Organizational Clarity: Human Performance Improvement -Cause Analysis

For one assignment in Human Performance Improvement class I was given the assignment to create a Cause Analysis for a fictional organization to understand their work place environment to adjust it for the better taking into account all the stakeholders involved. Again, this is a fictional account with the details listed in an assignment and the parameters dealt with worst case scenario type issues in an organization so therefore with the idea of unlimited budgets and resources (I know when does that happens?) this assignment was crafted with those variables in mind. Please post any comments or questions to facilitate a discussion in the comments sections below.

Organizational Background

Omir University is a for-profit, online education institution that has recently experienced a disruption in the production and communication within its Financial Aid (FA) department specifically with the email team at the downtown Chicago office. The Chicago Financial Aid email team consist of ten representatives, two Financial Aid team lead team leads and a Manager designated especially for that team; there is also an Associate Financial Aid Director and the site Financial Aid Director that the entire team reports too. The Financial Aid department (organization-wide), is divided into teams based upon specific job assignment or into specialized roles to create a stronger focus on productivity and task completion.

The impact of this disruption has spilled over into other Financial Aid teams and other Organizational departments (Academics and Admissions). The original reason for specialization was to reduce errors and meet the 90% Student (survey) approval rating created as a standard or overall goal by the organization; now the team is barely at 63%. Other teams in Financial aid (such as verification) and the other departments have seen a 33% increase in “traffic” (communication) and an increased number of follow-up requests (2,731 emails) by students for the email team to address their concerns.
Omir University has a standard procedure in which management staff creates daily reports to detail and track performance scoring, individual employee production, and procedure comparison methods. Therefore, the management staff can track what methodologies, policies, and procedures from the past, and present assist in maintaining and meeting optimal levels expected by the organization, present, and future. But the breakdown of this process is at the currently implementing of action to bridge these performance gaps.

The emphasis of individual teams with the Financial Aid department has created a culture of competition and isolationism organization-wide. Therefore, employees and managers alike are no longer cross trained upon policies that role distinctive, and therefore the Email team cannot receive help or explain their issues properly from other Financial Aid officers or managers. This lack of knowledge deterred the FA email team from communicating with departments and individuals with their department or assigned management staff.

To overcome these issues and reduce the number of the email backlog of more than 5,000 emails an independent Gap Analysis has been completed to determine and compare past performance to the present performance of the Financial Aid email team. This way I can determine for the organization the best methodology close the gap between the current (Actual) performance and what is expected (desired) (Van Tiem, et al., 2012). During the Cause Analysis phase, since student surveys have inferred the problem that the organization is focusing on using that data and including pre-training session surveys of representatives and management (Van Tiem, et al., 2012). This method would fit more along the lines of a 360-degree feedback because as I aforementioned, I have have the organization produce past and present performance reports to be included for assessment by the FA email team. Included in this process are Focus groups which will be scheduled before the training sessions to determine the direction of the sessions from the information gathered (Van Tiem, et al., 2012). There will be an additional survey with the team a week and two weeks (identical each time) after as part of the follow-up process (Lavoie, 2017).

1. Identifying and analyzing actual and desired performance

Actual performance (present-day)

• There is a lack of clarity and uniformity to information given to students regarding their Financial Aid questions via email.
• Management is unable to provide student or representatives with via solutions (responses) regarding Financial Aid questions.
• Management is unaware of how to reduce response turnaround time, by individual representatives.
• Financial Aid team representatives are responding to an average of barely under 18 emails a day.
• The low number of responses has caused a backlog of an approximate number of 5,000 emails that were ignored, with additional new 75 emails entering the Email Que per day.
• There are 1,000 emails that have been read therefore classified “lost” due to a lack of response as reported by the student surveys.
• There is little or no communication with the Financial Aid team management or Departmental leaders.
• Other departments in the organization are included in the “lack of communication” issue as students are reaching out requesting follow-ups to their emails. The 2,731 emails or 33% increase in the additional traffic which these the Admissions and Academics departments are reporting but cannot answer due to federal regulations.
• The Financial Aid team has a score for the month and this quarter an average of 63% on student surveys in regards to customer satisfaction of their Financial Aid inquiries.

