Many of you are familiar with the Journal of Extension – it is a peer-reviewed resource with research and extension articles written about the practice of doing our work by colleagues in Land Grants. When I first started in Extension it would should up on my desk regularly and now it is of course online – searchable and at our fingertips all the time.
A quick search on “staff development” yielded today’s fun fact:
Onboarding & regular professional development aids in retention. Likely no surprise – but it might be helpful to know the research and writings about this topic. In this article about the value of staff development University of Florida colleagues share a review of research (great reference list) that points to the value of onboarding and staff development and they share a method that they developed for articulating the return on investment for staff development for their funders.
The article reminds us that:
- Employee satisfaction drives productivity and organizational health
- Professional development increases employee satisfaction
- Onboarding helps staff to have role clarity
- Most staff decide whether to stay in a position within the first six months
So, what do you want professional development on? Last week we piloted a professional development survey at Ag In-service to answer the question – “What professional development do (program staff) need?, In what form? And how do we share information about opportunities? This staff survey is now open to all – take a few minutes to let us know: What professional development opportunities are you interested in? This short survey is anonymous…your candid responses are helpful.