Think Like a Manager: Can Adopting Corporate Strategies Make Academic Labs More Efficient?
How onboarding, feedback, and project tracking could transform our academic lab culture and output.
We have to admit, academic labs aren’t known for smooth operations. People are brilliant. The science is groundbreaking. But the systems? Let’s just say… things often run on good intentions and institutional memory (or dusty old lab notebooks!!!). We justify it under the guise of teaching, but we all secretly wished it were a more efficient operation.
What if we started treating labs a bit more professionally? or corporate-like? (eek…just writing this makes the academic in me squirm, but hear me out)
Companies invest in onboarding, project management, and people development because it works. And labs can too—with a few tweaks.
Before I proceed, I agree that we already do this to some extent, but its not a well laid out plan in most labs and is mostly informal.
Here’s how we can start, with one small action you can take for each idea.
1. Start with a clear mission
Companies have mission statements for a reason: they help people understand what the organization is about and where it’s headed. Your lab may know it’s doing “cool science,” but could a new trainee explain the bigger goal in one sentence?A shared mission makes it easier to align projects, and most importantly, for student researchers, this is the first step to instill a sense of belonging, and cultivate ownership.
TODO: Write one sentence that sums up your lab’s mission—then put it on your lab website (if you dont have one yet, MAKE IT NOW!) and include it in your onboarding folder.
2. Treat onboarding like a process, not a scavenger hunt
Imagine starting a new job and no one tells you clearly how anything works. You’re just following someone around. That’s what most lab onboarding feels like. In industry, onboarding is structured, documented, and designed to get people contributing fast. Having a structured process gives a sense of direction to new members and maintains the early momentum and excitement. It also means fewer repeated mistakes, faster ramp-up, and less hand-holding later.
TODO: Create a shared “Lab Starter Kit” folder with 5-10 essential documents-
Lab policies
Equipment list with room numbers and designated lab areas
protocol index/shared folder with lab protocols and SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures)
Contact sheet aka “who to ask about what”
“what to do in your first week” checklist (for eg. give your photo and bio to the lab manager to upload on the lab website).
Online training modules to complete
An in-person orientation complete with safety procedures and inventory storage (so much time gets wasted in asking where the supplies are everytime someone needs something)
Anything else that might be relevant to your lab— before the actual labwork begins
3. Set up a “buddy system”
Many large companies have a “buddy system” set up that pairs a new hire with an experienced colleague during the onboarding stage. This allows for a more peer based training/mentoring and one “go-to” person for any questions the new hire may have. In labs, we can pair new undergrads with graduate students or other more experienced undergrads so they can learn while having someone to go to for lab related questions. This also takes the load off of the lab techncian or manager who often have to answer the same questions hundreds of times for every new lab member!
TODO: Pair up new lab members with someone who is just a few steps ahead of them. For example, when a new PhD student joins, find them a 2nd year PhD student as a buddy. Since this student just completed their first year in the lab they can more effectively help navigate the lab for this new student.
4. Run projects with team assignments
In companies, projects are tracked and managed—so people know who’s doing what, what’s due when, and what’s falling behind. In labs, it’s often buried in emails or just… discussed and remembered. Clear project tracking makes it easier to manage multiple people, avoid duplicate work, and keep experiments moving forward. While all of us create those gantt charts for grant submissions and quaterly reports, we rarely, if at all, apply it in our daily lab operations.
TODO: Set up a simple Trello or Notion board or a Kanban board within Microsoft Teams with columns for “To Do,” “In Progress,” and “Done.” Use it in your next lab meeting, and add every little task. Assign those tasks to members, add deadlines, status, etc. It really helps see all the working parts of a project and gives a realistic timeline view. Also, moving tasks to the “done” column is an extra dopamine hit that we all love!
5. Give feedback like it’s part of the job—because it is
Managers in industry are trained to give regular, useful feedback. While managers in corporate may overdo it, in labs, feedback often comes only when something goes wrong or not at all.While we all brag about the great work we do mentoring and teaching, we are often hesitant to give real, constructive feedback. Making it a regular exercise improves communication and instills a “growth mindset”.
TODO: Schedule 20-minute 1:1 check-ins with each team member once a month. Add it to your calendar today. Prepare for these check ins and ask your mentee to do the same. Its amazing how much these meetings can help make progress while providing an opportunity to address problems before they become too big!
6. Invest in your people’s growth
Great companies help employees build skills beyond their day-to-day tasks. Labs should do the same. Career development, writing, leadership, time management—these are part of the job, too.When people grow as professionals, not just as pipette users, they leave your lab ready for the real world, and that only reflects well on you and the lab.
TODO: Ask each lab member, “What’s one skill you’d like to build this semester?” Then help them find one resource (an online course, a mentor) to support that goal. You will be surprised how much this affects their overall contribution and effectiveness in the lab.
In the end, systems aren’t the enemy of creativity but they’re what can make great science more efficient and translational.
You don’t need to overhaul your lab overnight. Start with small actions, ones you already do but now in a more formal style. See what changes. Then keep improvising accordingly.
If you’ve already done something like this, I’d love to hear what’s worked for you. And if you’re just starting, pick one of the actions above and try it this week.
Thanks for reading,
Geetanjali