Onboarding of Agricultural agents - needs and perspectives
Early Career Development
Marcelo Wallau
State Specialist - Forages
University of Florida
Gainesville
Abstract
Onboarding and early-career support have been identified as major components of extension faculty success and retention. Traditional onboarding training generally includes aspects of communication and education, program development, learning methods, and logic models. Those topics are generally not part of the curriculum of most agricultural science courses. Given that new Extension agents are hired for specific program areas, onboarding normally foregoes subject matter content, assuming agents will already bring experience and expertise. However, early-career extension agents generally come with narrow background training and a lack of experience in production agriculture, thus facing challenges when working with a broad spectrum of commodities. A recent needs assessment (Halbritter et al., 2021) of agricultural, horticulture, and natural resources extension agents showed a high demand for basic topics on concepts of agricultural practices, analytical capacity, and use of resources (e.g.: support laboratories and extension specialists). Based on that, we implemented the “ANR 101” (agriculture and natural resources), a component of onboarding training dedicated to exploring the multiple facets of being an extension agent, interacting with clients and understanding their needs, and utilizing resources available at our institution to assist them. From Fall 2018 to Spring 2022, 7 cohorts were trained to reach 73 new Extension faculty. The evaluation shows that 80% of participants consider the training and material presented very relevant, and 85% reported it to greatly increase confidence in developing their jobs in extension. Nevertheless, not all needs are being met through currently available training. Continued feedback from colleagues suggested a more in-depth, program area-specific training. The second phase of this project is currently being developed, which will be structured around an on-demand, online platform for specific subject matter training available to agents upon hiring. This will provide a deeper level of training than can be offered in person.
Authors: Marcelo Wallau, Matt Benge
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Marcelo Wallau State Specialist - Forages, University of Florida, Florida, 32611
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Matt Benge Extension Assistant Professor , University of Florida, Florida, 32611