Desired performance (to be met by the next quarter)

• The Financial Aid team needs to score the required average of 90 % for the month and this upcoming quarter on student surveys in regards to customer satisfaction of their Financial Aid inquiries.
• Financial Aid team representatives are expected, individually (not average) to complete a minimum of 25 email responses a day.
• Management must be knowledgeable of federal regulated, approved responses to student questions.
• All responses to all stakeholders (internal/external) by the Financial Aid email team must be uniform, clear and consistent.
• Management must assist in the reduction of the email backlog i.e.: determining which email that additional responses are not needed and therefore, eliminated from the overall scoring process.
• Reduction of the email backlog to under 1,000 emails maximum not responded to, 200 emails is the minimum.
• Increased involvement and communication between Financial Aid email team, their assigned manager, and team leads, along with the Associate Director of FA and site Director of FA.
• Increased communication with other departments by FA email team and site management to reduce the number of response requests gathered by these departments by at least 50%

2. Identifying the gaps-present and future; positive, neutral or negative-between the actual and the desired performance state.

As aforementioned the student survey data will be included in determining of the performance gap as they are directly affected by the lack of productivity of the FA email team. In order, to increase their understanding of the impact and awareness of negative productivity, the FA email team will be engaged in a survey as well (Appendix C). This method will identify how they comprehend their team performance score and gain data on what factors have impacted their individual performance about the team score. These surveys were sent anonymously to gain the best (and accurate) response possible (Son, 2015). Identical surveys were sent to team management and their immediate directors to indicate that they are also held responsible for the FA email’s production and scoring on the student surveys (Appendix A).
Present gaps:

• Management involvement is minimal at the time and solutions to issues are not developed or implemented.
• Departmental specialization of all team and individual roles and assignments are intact and have not changed. The organizational culture of competitiveness and segregation is still intact.
• Email backlog is currently approximately more than 5,000 emails and increasing due to an average of 75 emails per representative per day. The Customer service score given to the FA email team by the students through anonymous surveys stands at 63%.

Positive Gaps	Neutral Gaps	Negative Gaps
Management awareness of the issues that presently face the FA email team has increased	Organizational culture remains the same, all roles and assignments for the teams and individuals (divisions) in the Financial Aid department in Chicago endure.	Email backlog is above acceptable organizational standards, and the customer service score is currently below organizational standards.

Future gaps:

• In the future, increased disconnect of communication with a student will lead to a reduction of enrollments and erode the current student body. As discontent amongst the customers/students grows, many will be deterred from attending the University, decreasing profits and the University’ market share.
• With further inaction, other departments will request a direct intervention by the Organization’s Executive staff (CEO, CFO, etc.) to solve the issues facing the Chicago FA department and specifically the FA email team. The organizational division between departments and the teams within will increase as a result.
• The Email backlog will increase in number, the FA email team’s Customer service score will decrease even further. As a result restructuring of the team and management staff will

Positive Gaps	Neutral Gaps	Negative Gaps
The Organization’s Executive staff awareness of the issues that face the FA email team will increase.	Organizational culture along with all assignment and roles (divisions) in the Financial Aid department in Chicago will endure.	Email backlog will increase, and the customer service score will decrease even further below organizational standards. Restructuring of FA email team and management staff (termination) is inevitable.

3. Prioritizing the gaps

The entire team is under scrutiny due to limited skills and knowledge shown apparent through the performances of the Fa email team, their immediate management staff, and site directors. It is almost evident that interaction between the team and their immediate higher-ups is strained and limited to meet the minimum of organizational expectations.

The lack of communication between the FA email team and the management staff, site Directors and other departments affects the organization on the whole. The miscommunication or inconsistency of answers given by the FA email team to students regarding their questions compounds the problem as they ask other teams departments in search for a straight forward consistent answer.

Without clear answers about their Financial Aid plans, the students become frustrated and are likely to look at different educational opportunities. As students leave, the revenue that the for-profit institution brings in reduces, as for-profit institutions do not take in donations from alumni as non-profits do. Therefore, maintaining a positive social media presence, staying within the guidelines laid out by the Department of Education, and receiving high customer service ratings, in general, all translates into money or enrollments for the University. The issue facing the FA email team becomes a deterrent for Omir University and deviates from this medium.

