Onboarding Processes Research Articles

Conducting Internet-Based Visits for Onboarding Populations With Limited Digital Literacy to an mHealth Intervention: Development of a Patient-Centered Approach.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has propelled patient-facing research to shift to digital and telehealth strategies. If these strategies are not adapted for minority patients of lower socioeconomic status, health inequality will further increase. Patient-centered models of care can successfully improve access and experience for minority patients.ObjectiveThis study aims to present the development process and preliminary acceptability of altering in-person onboarding procedures into internet-based, remote procedures for a mobile health (mHealth) intervention in a population with limited digital literacy.MethodsWe actively recruited safety-net patients (English- and Spanish-speaking adults with diabetes and depression who were receiving care at a public health care delivery system in San Francisco, United States) into a randomized controlled trial of text messaging support for physical activity. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we modified the in-person recruitment and onboarding procedures to internet-based, remote processes with human support. We conducted a preliminary evaluation of how the composition of the recruited cohort might have changed from the pre–COVID-19 period to the COVID-19 enrollment period. First, we analyzed the digital profiles of patients (n=32) who had participated in previous in-person onboarding sessions prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Next, we documented all changes made to our onboarding processes to account for remote recruitment, especially those needed to support patients who were not very familiar with downloading apps onto their mobile phones on their own. Finally, we used the new study procedures to recruit patients (n=11) during the COVID-19 social distancing period. These patients were also asked about their experience enrolling into a fully digitized mHealth intervention.ResultsRecruitment across both pre–COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods (N=43) demonstrated relatively high rates of smartphone ownership but lower self-reported digital literacy, with 32.6% (14/43) of all patients reporting they needed help with using their smartphone and installing apps. Significant changes were made to the onboarding procedures, including facilitating app download via Zoom video call and/or a standard phone call and implementing brief, one-on-one staff-patient interactions to provide technical assistance personalized to each patient’s digital literacy skills. Comparing recruitment during pre–COVID-19 and COVID-19 periods, the proportion of patients with digital literacy barriers reduced from 34.4% (11/32) in the pre–COVID-19 cohort to 27.3% (3/11) in the COVID-19 cohort. Differences in digital literacy scores between both cohorts were not significant (P=.49).ConclusionsPatients of lower socioeconomic status have high interest in using digital platforms to manage their health, but they may require additional upfront human support to gain access. One-on-one staff-patient partnerships allowed us to provide unique technical assistance personalized to each patient’s digital literacy skills, with simple strategies to troubleshoot patient barriers upfront. These additional remote onboarding strategies can mitigate but not eliminate digital barriers for patients without extensive technology experience.Trial RegistrationClinicaltrials.gov NCT0349025, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03490253

Listening to and Crafting Stories: Cultivating Activism in Online Doctoral Students

The Johns Hopkins online EdD program prepares students as scholar-practitioners who become leaders and agents of change across educational contexts. Advocating for equity and social justice requires our students to not only immerse themselves in the relevant literature and learn the traditional skills of applied research but to master the art of communication through a sort of storytelling. Storytelling, in this sense, represents a means to gather and analyze data and understand and integrate diverse perspectives to engage and persuade relevant stakeholders (Moezzi, Janda, & Rotmann, 2017). The Hopkins first-year EdD programming and coursework emphasize the use of deficit-free language to understand people and problems, consideration of diverse perspectives and structuring inquiry with a systems-approaches to explore contextual problems using a mixed methods research paradigms. Together, the program's approach to student learning and practice-oriented courses and dissertation research contribute to training scholar-practitioners as activists who ask relevant questions, draw on multiple perspectives to craft potential solutions, adapt to a variety of contexts and circumstances, engage with diverse stakeholders, reflect on their own assumptions, and admit to and learn from mistakes throughout the process. Through a detailed accounting and examination of the JHU onboarding features and processes, particular course content and assignments, as well as the interplay of these elements, this paper will demonstrate how attending to language, perspective taking, context, and research inquiry support the development of scholar-activists.

