I've added last year for my team. We incorporate it as well into our annual goals planning. I developed this from doing quite a bit of research. It's our custom professional development plan for each team member, and they complete it now every year, dividing their goals. You'll see the top is their short-term goals. What training or professional development are they looking at? What do they want to achieve for that fiscal year only? What are the costs? Guys, we all work at higher-ed institutions, you know, the money's not flowing freely all the time. And so what are the costs? What do I need to look at when it comes to budget for you to be able to feed yourself and for me to support that? And then at the bottom, you'll see, what are their more longer-term aspirations, 3 to 5 years out? At the bottom is that place where they can recognize the necessary resources or support that's needed for that longer-term goal. And so one of my employees wants to become an executive leader at SolaceC, and one thing she recognizes that she needs is a degree beyond her bachelor's. And so she's made it a long-term goal that, Lana, I'm going to go for my master's. But for other employees, it may not be a degree, but they need to learn a whole new skill set in order to continue growing. So this document is all about asking the employee, where do you want to go? And how can I help you get there? I'll also have this in a template format, and can send it to you guys after the webinar. And so how do I know all of this is working? And so all of my team members are at least 18 months in. I have quite a few who are 5-plus years, 7-plus years and even more. Another piece, I guess, for me that's a little bit more in quantitative form is from our annual employee engagement survey that's conducted across the whole college. And so as a divisional leader, I get to see the college's overall results, but I also get a separate report on the result of just my division. And so I want to highlight, out of all the questions that are asked, what I think is the most important metric for me in this survey, and that's the employee Net Promoter Score question. So I'm sure many of you guys have heard about NPS rating, Net Promoter Score. It's typically a rating that's used. It's globally recognized across industries, organizations as a measure of customer loyalty. But the E-NPS score assesses employee engagement by asking that employee, How likely are you to recommend this organization as a good place to work? And then this question, as you see on the screen, drills even further into the immediate work environment. It's not just talking about SOLAS CC, how likely are you to recommend the Division of Institutional Advancement? And so, like the NPS scores, you can see at the bottom, E-NPS scores range from negative 100 to positive 100. Negative 100 is where everyone's a detractor, right? Nobody likes you, sorry. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Score of 10 to 30 is considered good. And any score above 50 is typically considered excellent. And we do this survey every October. And so I want to show you some NPS scores from some pretty well-known brands. You could see Apple 16, Meta 29. They're pretty much all positive. Amazon, Starbucks, Starbucks barely made it over the positive. Netflix with 34. And eek! Target, I love Target, but their employees do not think it's a wonderful work environment. And then here is our division. And guys, listen, I know it's not apples to apples. These organizations, some are global, some are national, they are large. They're comprised of hundreds, if not thousands of individuals. But at the same time, I can at least look at this score, and it's letting me know that what I'm doing, I'm doing something right. And so as we end here, here is our Advancement Services Manager. She is extremely under the weather this week. And she was supposed to participate with Anne and Thomas, but she at least sent over, she's like, Lana, I at least want to contribute something to this presentation. And so I'm just going to read her quote really quickly. She, I think, is nearing her second year anniversary. She said, My start at SolaceC was incredibly positive. And the onboarding process was a significant factor in that. Lana developed the 30-60-90-day plan that greatly reduced the usual stress of a brand new job. This roadmap eliminated guesswork during the initial months and allowed me to concentrate on learning what I needed to succeed at the college. Even now, as she's quickly coming up upon her two-year anniversary, the continued weight that we place on clear planning and expectations makes her feel valued and supported in her career at SolaceC. And so, guys, just some key takeaways. Remember, pre-boarding sets the tone. Start strong. Start early. Do not wait until their first day on the job. You're too late by then. Onboarding. Onboarding is not orientation. It's strategic integration. Take the time, the time to onboard them correctly. And it's going to save you time later. Engagement. Guys, that happens in those day-to-day moments through structured conversations, open and welcomed feedback, those one-on-ones, that intentional connection. And then growing. Growing has to be intentional. People stay where they are seen and supported. Really think about doing those professional development plans with your employees. It has been received extremely, extremely well. And so at this time, I think we have about almost 15 minutes for questions. Lana, I got to tell you, I mean, I love my job at CASE. But really, how many people in the audience want to move to South Louisiana and work for Lana right now? Because, like, I'm going. If you'll have me, I'm thinking, all right, don't tell Sue Cunningham. But wow, that was awesome. We do. We have some great questions. And I'm going to put them in order, not in how, not as how they came in, but kind of along the lines of your presentation. So Erica's first question is about pre-boarding. And it's a good one. It's about how much time, what you give the person during that pre-boarding and how much time it is, the length of it. Because she says she's mixed about pre-boarding. It actually made her more anxious, because she already had tasks before she started working. So any, any thoughts on how much to give a person pre-boarding? How far in advance? A little bit more on that. Yeah. So obviously, make the job offer. That's typically at