            The deviation then becomes a problem for the organization overall as a decline in revenue is inevitable, the problem ripples over the entire organization as enrollments and maintaining a healthy student body by the other departments becomes more challenging. The longer the problem exists means that the organization will be forced to restructure departments with higher demands upon individual/team performances. This problem also increases the percentage/number of employee turnovers as employees become more frustrated working towards unattainable goals inside an ineffective system.

With dwindling revenue becoming a steady trend because of not resolving the problem of inconsistent service will, in the end, compel the organization to resort to layoffs, thereby compounding the problem and leading to an increase in employee turnovers. 

Performance gaps

1. Be able to distribute clear, uniform statements to answer the concerns of the student body that is consistent with all FA email Team members and assigned management (as necessary).
2. Student backlog of 5,000+ emails is 90% cleared by the end of the quarter, 33% by the end of the month.
3. Increased communication and cooperation amongst the FA Email Team, assigned management, and site Directors.
4. Management and site Directors will be able to identify and create solutions per DOE regulations for dealing with student issues. This same group can understand the policies and procedures that help and able to complete common tasks that face the FA email team.
5. FA Team management will also streamline coordinate workflows that create the best practices for daily task completion for the team and reducing the Student email backlog.

Analyzing the causes.
We have confirmed that there is a limited time for training the small number of FA email team representatives, the assigned management team and the site Directors. Due to the specialization of the team’s roles allowing for no “backup” team of individuals to cover the team during a prolonged training period properly. To maximize this time there will be a combination of tools used, focus groups and the 360-degree feedback before the required training reflecting upon the data given by student surveys and what observations and experiences the team has had in the field.

1. Identify the driver or cause of the performance gap:

Understanding that as in many organizations that the organization’s culture plays a major part within the issues of the dysfunctions and probe for environmental causes that are affecting performance we will use the tried and tested an adaptation of Gilbert’s Probe model (Appendix B). Specific individualized roles create an atmosphere of segregation from the rest of the FA department and organization not allowing for assistance on major issues from inside or outside the department.
This separation also exists between the team and the assigned team management as the management team is unaware of how to assist the representatives or plot strategies to clear the email backlog. Due to the specialization of their individualized role the FA email team, is considered almost “untouchable” and thereby immune to discipline as employee turnover for this team is highly feared. Hence, whether the FA email team performance is at 90% or 63% the everyday results for the team is the same.

1. Classify the driver or cause by understanding the origin:

To understand where the origin of the cause, focus groups, and 360-degree feedback meetings consist of the entire team, for two weeks, and twice a week for two hours. We will present a review of the student surveys in the form of a “team Jeopardy” question-and-answer format, role-playing scenarios, and a review of Financial Aid job aids.
The entire FA email team (with site directors) will be allowed to reflect on student survey responses and why they occurred adding to that reflection of their team’s performance about its creation.
360 Degree meeting feedback consists of:

• Lack of management knowledge (cross-training) site directors included assisting the representatives with daily task completion and issues.
• Management does not engage the representatives on possible solutions, such as a standard email template for Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) i.e.: proof of citizenship requests from DOE.
• FA email team requires direction as well as additional assistance around the University’s busy times, such as enrollment drives at the beginning of the school terms, to address student questions/emails.
• FA email team needs a simple, standardized uniformed message that is consistent to all students regarding solutions to student issues (i.e.: proof of citizenship requests from DOE).
• FA email team needs to increase daily email responses per representative, to meet the influx of incoming emails and decrease the probability of email backlog issues.

Focus Groups meeting feedback consists of:

• Understanding how student surveys affect the organization, the negative impact (possible layoffs) it will have on the department and the team.
• Dissemination to FA Email team, team management, and site directors to find online, solutions for FAQs and Job Aids created by the DOE; Introduction to ifap.ed.gov site (Appendix D).
• How segregation from the rest of the organization, department and specifically site directors created by the organizational culture, leads to a lack of leadership and understanding of the challenges that face the FA email team.
• Scheduling of future focus groups for Site Directors, FA email team and team management staff to discuss progress on the Student Email backlog, any new or consistent issues that representatives see the effects performance (Van Tiem, et al., 2012).