Institutional Perspectives on Faculty Development for Digital Education in Canada

As digital education at the post-secondary level continues to grow, robust professional development that prepares faculty to teach in online and blended settings is necessary. In this study we analyze open-ended comments from the Canadian Digital Learning Research Association’s annual survey of Canadian post-secondary institutions (2017-2019) to deepen our understanding of faculty training and support for digital education as articulated by higher education institutions. We find that 1) digital education orientation or on-boarding processes for faculty vary widely; 2) institutions employ an extensive array of professional development practices for digital education; 3) institutions report culture change, work security, and unclear expectations as challenges in providing digital education training and support; and 4) institutions articulate aspirations and hopes around professional development investments in order to build digital education capacity. These findings have significant implications for research and practice and we describe these in the article.

Supervisor Perceptions of Newly Credentialed Athletic Trainers' Transition to Practice

Context Transition to practice for newly credentialed athletic trainers (ATs) has been described through the perspective of educators, supervisors of graduate assistant ATs, students, and recent graduates; however, the opinion of supervisors of full-time ATs has not been thoroughly investigated. Objective (1) Describe supervisor perceptions of the transition to full-time practice for newly credentialed ATs and (2) describe current onboarding processes used by employers. Design Phenomenological qualitative study. Setting Semistructured interviews. Patients or Other Participants Purposive sample of 10 (4 men, 6 women) supervisors of newly credentialed ATs. Supervisors reported an average of 13.5 years of supervisory experience (range, 5–26 years). Data Collection and Analysis Questions addressed supervisor expectations, strengths and weaknesses of newly credentialed ATs, and the organization's onboarding process. The primary researcher transcribed audio recordings and each participant reviewed transcripts. Two researchers coded themes using an inductive process; a peer auditor completed an independent review. Disagreements were negotiated until consensus was reached. Results Two categories emerged: (1) characteristics of newly credentialed ATs and (2) onboarding strategies. The first category was organized into 2 subcategories: (1) knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) and (2) unrealistic job expectations. The majority of supervisors felt that newly credentialed ATs were knowledgeable; however, the translation of knowledge into practice was viewed as an area requiring mentorship. Participants also reported that newly credentialed ATs often were poorly informed of the work schedule and time demands. In regard to onboarding processes, the researchers identified 7 different strategies reported by supervisors. Conclusions Newly credentialed ATs were perceived as knowledgeable but struggling to transition knowledge to clinical practice and often did not understand the work demands. Seven onboarding strategies were reported by participants; each of these can be used to develop KSAs of newly credentialed ATs. The KSAs should be addressed through a yearlong process consisting of orientations, shadowing, mentorship, seminars, and skill assessments.

Can Badges Foster a More Welcoming Culture on Q&A Boards?

Thriving online communities rely on a steady stream of newcomers to contribute new content. However, retaining newcomers has proven challenging. In this paper, we measure the success of an intervention used by Stack Exchange question-answering communities to create a more welcoming environment for newcomers. That intervention consisted in highlighting contributions by new users with a special indicator. We hypothesize that Stack Exchange's new policy would reduce negative reactions to new users and, ultimately, increase new user retention. We leverage causal modeling to assess the introduction of the so-called “new contributor indicator”, and we find it did not counter user retention decline in the short- and long-terms. However, our results indicate it did reduce unwelcoming reactions towards newcomers in the short-term. Our work has practical implications for online community managers aiming to improve their onboarding processes.

The organisational socialisation of new graduate nurses and midwives within three months of their entrance into the health workforce