least two weeks before they start. Most of my folks have to give at least a two-weeks notice. HR is kind of contacting them with some logistical matters, possibly IT. If they're starting on a Monday, I send them that email a week before on the prior Monday. And it's very important. Thank you for the question. But I do not assign any tasks to them prior to their start. This is just to let them know what they're going to be doing and saying, Hey, I've set it all up for you. Just come as you are. I've got this. I am going to onboard you. You do not have to worry, right? Alleviate a little bit of stress. But I do know of organizations, you're right, they kind of give you, you start working before you're actually being paid to work. That doesn't give a good impression. That's not good branding, as Anne would know, right? That's not the message we want to send to our folks at the college. But we also want to let them know we are prepared. We are waiting on you. We are excited for you to join our team. That's great. Thank you for that. And Anne and Thomas, you may want to help answer some of these questions. The next one is from Ruth. Regarding that first, the end of the first week, how do you draw out information from someone who is hesitant to ask for help? Thomas, you mentioned that one-on-one agenda, those meetings did help you feel comfortable asking questions. But you know, when you start working, it's like, I don't want to ask for help. I want to act like, you know, or feel like I know what I'm doing, even though I'm scared. So how do you how do you help with that anxiety for someone who just needs some help and is afraid to ask? I think not only having those one-on-one meetings, but the personalities that you're getting to know, you kind of you, you, you learning who you can, you can always go to your supervisor. I mean, but there's also those other folks that and they will push you into that direction as well. I'm not push, but you know, it's really about being able to feel at home and feel comfortable and feel in an environment. And, you know, when we sat, I will say on that first day, when we went over the, I can't think of it now, but the, the college's strategic plan and the vision and the, I actually had done some stuff in committees outside with the college and I actually see people living this. So it made you feel like, yeah, this is where I want to be because I've been to some, I've been in a lot of great organizations. And I've been in a couple that weren't so great, I won't mention their names. But you know, just an opportunity to feel feel like you have a place that you arrived and you belong. And you're not out on the island by yourself by any means. And I got that feeling from before I was here. And that's still that way, almost two years later. I'll add something to that too. You know, we, for our division is probably not unique. You know, you spend so much time with your coworkers, where you really become a family. And onboarding is a family affair. It is very much understood that when we have a new employee, that it's all hands on deck, that even though the supervisor might be navigating with them the first week of their employment, that is really, we usually even assign tasks to one another. So that perhaps maybe we're meeting to talk about a certain task or function of my job, but then someone else on the team is escorting me to HR to show me where to get the lay of the land, right. And so we build, we build that family from day one, which does make it more comfortable to ask questions, especially among your peers. So you're not always having to ask your supervisor. And we encourage our new hires to ask those questions. And like I said, we built in that personal accountability from day one. And so we drive home and we mean it when we say it, that your time with your supervisor is your time, that it is, it is not a time to be judged, it is not a time to be evaluated, this is your time to ask your questions. It's not negatively perceived when you don't know something. And I think something that might have been a little, you know, maybe left off of that, that that first week is that what you don't see is during that week, there is a, there, we are oriented to a lot of the software programs and a lot of the expectations. And during that week, we schedule training for subsequent weeks to take a deeper dive into that. So we might talk about, you know, public relations in my first week as a general contextual kind of, you know, kind of orientation to where it fits and how I fit into that. But then we might have a training associated with that, you know, in my first 30 days, right. So that kind of gets fleshed out. And that expectation is very clear. So by the time we get to that first week, I felt I was like, I'm set, I'm set for success. And I, you know, my first task was to rebrand the college and I still felt set for success. After that first week, I mean, I did, she said, Are you going to run? And I was like, No, I'm so excited. Because I felt, I felt like I, I, it was so clear what was expected of me. And that just reduces that anxiety. Thank you for your input. Thomas, a quick thing. I've got some other questions. And we got six minutes to go. So. So I'll definitely say what she said, the fact that when you came here that when I came, that's how it felt like a family. And I think it's because that process is done so often, that if and when there's another person added, I will have a role to play in that too now. So it's a lot of process with humans. It's humans and Lana behind it. So that's, it's, it's like the magic is all happening at the same time. Lana, anything else on that question? Or should I go ahead? No, let's go to the next question. All right, because it's a good one, again, related to all this. What about remote employees? I don't know if you have any 100% remote or partially remote folks, but how do you onboard them? I do not have. Yeah, I do not have any full time remote employees. All of my staff members do one day a week remote. And so what we do just because we're such a high touch area is everyone is in the office on Monday, and on Friday, the in caps. And then typically, there is some flexibility where employees can do remote on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and then if they need to on Tuesdays as well. So we like to start the week in person and with each other. And then we like to end the week