Thanks Amy. As Amy said, my name is Stacy Doepner-Hove, and I am the director of the Masters Program in Human Resources and Industrial Relations, at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. I'm excited to be working with you through the next four lessons, as we talk about employee onboarding, and engagement. So we're going to start today with some background information about me, so you know where I'm coming from and who I am. And then we're going to take you through a general overview and a definition of orientation and onboarding, more specifically onboarding, so we all know what we're talking about as we go through the next four lessons. I actually came to human resources fairly recently, but if I think about it I've really been doing this for a long time. I started my career in retail sales and management, and when I finished my Bachelors degree at the University of Minnesota, I decided I'd go on to law school. And while I was in law school, what I really felt that I loved and really was excited about, was employment law and labor law, and really understanding the business world from that legal risk management perspective. When I was done with law school, I went out and ran a nonprofit for a few years, and got to understand what it was like to run a business. Soon after that, the law school actually had an opening for a new Associate Director of Admissions. I had loved my law school experience so much, I came back here to the University of Minnesota, to work there in the Admissions office for about eight years. In that time, I found that, again, what I really loved was running the office. I wanted to make our office as employee friendly, and efficient, and effective as possible. So I went back and got my degree in Human Resources and Industrial Relations, the same Master's degree that I work as a program director for now. As I was finishing up that Master's degree, a new position opened at the University of Minnesota, to be the Director of Onboarding Engagement for the entire university system. Well I jumped at that chance, and was able to work with the office of Human Resources, centrally here at The U, for about three and a half years, before this position here at the Carlson School of Management opened up. During my time in the central office, I built the new onboarding system for the University of Minnesota and its system campuses. I was super excited to be able do that, and work on not only a new onboarding system, but throughout the system of campuses and colleges, to work with their HR directors, on helping to implement the new onboarding system, and make it work for the employees who are part of our 30,000 or so employees who work here at the University of Minnesota. Here as the Director of the Master's Program, I still teach employee development. Which includes onboarding and engagement and all those things that we're going to be talking about in these lessons. I still speak at onboarding, at national conferences and those kinds of things, and really have a passion for onboarding and engagement. So I'm excited to be talking to you, and let's move on to what really is onboarding? So let's start. What is onboarding? Most people have heard about orientation or new employee orientation, sometimes called NEO. But not everyone has heard of onboarding. So what do you think onboarding is? So we know now that onboarding is beyond just normal orientation, the first day of work kind of stuff. But, really? I mean, what's the big deal? Let me tell you a couple of true stories about first days of work. First, an employee who arrived at her first day of work, finds a set of keys taped to her door, and a little note that says, I'll be back soon, I'm in meetings. But has actually no contact with anyone else for the entire day. Another new employee across the campus organization, arrives in a snow day, doesn't know where to park, traipses his way to his office and finds he doesn't have a work space. Much less computer access or other tools necessary to do his work, or even get started on his first day. In fact it takes two weeks before he has a place to sit, and to log on to his computer. How would that make you feel? What would you think about the organization? Let alone what would you think about the new manager and the team? I don't think it would be a very good thing. So we've talked a little bit about the difference between onboarding and orientation, and that onboarding really means more than just orientation. In this module, we're going to kind of go through four things. We're going to talk about engagement, and what employee engagement means. And what is your return on investment for doing employee engagement and onboarding well. We're going to talk about the process of socialization, and how you can individualize it for each employee, yet still make it workable across your whole team. Then we're going to have some practical suggestions for you on how you can onboard your team, and create an onboarding process that works for you in your department. And finally, we're going to talk about, where does onboarding fit into the whole development and performance management system? You want to make sure that your whole system of engagement and development looks like it makes sense together. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. And when you're done, you will know what you need to know as a manager to bring in those new hires that you've spent so much time getting, and really get them effective, engaged, and excited about working in your team.