Objective: To investigate if the current onboarding process influences the organisational socialisation of new graduate nurses and midwives into the workforce. Background: Positive organisational socialisation experience for new graduate nurses and midwives during their entry into the healthcare environment is an important contributor when building an organisation’s ability to increase workforce capacity. However, few studies have investigated the onboarding processes to promote their organisational socialisation. Study design and methods: A quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional study design was conducted at a large Local Health District that provides health services to almost one million people in metropolitan, rural and remote locations. Participants were 170 new graduate nurses and midwives who commenced their transition program at 21 acute and community healthcare settings within the District in January and February 2017. Data was collected through a document review of current onboarding processes and by an online survey of new graduates. Data sets were analysed using descriptive statistics and content analysis. Results: The survey response rate was 47% (n= 80). Findings highlight that the onboarding process provided by the District was useful for the new graduate’s transition into the workplace. The findings also indicated that the onboarding process was inconsistent across different contexts in the District and required more relevant and practical components. In addition, the current onboarding did not adequately provide strategies to build relationships for new graduates within their work environments. Discussion: This study provides valuable insight into current onboarding practices in both metropolitan and rural contexts and highlights gaps in this process across the health District. The findings of the study provide insights and future direction for improvements with addressing the inconsistency in the structure and content of orientation programs. The need for more accessible and consistent organisational information and a more structured framework for the organisational wide onboarding process was also identified. Conclusion: Re-design of an onboarding process that is relevant, consistent and enhances relationship-building is imperative to meeting both the professional and organisational needs of new graduate nurses and midwives. Implications for research, policy and practice: The findings of the study imply a need to streamline the onboarding process to provide greater opportunity for new graduates to develop and sustain professional networks and associated workplace relationships regardless of their locations. They also signal a need to develop policies practice and future research to assist a better organisational socialisation, in particular, the allocation of resources, better utilisation of time spent on education and workplace support in the transition into their clinical workplaces. What is already known about the topic? Supporting new graduate nurses and midwives in their first year is important for their transition into the workforce and to increase their retention in the profession. Onboarding processes for new graduates during their transition into the workplace enhances their professional knowledge and confidence, which increases their capacity to provide safe quality healthcare. Few studies have investigated the relationship between the onboarding process and the promotion of organisational socialisation within the first three months of entering the health workforce. What this paper adds? Findings identify the need to improve the onboarding process to better meet the complex needs of the new graduates. Implementation of a tailored onboarding process, especially in rural and specialty areas improves organisational socialisation.

Safely Practicing in a New Environment: A Qualitative Study to Inform Physician Onboarding Practices

Physicians are frequently asked to practice in hospitals different from their home institution, often under contracts called professional service agreements (PSAs). With highly variable onboarding processes, traveling physicians are often left to "figure out" the available resources, processes of care, crucial relationships, and culture of the new institution. This research aimed to understand the current practices of onboarding for the purpose of informing future improvements in practice. Two physicians conducted semistructured, in-depth interviews with physicians working at hospitals beyond their home institution. A thematic qualitative analysis was performed. The sample included 20 physicians from six specialties. Key findings include (1) the basic logistics of providing care in a new environment are often not incorporated into physician onboarding and can limit physicians' ability to provide care efficiently and effectively; (2) the strength of interpersonal relationships greatly influences the ability of physicians to get help when working in new environments; and (3) managing clinical emergencies in unfamiliar settings can result in significant perceived risk to patient safety due to delays in providing care. The onboarding process, for physicians working in new institutions, provides significant opportunity for improvement. In the future, more work is needed to ensure that the most notable differences between institutions are clarified, physicians have the necessary information and professional relationships to handle emergencies, and they know which patients they can safely care for in their new institution.

Adjusting to working away and as an expatriate: learnings on what organisations can do to promote the mental health and well-being of workers and their families

Adjusting to frequent separations and reunions can put pressure on the relationships and families of those who work away. Although the work context is different, there are similar effects and challenges for workers, families and organisations across the military, expatriate and fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) research domains. Mental health, work performance, job satisfaction, relationships and parenting are all negatively affected by the extended periods of deployment or posting and the regular and ongoing shorter periods of FIFO work. At the individual level, personality dimensions (emotional stability, sociability, openness to new experiences), locus of control, intelligence, self-sufficiency and cultural intelligence have been shown to significantly affect these impacts and provide organisations with starting points for both the screening of candidates for roles and coaching them to better adjust and cope cross-culturally. The recruitment and onboarding processes should be underpinned by the principles of managing expectations and building capability, and this means that realistic and relevant information should focus on the realities of the work, the work environment and host country. The onboarding process that seeks to socialise the worker into the organisation and the culture should assume the worker will take at least 6 months to settle into the role. Predeparture training should engage with the worker and their families to ensure the development of coping skills and practical strategies for managing communication, parenting and relationships. Effectively managing the psychosocial risks faced by workers across these domains will improve the mental health and well-being of workers and their families.

