The moment one gets a job offer, the anxiety and stress that typically carries through the interview process and the waiting period that follow tend to melt away, replaced by a sense of accomplishment and eager anticipation to take on a new professional endeavor.
Before taking on actual job duties at Pitt, however, there’s still hoops to jump through. Employee orientation, or “onboarding,” involves a virtual deluge of institutional and Human Resources-based information of varying degrees of urgency and relevance.
Suffice it to say, some new hires get more out of the experience than others.
Hannah Johnson, associate dean of faculty development and advancement in the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences, said a fresh, less-intense approach to orientation known as “slowboarding” emerged from what she and her colleagues noticed at a Pitt orientation event.
“It was more a question of what we observed of (new) faculty, which was a certain amount of exhaustion, especially with a full-day event in the later afternoon,” she said. “You can see that people are flagging. You know they want the information. They want to be there, but there are just limits to what human beings can do in terms of maintaining their focus through the course of the day.”
You can read the full story on The University Times.