I still remember one of my first days working in higher ed.
No one knew I was starting.
I didn’t know where to park. I was terrified campus police would tow my car. My supervisor wasn’t there. Someone eventually pointed me toward a desk that turned out to be a white plastic folding table. You know, the kind that you buy at discount stores for picnics. It’s the kind of table that we in the South eat boiled crawfish on.
So there I sat at the crawfish boil table all day — reconsidering my life choices and pretending to look busy.
Higher ed loves to talk about employee engagement, but too many colleges are still giving new hires “go be great” energy on day one — with little to no guidance.
And then we wonder why turnover is eating us alive.
Particularly in advancement and marketing, where relationships rule, bad onboarding is not only expensive financially. It’s expensive culturally.
My “folding table” experience shaped how I onboard employees in my own division at South Louisiana Community College (SoLAcc). No one should start that way, especially if we want to keep them.
A 2023-24 Higher Ed CMO study by SimpsonScarborough reported that one-third of chief marketing officers were in their first year on the job. Plus, the average tenure of a development professional is 16-18 months. With this type of revolving door of marketing leadership, colleges will struggle to build up institutional knowledge or operational efficiencies, and will spend more time onboarding than actual marketing.
We ask people to be strategists, crisis managers, storytellers, enrollment drivers, fundraisers, event planners, and the famous “brand police” — often simultaneously. We give them control of our most valuable assets: our identity, our relationships, and our reputation.
Then we hand them a laptop and wish them luck.
Along the way, I learned something important: orientation and onboarding are not the same thing.
Here’s how they differ:
| Orientation | Onboarding |
| HR process — benefits, paperwork, time sheets, email setup, all that jazz | Culture-building |
| Administrative | Strategic |
| HR’s responsibility | Your responsibility |
If you start onboarding when the new hire steps onto campus, you’re too late.
According to LinkedIn, 80% of workers feel anxious before starting a new job, and onboarding platform Symba reports that 50% of new hires renege before they start. That anxiety window — between offer acceptance and day one — is one of the most overlooked retention opportunities in higher ed.
This is where you begin as a supervisor: pre-boarding. This is the period between when a candidate accepts the job and their first day at your door.
They’re nervous.
They may still be interviewing with other jobs they’ve applied for, in case there’s a better offer.
Candidates aren’t sitting around waiting for your job. Make it an important time to build excitement, trust, and engagement, while reducing their anxiety about coming onto your team.
What we do in this window sets the tone. You want to assure your new team member that they’ve made the right decision.
A new direct report in my division receives at least three touchpoints before they begin at our college:
- the official job offer from me;
- a touchpoint with Human Resources and/or I.T.; and
- a welcome email from me.
The last touchpoint isn’t just a rose-colored “looking forward to seeing you on Monday” email. Far from it. It’s a culture-connecting, expectation-setting, excitement-building email that is both strategic and intentional.
Download the New Employee Welcome Email template
This communication contains all of the typical logistics information for Type-A worriers like me, reminder of HR instructions (bring your ID and be ready for a headshot!), expectations of work attire and more. But most importantly, the email contains the single most important document in my onboarding process: the First-Week Schedule.
I spend time intentionally curating a first-week schedule for my employees, customized to their position.
- What they need to know.
- Who they need to meet.
- Where the bathrooms are.
- What their passwords are and how to get into their email.
- A one-stop shop, broken out by day.
Download the First Week Schedule Template (Sample 1)
Download the First Week Schedule Template (Sample 2)
What does this look like? For my CMO who started in 2022, her first week included:
- Joining our weekly divisional meeting, with notes on what to expect and how to participate in the future;
- Multiple pre-scheduled meetings with “super-users” of the Marketing and Communications Department to learn their needs and functions at the college;
- Meetings with me, to discuss the college’s values and how we exhibit them in our division, reviewing her job description line-by-line and connecting it to her day-to-day duties;
- Discussing her 30-, 60-, and 90-day goals, how they align with the college’s priorities, and an understanding of how her work will be evaluated;
- Introducing her to advertising and media partners and reviewing proposals for new projects alongside her; and
- Multiple check-ins with me — occurring on Day One, mid-week, and at the end of the first week. During those check-ins, I ask:
- How are you adjusting?
- What are some obstacles?
- How can I or our team help you?
Plus, every new hire has a real desk (one you’d never eat crawfish on), a working computer on Day One, welcome signage, a printed door plaque, and other small touches that communicate something important:
We expected you.
We prepared for you.
We’re glad you’re here.
The first week is super critical for your new hire. A make-or-break moment, where first impressions are lasting. A new employee will give grace for a missed password or a broken stapler. But an absent or hands-off supervisor that first week? May as well kiss all that time and effort of the job search goodbye.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management, strong onboarding can improve employee retention and productivity by 52% and 60%, respectively. Those are the kind of numbers I want on my side in a competitive market where my best and brightest are getting approached by our competitors weekly.
Is it a lot of work? Yes. Is it worth it? Hands down. I’m investing on the front-end to save time and heartache on the backend of possible turnover, disengagement, or untold expectations. But don’t trust me alone — let my CMO (who is now four-plus years into the job) tell you:
“Drinking from a firehose” is inevitable when starting a new job. But my first few weeks on the job were thoughtfully scheduled – they were a mixture of must-meet people, key trainings, and thoughtful insights. I fancy myself a quick study, but it was Lana’s planned (but highly flexible) mode of onboarding that made everything run so smoothly. People knew who I was, I knew what to expect, and we were in lock-step and getting things done. Four years later, I do my best to replicate that experience for my new hires.
People don’t stay because your institution has a nice logo or mascot.
They stay because someone made them feel:
Prepared.
Seen.
Supported.
And clear about what success looked like from the beginning.
THAT’s the kind of brand you want to build.
Because employer brand isn’t what’s printed in your viewbook. It’s how people experience your culture on a random Tuesday morning during their first week on the job.
In a sector obsessed with recruitment, maybe it’s time we got equally obsessed with what happens after someone says “yes”.
This article is the first installment in a three-part series on building and keeping great teams. Part Two covers engaging and nurturing employees once they’re in the door. Part Three explores coaching and development for the long haul.