KYC, Client Onboarding: Leveraging Blockchain Technology

Know-your-customer (KYC) and on-boarding processes pose numerous problems; both to banks and their corporate customers. The regulators for financial institutions, on the other hand, require that these processes meet ongoing compliance requirements. Presently, each institution maintains their own copy of customer data and performs verification via centralized data providers. This process is time-consuming, complex, costly, prone to duplication and redundancy; the result is delays in on-boarding a new client. Consequently, the experience can be a make or break for the ongoing relationship the customer has with the organisation. Key variables like client loyalty, experience, referrals, and profitability depends on the company’s customer on-boarding process. On-boarding done the wrong way will drive clients away. In this paper, I’ll explore some of the financial institutions using block-chain technologies to enhance the client on-boarding experience. For instance, 10 of R3’s consortium member banks developed a proof-of-concept for a KYC registry that intended to allow the management of both individuals and entities identities by the identity owners.

Inclusion at the Workplace: An Exploratory Study of People with Disabilities in South Africa

AbstractResearch on the employment experiences of persons with disabilities on a global level indicates that this group is faced with the challenge of inclusion in the workplace. While South Africa has a well-defined legislative framework that has been determined in consultation with disabled people’s organisations, compliance with legislation appears to have failed to ensure that employment targets are met. As a response to these challenges, this study explored the early inclusion experiences of persons with disabilities in the workplace via a qualitative, explorative, case study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 people with a range of different disabilities and working for different organisations, in order to provide insight into the initial experiences of inclusion for persons with disabilities in the workplace. Findings showed challenges in induction and orientation practices, struggles with disclosure of disability to coworkers, a desire to strive for ‘normality’, and frustration and vulnerability in the workplace. Taken together, the findings point to the importance of early experiences of inclusion in the workplace – that is, inclusionary practices during the employee induction phase. This study offers insights to organisations and management practitioners for the promotion of better employment experiences. Recommendations include the appointment of a disability champion to account for disability equity within the organisation, the development of more inclusive recruitment and orientation practices, drawing on coworkers for support, and the active involvement of persons with disabilities in shaping onboarding processes. Embarking on these steps may ultimately result in a more diverse workforce within South Africa.

Managing Vulnerability and Uncertainty

This case study explores building design competencies and a design-driven organizational culture within an American healthcare non-profit. With a staff are primarily from the healthcare space, as well as some in banking and sales, we look at how the staff has adapted to working within a design-driven organization. By applying iterative design methods and embracing innovation and uncertainty we observe how the organization’s founder has helped guide team members through a process of discomfort and vulnerability within an experimentally-driven and human-centered organization.Using interviews with employees and the founder at various points in new employee on-boarding processes we chart a transformational arc over six months. The learnings to share include both the universal and the particular: what are the core competencies to develop in all organizational members, and what are the specific and different ways competencies can take form. From building explicitly shared languages to facilitated sensemaking this case study offers an opportunity to share new and developing practices for embedding design-driven innovation and management practices in new fields and contexts.

How Supervising Students Can Enrich Your Career—and Your Health Care Facility

How Supervising Students Can Enrich Your Career—and Your Health Care Facility

Developing Effective Top Management Team at Vietnamese SMEs

Developing Effective Top Management Team at Vietnamese SMEs

Evaluation of Data Exchange Process for Interoperability and Impact on Electronic Laboratory Reporting Quality to a State Public Health Agency.