1. Prioritize the drive or cause (in the performance environment):

To quickly address the lack of performance by the FA Email team, growing student email backlog and to take the first “baby” steps to solve the issue of the organization’s negative culture.

1. The priority to create a highly functional inclusive atmosphere between the FA email team, its assigned team management, and the site director is the highest priority.
2. Secondary to that priority is creating a uniform, consistent response(s) to student concerns that the can be easily understood and explained by every member of the team and if necessary the site directors (if involved).
3. Cross training of daily tasks with the FA Team management staff are third in priority, but the cross training of site Directors are of medium priority due to scheduling and prioritization of their individualized daily tasks. Cross training will assist in assisting the representatives clear the backlog and help the management team gather data on effective strategies for the future.
4. Generate cause examples:

• FA email team representatives, assigned team management or FA site directors do not face discipline for poor Therefore, the solutions for the poor customer service student have not created.
• Organizational culture divides the FA email team from (for example) the FA Verification team into responsibilities and job functions, when applying daily performance standards. Hence the focus and need to communicate with other departments or even other departments is not considered by the organization as completely necessary since you are in “competition” (production-wise) with them.
• Without standards for email responses also referred to as canned responses the FA email team are creating various responses to students in length, terminology, etc., to causing more confusion amongst the student body inquiring about their Financial Aid.
• When asked FA email team management expresses that they cannot schedule interventions for their team due to lack of task and procedural knowledge.
• Without communication or exposure to the rest of the organization (site directors, departments, etc.), comprehension or knowledge of how low production outputs (by the FA email team) impacts the organization overall is at an all-time low, this includes student requests and complaints about the team.

FA email team feels that they are an “island” alone within the “sea” known as Omir University. In other words, the team of representatives feel that they are not getting the proper support from management and other higher ups like the site directors, and therefore are performing their job functions aimlessly and individually.

• Verify causes with another performance improvement colleague by asking questions:
• What can be done to create and implement solutions among the members of the FA email team representatives, assigned team management, and site FA directors before corrective action (for low performance)?
• With a prevalent Organizational culture is including team management and FA site directors into daily activities of the FA email team the logical first step to broadening communication across the FA department and into other departments organization-wide?
• Will creating a standard email template for FAQs solve the problem of the inconsistent content in the email responses by the FA email team eliminating the confusion the lack of standards creates?
• Would cross-training the FA email team management bridge the gap in their task and procedural knowledge?
• Would daily reports and communication from team management and FA site directors increase the FA email team’s knowledge of student complaints, their team production, and the team’s impact on the organization?
• Increasing involvement through cross-training and discussing ideas to meet production requirements decrease the isolation and lack of support the FA email team feels and give them the direction they want?

Appendix A: Student satisfaction surveys that are sent immediately after sending an email via Omir University’s Financial Aid Portal Survey gauging customer satisfaction and informing the organization of performance gaps. The students are given a 10-question anonymous survey to understand their perspective on the service supplied by the FA email team (each survey is team specific) the questions are listed below:

1. Was this the first time you contacted the Fa email team regarding this issue?
2. Were you satisfied with the level of service you received today?
3. Was the answer(s) to your questions clear and concise?
4. Was the representative that answered your question knowledgeable about giving you a solution for your issue?
5. Would you recommend Omir University to friends and family?
6. If this was not your first time contacting the FA email team is it regarding a new issue?
7. Did you have to, at any time contact an FA email team manager or team lead for assistance?
8. Have you received consistent answers each time you contacted the FA email time?
9. How likely are you to continue with Omir University for other educational opportunities after this experience?
10. Have you contacted other departments or teams to follow up on an email request with the FA email team?
11. How many times have you contacted the FA email team regarding the same issue without a solution?
12. If this was not your first time contacting the FA email team how times did you have to contact the team to resolve your issue?
13. What can we do to serve you better?

All the questions focus towards the service the student received and how clear the answers were to how difficult it was to receive a workable solution/clear answer for their issues Breaking it down further:

• Questions 1 to 7 is yes or no questions/answers.
• Question 8 was a scoring question,
• Question 9 yes or no question/answer
• Questions 10 to 12 were multiple choice questions/answers of how many times they contacted the FA email team or Omir University in general regarding their issue(s)
• and Question 13 was a “what can we do better” essay.

