Employee Onboarding
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American River College has embarked upon a holistic redesign intended to transform the student experience.  This experience is highly dependent upon the expertise, abilities, and soft skills displayed by all employees of the college.  Regardless of whether an employee is directly interacting with students (e.g., instructional faculty and front-line staff) or indirectly influencing those interactions (e.g., maintenance and back office staff), each employee contributes to the overall experience.  In light of this reality, ARC Strategic Goal #3 calls for “comprehensive and integrated professional development” in order to “create the best conditions for teaching and learning.”  Additionally, the institution has developed its first institutional equity plan which highlights employee development needs in support of the ARC commitment to social justice and equity.

This project is proposed to provide a venue for immediate employee onboarding planning and as a means to document recommendations that align with the Professional Development and Training Plan .  As a whole, this type of plan recognizes a college’s employee base as a valuable resource and is intended to determine how to best foster an environment that promotes employee onboarding as a necessary initial component of employee development and retention in support of the college mission.

This project will consider employee onboarding as a strategic mechanism to enable the college to achieve its strategic goals. The project team is expected to carefully consider how the college might best create a comprehensive, integrated, and intentionally sequenced employee onboarding model in support of the following goals:

• Strategic Goal 1: Students First
• Strategic Goal 3: Exemplary Working and Learning Environment
• Strategic Goal 4: Vibrancy and Resiliency

Underlying all of these goals is the institutional imperative: a commitment to social justice and equity that strives to uphold the dignity and humanity of every student and employee.

The project will consider questions such as:

• How can institutional employee onboarding be structured to foster growth of employees in different locations, different career stages, different job functions, different racial, tribal, and intersectional identities, different constituencies, and who have different learning preferences?
• How can new employee training ensure that incoming hires are not only prepared for their individual job function, but also are prepared to effectively support ARC goals and participate effectively in the ARC college environment? 
• How can recommendations of the Institutional Equity Plan related to professional development and the Professional Development and Training Plan be brought to life?
• How can we ensure that training occurs as needed for employees across constituencies? 
• Which resources (internal and external) are available and needed to provide a comprehensive, integrated program of professional development?

The charge of the project team is limited to the planning process including steps such as assessment, analysis, strategy design, and developing recommendations.  Actual implementation of an employee onboarding model and strategies are beyond the scope of work. 

Successful completion of this project is intended to achieve the following objectives:

1. Gather resources to inform the planning process such as initial insights from the Institutional Equity Plan, input from members of disproportionately impacted communities, disproportionate impact data, promising practices from other institutions, and other relevant research
2. Assess the recent history and current state of ARC and LRCCD practices related to employee onboarding, such as the New Faculty Academy
3. Consider the employee onboarding process in alignment with the recommendations of the Professional Development and Training plan
4. Assess practices and efforts at the College that pose barriers to an effective employee onboarding model
5. Project the future needs of an employee onboarding model considering the ARC Redesign, the current and future demographics of our students, disproportionate impact data and current and historical equity gaps, and the rapidly changing environment
6. Identify clear priorities for employee onboarding designed to close equity gaps for Black, African American, Latinx/e, Native American, AAPI, and LGBTQIA+ students at ARC
7. Develop recommendations that are actionable

Deliverables to be completed and/or submitted for approval:

Draft a recommended employee onboarding model that will do the following:

1. Identify clear priorities for employee onboarding at ARC designed to close equity gaps for Black, African American, Latinx/e, Native American, AAPI, and LGBTQIA+ students
2. Identify barriers to effective employee onboarding that currently exist at ARC 
3. Develop a common set of information, skills and knowledge expected of all new employees of the college designed to close equity gaps for Black, African American, Latinx/e, Native American, AAPI, and LGBTQIA+ students
4. Develop specific sets of information, skills and knowledge required of each constituency group (e.g. classified professionals, faculty, administrators, student help).
5. Recommend specific actions to implement onboarding for each of the constituent groups (e.g. classified professionals, faculty, administrators, student help).

The project will be considered successful when:

1. A draft report containing an employee onboarding plan has been completed
2. Actionable recommendations are identified in the report
3. A draft of recommendations is considered through established governance channels
4. The adopted recommendations are available to serve as a roadmap for institutional employee onboarding efforts

All of these indicators can be thoroughly accomplished through completion of the stated project objectives.

The project team was authorized based on the following assumptions:

• ARC’s mission, strategic goals, and commitment to social justice and equity and the value of inclusion are central to this work.
• Training is needed across constituency groups for the College to be able to reduce disproportionate impact on African American, Latinx, Native American, Asian Pacific Islander, and LGBTQIA+ students.   
• New training needs will accompany much of the anticipated work of the ARC Redesign.
• The higher education environment and the world of work are both changing extremely rapidly. Coping with change is a necessary strand of community college onboarding and professional development.
• Expertise may need to be obtained through a variety of internal and external opportunities that have varying associated costs. While it is recognized that available resources are limited, the team’s focus should be placed on designing an effective model. The team is also encouraged to provide options and alternatives that may be aligned to future resource constraints. 
• In order to effectively realize the goals of ARC’s strategic plan, this project should consider a model appropriate for various types of employees, including the dynamics of supporting a mobile workforce.
• Recommendations should consider an employee onboarding model that builds internal capacity (e.g., train the trainer) and provides just-in-time learning resources as well as ongoing development.
• The proposed deliverables will be developed in a manner that supports the intent of accreditation standard III.A.14 which reads “The institution plans for and provides all personnel with appropriate opportunities for continued professional development, consistent with the institutional mission and based on evolving pedagogy, technology, and learning needs. The institution systematically evaluates professional development programs and uses the results of these evaluations as the basis for improvement.” 
• The content, style, and format of the plan should be concise and accessible to the average person (not written for an academic audience).

The project team should be aware of the following known risks, constraints, and/or dependencies:

• Priorities will need to be aligned to the overarching framework of the Institutional Equity Plan
• This project needs to align with work involving the implementation of the Professional Development and Training plan
• The project needs to align with employee onboarding efforts provided by the District
• The implementation of recommendations may be subject to resource constraints.

• Various implications are likely related to equity and inclusion in response to the recommendations of the Institutional Equity Plan. 
• Various implications are likely related to district and/or existing college-wide practices related to employee onboarding.
• Opportunities may exist to partner with HR in the development of the employee onboarding model.
• There may be staffing, technology, and/or facility needs related to the provision of an employee onboarding model.  
• Data collection and analysis is likely to be needed to determine the effectiveness of the recommended employee onboarding model once implemented.