One of the biggest challenges research administration professionals face is developing an effective approach to training and onboarding. The lack of time, resource documentation, and an organized training plan can leave teams scrambling to effectively onboard new staff and keep up with an active workload simultaneously.
In our 2022 Benchmark Report, we found that 82% of research administration professionals across 437 organizations expected an increase in workload over the coming year. Even when that workload is balanced by new hires, hiring places a burden on existing staff to get new employees up to speed as quickly as possible.
Mollie Robbins-Wint, Associate Director of PreAward Services at Kansas State University, recently shared her best practices for onboarding and ongoing skill development for research administration professionals. Read on for her insights, and join our Cayuse Connect Community for direct access to industry best practices and ongoing conversations at no cost.
The importance of resource documentation
Whether your research administration software is hosted or homegrown, no platform can operate effectively without clean data. Clear documentation that outlines requirements for every stage of the process helps ensure that your system stays accurate while reducing the burden on senior staff to repeatedly answer the same questions.
In her session on Onboarding Best Practices for Cayuse Connect 2022, Mollie spoke about the two document types she creates: master sheets (designed to guide users through in-depth processes and ensure consistency) and instruction sheets (day-to-day documentation for every business process related to Cayuse Sponsored Projects).
With clear instructions on the data inputs acceptable in each field, KSU’s research administration office has seen fewer errors and increased efficiency. (To see specific examples of each document type, join the Cayuse Community and watch the video replay of Mollie’s talk here.) Automation and direct access for stakeholders alleviate administrative burden; as proposals make their way through the system, status codes are kept updated so users can quickly assess project status without endless back and forth.
Documentation also simplifies the process of establishing naming conventions and normalizing data. When hundreds of people across departments upload documents, it’s hard to find anything without first establishing consistency. Documentation creates a “shared language” that faculty and staff can use to keep inputs clean and easily searchable.
This type of detailed documentation takes time to create, but the time investment on the front end pays dividends for years, and there are time-efficient ways to create it. For instance, while deploying new research administration software or reworking internal processes, write instructions on each step as you test. Similarly, as users ask questions, draft lists of frequently asked questions and add your answers to documented steps so they are accessible to others who ask the same question in the future.
Creating an organized communication platform
Talking about process optimization is one thing; executing it with limited time and staff is another. Mollie emphasized that teams don’t need a large volume of documentation to see a positive impact. “Even 5-10 well-placed documents specific to your institution will save more time and energy than you can imagine,” she says. Creating resources is not an all-or-nothing practice. Start small, building your resource library over time.
Status listings are an easy first step. Build a detailed list of status codes and a “key” informing users of what each code means. Train all users to keep the project status updated (or implement logic to update status automatically) to reduce back-and-forth communication around simple updates.
Once your documentation is in place, consider how you’ll share it with both central (global) staff and non-central (departmental) staff. For example, central staff might use an internal web-based software like Sharepoint, with clearly labeled buckets for each type of instruction sheet or template. Folder hierarchies should be clear enough that new staff can easily find what they’re looking for. Departmental staff may use the public-facing website to access a curated list of helpful resources, as they will require less nuanced documentation.
Staff onboarding best practices
Mollie shared several best practices from her own experience that apply well outside the walls of KSU. Here are some of her top tips for onboarding new staff quickly and efficiently.
Use training videos
Whenever access is granted to Cayuse Sponsored Projects, the new user is required to watch a video training that explains basic steps and where to find additional resources. This helps prevent an onslaught of isolated questions, as the answers to those questions are likely found in the resource library you’ve already built. This approach saves countless amounts of time and energy.
Leverage technology
Joining a new research administration team is often overwhelming. Even staff with industry experience can take months to feel comfortable with the inner workings of a new-to-them institution. Onboarding can therefore be a challenging process, but technology can help. With homegrown or ad hoc processes, different staff members often create their own approach to “how things are done.” Cloud-based technology enables one easily accessible source of truth to keep everyone on the same page.
Train, recap, practice
Use sequential learning to your advantage, segmenting content into easily digestible pieces. Cover one topic fully, then recap that content and allow the trainee to practice what they’ve learned before moving on. Content recaps should always indicate where users can find answers or additional information for future reference.
When it’s time for new hires to practice what they’ve learned, provide access to a UAT instance of your software so you don’t risk corrupting the production environment with errors. Allow staff to process the training and start trying on their own in UAT, then have them apply their learnings to an actual workload.
This process is easily buildable, from proposal submissions to awards and award modifications. It is also easily accomplished via Zoom (another benefit of cloud-based software), so remote teams can learn just as quickly as on-site teams do.
Ongoing training and skill development
Once new hires are onboarded, it’s tempting to consider your training “done.” But, Mollie reminded us, there are always opportunities to analyze your processes and become more efficient, even with seasoned staff members. Reporting can help identify bottlenecks or pain points by flagging system errors. Multiple errors in the same spot are a good indication of training or process gaps.
At KSU, Mollie holds a weekly training series inspired by issues she sees from a system perspective and from downstream feedback. These sessions are recorded so they can perform double duty as future onboarding training. Sometimes these trainings are internal; other times, faculty and staff from other offices will join to explain the importance of the research administration team’s work and the downstream impact of errors.
Finally, treat your training resources as living documents. This does not mean spending excessive time on updates; even with the 100+ documents Mollie developed for KSU, she estimates an update to one document every two months. To ensure clarity, keep the version number and date in the footer of each document, ensuring that users institution-wide can verify whether they are using the most current version.