Please note: the survey starts with “Please take my survey” and ends with “Thank you for taking my survey,” you can take the survey yourself:  https://surveyplanet.com/589b7475e7e2c70ac63e2f2a Created by Mart Pro, Consultant
Appendix B: A modified addition of Gilbert's Probe Model (King Jr, 2013).

Questions	Yes	No
Category: Information
Has the organization clearly informed its employees the performance expectations of their assigned roles?
Do the organization’s employees comprehend facets of their position and the importance of daily task competition?
Does the organization give any distinct feedback in a structured and timely manner to its employees?
So that supervisor can inform employees of what are the tasks requirements, and the culmination of their work is there a performance management system in place to assist in this task?
Do employees have access to Job aids that are clear and relevant to performance expectations?
Category: Resources
Does the organization provide the necessary materials for employees to complete daily tasks?
Does the organization provide the necessary equipment for employees to complete daily tasks?
Does the organization provide the necessary time for employees to complete daily tasks?
Does the organization augment the performance of their employees by having specific processes and procedures that optimize it?
Does the organization provide a safe, clean, and organized work environment that specifically favorable for professional and performance development?
Category: Incentives
Does the organization ensure optimal performance have in place a financial motivation system in place?
Does the organization ensure optimal performance have in place a non-financial motivation system in place?
Does the organization have systems in place for reporting and calibrating purposes so that expected activities and results are achievable?
Is the fulfillment of an employee’s higher level needs to be improved by job performance under current organizational expectations?
Does the organization provide opportunities for professional development?
Category: Motives
Do the employees and their environment within the organization have similar or identical motivations?
Are the employees self-motivated to execute their roles in the organization?
During the recruitment process are the best employees selected to match the circumstances of the workplace accurately?
Does the organization punish the top performing employee and rewards the inadequate performing employees?
Is the University viewed as a positive place to work by its employees?
Category:  Capacity
Are there any employees with people with physical disabilities?
Have the employee aptitudes been tested to match their position?
Are employees proficient in understanding the policies and procedures to complete daily tasks as assigned to the job position and the requirements that follow?
Are there any employees with people with emotional or mental disabilities?
As part of professional development by the organization are employees hired, chosen and coordinated with the stressors and expectations of the position in mind?
Category: Knowledge and Skills
For successful job assignment and daily task completion do employees possess the required Financial Aid knowledge?
For successful job assignment and daily task completion do employees possess the required Financial Aid skills?
For successful job assignment and daily task completion do employees possess the required Financial Aid experience?
Does the organization have a standardized training program to improve the knowledge and skills for their employees?
Do the organization’s employees comprehend their importance in accomplishing their roles daily and what effect it has on overall organizational performance?

Appendix C: Employee Engagement Survey a survey for the FA email team, and assigned management team to complete to gather data for the 360 Degree feedback and Focus Groups meetings. To gather the team’s perspective of the organization that relates to job functions they are assigned 20 questions listed below:

1. The Communication between employees and senior management is great.
2. I feel that I am very knowledgeable in my role within this organization.
3. The work I do has an incredible impact on my organization.
4. The students I come in contact with are completely satisfied with how I assist them
5. I do my job with enthusiasm, and I am confident in meeting all the goals the organization assigns to me.
6. There are opportunities for professional growth, and I have the support of the organization for development.
7. My organization provides me the training and resources to do my job effectively.
8. All the departments and teams within the departments communicate effectively on a periodical basis.
9. The leaders of my organization keeps me well informed of my impact upon the organization.
10. The leaders of my organization keeps me well informed of current events, and issues that have an impact on the organization.
11. There are areas in which I feel that I could use additional training in.
12. There are areas in which I feel that my team could use additional training in.
13. The University’s students are satisfied with the services my team and department provide.
14. The different departments communicate with each very well, and the organizational culture supports it.
15. The different teams within my department communicate with each very well, and the organizational culture supports it.
16. Would it be more effective to use predesignated email templates to complete your tasks.
17. Would you be more productive if you used predesignated email templates to complete your tasks.
18. Are there currently effective policies and procedures in place for you to complete your daily tasks effectively.
19. Is there support within the organization for you to complete your daily tasks effectively.
20. When you need assistance, your organization has resources in place to help in any situation.

