Project Description

The Office of Foreign Assistance (F) is a hybrid team, comprised of both State Department and USAID employees. Each agency has slightly different on-boarding human resources, budget, and general services requirements, which makes the F’s on-boarding process more complicated than non-hybrid bureaus and offices. These inherent on-boarding challenges have been exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the overwhelming majority of F staff now working remotely.

F would like to invite a creative and entrepreneurial student to help us reimagine what the on-boarding process should look like. The student would work with their mentor in F to determine the specific steps to achieve this goal, but activities supporting this project would likely include the following:
1. Research phase – review existing documents on F on-boarding, conduct literature review to gather best practices on on-boarding new staff, conduct interviews of F staff to identify pain points and gaps in existing process, map out current F process
2. Design phase – design a new process that addresses gaps and root causes of on-boarding issues; draft supporting guidance documents, checklists, and on-boarding materials
3) Testing phase – conduct focus groups, interviews, and a pilot of the new on-boarding process and improve the process based on feedback
4) Implementation phase – communicate and provide training on new process to F staff

Required Skills or Interests

Additional Information

In addition to helping us make on-boarding more efficient and user-friendly, F would like this project to focus on fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We would want the student to work closely with and incorporate recommendations from F’s DEI Council.