BackgroundPast and present national initiatives advocate for electronic exchange of health data and emphasize interoperability. The critical role of public health in the context of disease surveillance was recognized with recommendations for electronic laboratory reporting (ELR). Many public health agencies have seen a trend towards centralization of information technology services which adds another layer of complexity to interoperability efforts.ObjectivesThe study objective was to understand the process of data exchange and its impact on the quality of data being transmitted in the context of electronic laboratory reporting to public health. This was conducted in context of Minnesota Electronic Disease Surveillance System (MEDSS), the public health information system for supporting infectious disease surveillance in Minnesota. Data Quality (DQ) dimensions by Strong et al., was chosen as the guiding framework for evaluation.MethodsThe process of assessing data exchange for electronic lab reporting and its impact was a mixed methods approach with qualitative data obtained through expert discussions and quantitative data obtained from queries of the MEDSS system. Interviews were conducted in an open-ended format from November 2017 through February 2018. Based on these discussions, two high level categories of data exchange process which could impact data quality were identified: onboarding for electronic lab reporting and internal data exchange routing. This in turn comprised of ten critical steps and its impact on quality of data was identified through expert input. This was followed by analysis of data in MEDSS by various criteria identified by the informatics team.ResultsAll DQ metrics (Intrinsic DQ, Contextual DQ, Representational DQ, and Accessibility DQ) were impacted in the data exchange process with varying influence on DQ dimensions. Some errors such as improper mapping in electronic health records (EHRs) and laboratory information systems had a cascading effect and can pass through technical filters and go undetected till use of data by epidemiologists. Some DQ dimensions such as accuracy, relevancy, value-added data and interpretability are more dependent on users at either end of the data exchange spectrum, the relevant clinical groups and the public health program professionals. The study revealed that data quality is dynamic and on-going oversight is a combined effort by MEDSS Informatics team and review by technical and public health program professionals.ConclusionWith increasing electronic reporting to public health, there is a need to understand the current processes for electronic exchange and their impact on quality of data. This study focused on electronic laboratory reporting to public health and analyzed both onboarding and internal data exchange processes. Insights gathered from this research can be applied to other public health reporting currently (e.g. immunizations) and will be valuable in planning for electronic case reporting in near future.

Design to Improve Player On-Boarding and Decision-Making Processes in Video Games: A Systematic Review

Decision-making performance in video games play a vital role in player success and frustration. As video games become more complex, designers will need to develop appropriate methods to assist players to address the increased learning requirements. To understand current research on player decisions and behaviors, a systematic review was performed, identifying 202 articles and fully analyzing a total of 14 studies. After the analysis of all studies, it was determined that efficient on-boarding and decision-making design strategies requires a multi-disciplinary approach. Future research should bridge the gap of independent disciplines into a cohesive methodology for effective video game design.

Looking at Organizational Socialization from the Developmental Network Perspective

Paying close attention to those new to an organization, whether fresh or experienced, whose primary interest is in (re)socialization, the current study intends to (1) further the concept of mentoring from a bilateral relationship to a community and culture fostered by developmental networks, (2) propose an integrated conceptual framework for organizational socialization, and (3) suggest implications for practice and future research. This study reviews, analyzes, and integrates research assets and subsequently re-conceptualizes the aggregate information as valid propositions and a conceptual framework. The findings include (1) 11 propositions regarding the relationships among network characteristics (embeddedness, diversity), developmental functions (career support, psychosocial support, and role modeling), and socialization outcomes (learning and attitudinal outcomes); and (2) an integrated conceptual framework that depicts a comprehensive mechanism through which developmental networks conduce to organizational socialization of newcomers. Implications are that developmental networking must be an individual's fundamental competency and an essential part of organizational onboarding processes, and imperative for both members' career development and innovative organizational culture. By integrating research assets on the developmental phenomenon into conceptualizations, this study furthers the concept of mentoring to organizational culture and stimulates a substantive discourse for theory-building towards organizational socialization from the developmental network perspective.

Enhancing Surveillance on the BioSense Platform through Improved Onboarding Processes