The employee survey is scored “1” lowest through “5” highest, with the designation of “1” begin No not likely and “5” being definitely. Allowing for easier scoring of the FA email team’s satisfaction with environmental issues that impact their performance.

Please note: the survey starts with “Please take my survey” and ends with “Thank you for taking my survey,” you can take the survey yourself: https://surveyplanet.com/589b7475e7e2c70ac63e2f2a Created by Mart Pro, Consultant

Appendix D: Information for Financial Aid Professionals website an information resource to assist FA email team, assigned management team and FA site directors, to find and create solutions per Federal regulations for the University’s students.

References
King Jr, C. L. (2013). An exploration on the use of Gilberts behavior engineering model to identify barriers to technology integration in a public school.

Lavoie, Andre (2017) “4 Ways to Get Truly Honest Feedback From Employees” Entrepreneur Media, Inc. Retrieved on February 8, 2017, from:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246556

Son, Sabrina (2015) “Employee Engagement Surveys: The 20 Questions You Need To Ask” Oct 7, 2015, TinyPulse Retrieved on February 8, 2017, from:
 https://www.tinypulse.com/blog/sk-employee-engagement-survey-questions

Van Tiem, D., Moseley, J. L., & Dessinger, J. C. (2012). Fundamentals of performance improvement: Optimizing results through people, process, and organizations. John Wiley & Sons.

Organizational Clarity: Human Performance Improvement -Pre-Project Situation Description

For one assignment in Human Performance Improvement class I was given the assignment to adjust and improve the workplace for a fictional organization while improving the environment for all the stakeholders involved. This is a fictional account with the variables listed in an assignment and the parameters dealt with worse case scenario type issues in an organization so therefore with the idea of unlimited budgets and resources (I know when does that happens?) this assignment was crafted with those variables in mind. Please post any comments or questions to facilitate a discussion in the comments sections below.

Pre-Project Situation Description
Purpose
Omir University is a multimillion dollar organization that is a for-profit institution which provides an online education to a host of students. In fact, the University prides itself on accepting individuals from all demographics and all walks of life. Their objective is providing students with a quality online education to help them succeed in their future careers. To belay scrutiny of its for-profit status in the educational field, Omir University as an accredited institution focuses upon a positive student experience to prove their claims of providing students with a quality education. This is done not only through the academic side but also the administrative side. The student experience determines the overall reputation of the University. Therefore, ensuring students are highly satisfied with all interactions (staff and/or management) are imperative.

To determine how well the various departments of Admissions, Financial Aid, and Academics performs, the students are asked to complete a brief survey after every phone call, email, and chat; each interaction even the lack thereof is given a percentage score by students. This determines the foundation of how Omir University determines their performance goals, not only on a quarterly basis but monthly as well.

Even with a student body of 35,000 students and sites nationwide, Omir University does have the ability to zero in with a laser focus on how to improve their quality scores. Omir University divides each department up separately and then breaks down the scores by the teams assigned to each communication method or queue. The passing grade for all departments in these three various methods of communication (phone, email, and chat) is at 90%.

Statement of the Need or Opportunity
Every department and team have a 90% passing grade from the student reviews, except the Financial Aid email team. Their scores are significantly lower because student surveys state they have emailed Financial aid and after brief interactions, have not received any additional responses to resolve their issue.

In some cases, students stated they have not received responses to initial inquiries at all. In either instance, this results in a failing grade for the Financial Aid email team, bringing down their overall scores for the month and quarter to 63%. As a result, these students have also increased the communication “traffic” of the other three major departments I have aforementioned. This increase in traffic gives the students what they believe is the “runaround” and in turn decreases the customer service scores of these other teams and departments. The Financial Aid email team’s backlog is basically affecting the organization and is causing students (who are their customers) to seek educational opportunities elsewhere.

Work Environment
The Work Environment in regards to customer service (the focus of the intervention) is segmented into three departments (Admissions, Financial Aid, and Academics).  It is then divided further with the way information is communicated to the student (phone, online chat, and email).
The entire Financial Aid Email team is in Omir University’s Chicago downtown location; resources needed will be limited. All training sessions can be held in the sixth-floor conference room without additional set up.