in person and with each other to close it out. And then I also like to have at least one person from grants, from marketing and from development in the office at all time just for to be, you know, to have an in person presence at the college. That's, that's super important to know, too, is when our employees are remote, we track our activities in 30 minute increments. And we do that. So that as supervisors, we can, from the very beginning, understand how they're spending their time, give advice, give feedback on that those are reviewed regularly. And so we can say like, hey, it looks like you're spending a lot of time on this. Let's reflect back to our 30, 60, 90, you should be spending more time getting this accomplished? Or do we need to rework something? So we do track our activities to during those remote days. And Meg, we can also send our remote work logs for anybody who wants to see examples of that. You guys are probably gonna think like, they are almost too organized. We're a little crazy over here. But we love the infrastructure. We love the infrastructure. And Lana's email is right up there. If anyone has specific requests, Lana somehow does it all. So her email is there. And she's offered that to everyone. Question from Jeff about another kind of employee, someone who is brand new, never worked before, maybe a student, new college graduate, any, how would the process change for that kind of employee? Oh, is that Jeff Sperry? It sure is. Oh, hey, Jeff. It's so good to see you. Yeah, we have also onboarded student workers. And that's been a little bit of an interesting process as well. We try to kind of mimic what we do for a typical full-time employee, one that has probably been in the workforce for a while, but we also customize it a little bit more, right? Our federal student workers can only work a certain amount of hours. And so it's, and it's also high touch, a lot more training, a lot more time explaining the culture of the college. And so we really still have a very solid framework, but we make adjustments and lean in and take a little bit more time, especially with someone like a student worker, or if there would be someone, we haven't had a lot of people who we were their very first job. But like Thomas, you know, he was new to higher ed advancement. He was not new to fundraising, not new to, to that world, but he was new to higher ed. So I knew I had to take a little bit more time to really set up the framework for success for him. And in terms of what higher ed looks like, not only, you know, globally, but in Louisiana. And then I recently, well, about two years ago, onboarded a seasoned employee who had never worked in an office before. She came to us from the media and worked in newsrooms. And if you've ever worked a newsroom, you know how it works. It's not at all like this structure, structured environment with the infrastructure, she had never done a timesheet before, she had never had a formal evaluation, etc, etc. And so what we baked into her first week, especially, but then into her 30 days, is all those forms and new systems that she had to learn, we baked in a quite a bit of hands on training, and I completed all of her first materials with her. So we walk through that process manually. It did require a lot of effort on my end during that first onboarding period. But now she can do it with the best of it. I mean, she can train other people now. So it was just about spending the time upfront to maximize our time on the back end. And the next question from Emily, and then I have one more after we can squeeze in. How do you make the time to prioritize these one on one meetings? How do you make that time? Do you carve out each day, each week? But we're going to just have to go quickly, Lana, I think if you could answer that one. Yeah, no, super quickly. I dedicate every Monday afternoon to my one on one meetings. It's my sacred time. I know not to schedule anything external. We tried doing it differently on different days, mornings, afternoons, it didn't work. I'd always have to reschedule Mondays, Monday afternoons are my sacred time for my people. Great. And the other questions I'm going to push two together. Lana, it's about how you kind of got this through? Or do you work with your HR office? Are the other divisions at the school jealous? Like, how is this approved by South Louisa? So if you just tell us a little bit about the big picture versus your little picture and how it all came together. Yeah, well, we kind of are the highest performing division of the college. But yeah, it is intentional work. We do have a new, I would say it's probably two to three years in an office of employee engagement at our college. And so they have helped to push a lot of this down. But we are typically the ones to pilot everything or we're the ones bringing ideas like a lot of what you saw. I think I'm the only department who really leans into the 30, 60, 90 days. I see a lot of the professional development plans. I think we're the only division doing a professional development plan. I think it's going to be scaffolded across the college. So we like to pilot a lot of things. We're a smaller division, we could kind of work out the kinks, see what works, what doesn't work. And then either the office of employee engagement will classify it as a best practice and roll it down, or, you know, vice versa. That's a lot. Thank you. And Meg, let me just say in closing, you know, I think I had seen in the chat, you know, if someone's busy, like, how do you fit it all in? I can guarantee you probably by the nods I'm going to see from Thomas and Anne, the managers who are sinking because they are not putting in the intentional time to do things like this and their results are showing it. Yep. Well, Anne, Thomas, Lana, everyone at South Louisiana Community College, thank you so much for sharing your information with us. You're all superstars. Lana, I can't thank you enough for spending so much time to help our members. And I hope you could see in the chat, everyone's just so appreciative. Have a great day, everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Lana. And thanks for being case members. See you soon. See you guys.

onboarding

employee retention

pre-boarding

organizational culture

30-60-90 day plan

professional development

employee engagement

performance evaluations

South Louisiana Community College

Employee Net Promoter Score