Objective: This session will present the impacts of enhancements made to National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) BioSense Platform Onboarding in 2017 from the perspective of CDC and public health jurisdictions.Introduction: In 2017, the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) continued to expand as a national scope data source with over 6,500 facilities registered on the BioSense Platform, including 4,000 active, 1,800 onboarding, and 700 planned or inactive facilities. 2,086 of the active facilities are Emergency Departments across 49 sites in 41 states. The growth of data available in NSSP has been driven by continued enhancements to tools and processes used by the NSSP Onboarding Team. These enhancements help to rapidly integrate new healthcare facilities and onboard new public health sites in support of American Hospital Association (AHA) Emergency Department (ED) representativeness goals. Furthermore, with these improvements to the onboarding process, including the Master Facility Table update process and automated data validation reporting, NSSP has broadened stakeholder participation in the onboarding process.Description: This panel presentation will focus on the impact of the enhancements to NSSP Onboarding processes and tools that are the key enablers for NSSP to gather a site and nationally representative data source for event detection and novel surveillance. Panelists include Mr. Travis Mayo, NSSP Onboarding Manager, who will present the key enablers to accelerating NSSP Onboarding including enhancements to the management of the Master Facility Table (MFT), tailoring of the Engage, Connect, Validate, and Operate methodology, and the introduction of automated data validation reports. Building on the enablers presented by Mr. Mayo, Mr. Michael Coletta, will present on NSSP priorities and initiatives to optimize program efficiency in support of onboarding new sites and continuing to onboard facilities in support of national objectives for ED representatives. Mrs. Sophia Crossen will present the impact of NSSP changes in Kansas onboarding and surveillance initiatives. Mrs. Kirsten Oliver, will demonstrate how NSSP onboarding has impacted syndromic surveillance activities in West Virginia.With the need to always be looking ahead, each panelist will draw on their experiences in 2017, including their perspective on opportunities in 2018 to continue to enhance NSSP onboarding. These perspectives will serve as a basis for launching into questions and discussions from the audience to collect NSSP onboarding experiences in 2017 and ideas for continued enhancement in 2018.How the Moderator Intends to Engage the Audience in Discussions on the Topic: The round table will present the improvements implemented by NSSP Onboarding and discuss the following:- What strengths and weaknesses have the enhancements surfaced in onboarding processes- How have the enhancements impacted local onboarding initiatives and priorities- How have the enhancements changed the roles of key players in the onboarding process

Electronic agreements: Why legal does not always mean enforceable

Many banks, driven by growing competition, are looking to improve efficiency and customer experience by making onboarding and other services frictionless. At the same time, banking customers now expect a seamless, omni-channel experience, similar to the experience offered by retailers such as Amazon. The trend towards digitising the customer agreement process as part of digital banking brings benefits by reducing costs and speeding up customer onboarding processes. Ineffective technology and procedures that lack due diligence could however, provoke a new wave of customer or regulatory initiated legal action from alleged mis-selling. Whether any mis-selling is intentional or accidental, financial institutions could be vulnerable. Simple solutions favoured by banks such as eSignature are not enough — these systems need to be fully integrated and capable of handling the entire end-to-end agreement process. They must also be fully enforceable as well as being legal. As events such as the Payment Protection Insurance mis-selling scandal in the UK demonstrate, banks have recently been fined huge amounts, and suffered reputational damage owing to insufficiently robust disclosure and evidence-gathering procedures when dealing with customers. More recently, in the USA, Wells Fargo admitted that around two million phantom accounts had been created between 2011 to mid-2015, aimed at increasing the sales figures posted by the bank. As a result, it was fined US$185m, and billions of dollars were wiped off its market value. These and other cases have arisen because as they have sought to increase revenues and reduce costs, banks and financial institutions have been insufficiently focused on risk inherent in their back-end processes. Although they have mitigated risk at the ‘front door’, prompted by the action of the authorities and adverse publicity, all too often they have neglected it at the ‘back door’. As a result of these fines, increased regulation and the bad publicity that they have suffered, many banks are now reviewing and seeking to improve both their technical and administrative processes. As cases such as these emerge, there is a growing awareness among banks that they are increasing their risk by not having in place processes that are fit for purpose.

Accelerating leadership performance at the top: Lessons from the Bank of America's executive on-boarding process

This article examines the critical role that on-boarding processes play in the successful development of executive leadership talent. It is based on an in-depth case analysis of one organization's sophisticated on-boarding intervention. Specifically, we explore the potential of these interventions both to pre-empt leadership failures and to accelerate the knowledge and relationships necessary to step into an executive role. Lessons are provided on designing on-boarding interventions for senior leaders.

The future of leadership development: The importance of identity, multi-level approaches, self-leadership, physical fitness, shared leadership, networking, creativity, emotions, spirituality and on-boarding processes

Leadership and, consequently, leadership development have taken on far greater import in recent times. As organizations have steadily progressed into the knowledge economy we can no longer rely on simple notions of top–down, command-and-control leadership, based on the idea that workers are merely interchangeable drones. Accordingly, in this special issue you will find seven articles that provide a glimpse over the horizon, so to speak, of leadership development: Together the authors provide a rich research roadmap and a practical set of options for leadership development professionals regarding the next important steps for leadership development, which will carry us well into the 21st Century.