The University rents three floors of the office building and the Financial Aid Email team is situated upon the fifth floor segmented from the rest of the Financial Aid team (which is on the sixth floor); this allows assignment of training sessions easier to accomplish.
The team is responsible for all the University’s communication with students regarding their Financial Aid inquiries there are presently no backup systems or procedures in place. The team seating arrangement has a basic six “block” cubical arraignment which physically adds to the “bubble” effect or segregation that the team has developed (from the rest of the department and organization).

The competition between departments and the teams that they are divided into, within the organization is very competitive. Therefore, getting support or creating additional avenues to “attack” the email backlog and improve customer service scores for the team and the organization is also a significant challenge. The result of these office politics has made the employees of the email team embroiled or committed to old procedures and policies and creates as a byproduct, the current 63% customer service approval rating. Additionally, any “outside” help or procedural mandates either from other parts of the Financial Aid department (onsite management) or outside of the organization is met with skepticism.

Target Audience
The target audience consists of:

• The Financial Aid email team,
• Financial Aid Managers,
• Financial Aid team leads,
• Associate Financial Aid (onsite) director, and the
• Financial Aid (onsite) director.

These individuals are the main and direct focus of the HPI intervention as the entire organization is affected by the scores (of the Financial Aid email team).

Resources required
Resources for this intervention are:

• One conference room that seats ten to thirteen individuals for two days,
• Thirteen laptops with online access,
• One overhead projector,
• One hundred active emails/files for training purposes,
• Paper (printed) handouts,
• Five boxes of pens, and
• Thirteen notepads.

The groups will be divided into shifts as the entire ten-person team cannot be scheduled for the training sessions all at one time. Therefore, only half of the team will be scheduled between 8 am to 12 pm (half day sessions). Limited supplies and space to conduct training sessions will be used to keep costs down and maximize ROI. The entire cost will be minimal as the materials needed are already onsite and available for usage by the entire team, management staff, and consultant.

Sponsor(s)
The sponsors are:

• Financial Aid director,
• Vice President of Financial Aid, and
• HPI4TC consultant Martin Prosser.

Having the management team involved as well as the onsite directors will ensure a better understanding (and the seriousness) of these changes and the training sessions. This will also help in fostering an inclusive team atmosphere between these once-divided groups. By including onsite management will also help these individuals properly understand daily operations and the step by step methodology of daily task completion from the email team’s point of view. This way any future changes to performance-based procedures and policies will be based upon realistic expectations of processes that can be truly achieved.  This will also reassure the team that management is fully committed and involved in their processes and professional development.

Performance Improvement Goal
As previously stated the Performance goal that the Financial Aid email team must reach is a 90% approval rating on the surveys given to students after every interaction with the team.
The email backlog is tallied to be at least 5,000 emails. It is unrealistic to complete and respond to these emails within a months’ time. Figuring in that each team member will need to complete only 25 of these emails daily for a month to catch up, there are still an influx of email communications coming in daily (at least 75 emails per day). Plus, there are about 1,000 emails that are simply lost or not responded to bringing down the team’s performance scores even more.

As the team is inconsistent the goals are to have each team member complete at least 30 email responses per day, (completing most of the backlog before the end of the month by at least 75%). The training sessions will be covering new procedures and new email templates to maximize the time spent on each email response and cover the amount of detail needed to satisfy each student.
Management will assist the email team with “weeding out” additional or multiple responses (i.e.: email chains) from the same student regarding the same issue that was previously responded to beforehand (an “additional email elimination” process). For example, if a student has previously contacted a Financial email representative regarding the date of their stipend and this question has been answered, only to have the student respond with a “thanks” the lack of response by the representative was usually counted as a “missing” response and counted against the team.

Now, with the new procedures after the initial conclusion of that interaction that “missing” response will not be factored into the representative and team’s overall customer service score as a “non-response”. By weeding out emails that do not need additional responses we believe we will reduce the backlog by at least 178-200 emails increasing the possibility of successful implementation of this program. With this Performance improvement goal in place, it is projected to bring the scores above the 90% requirement.

Measures of Success

• We are projecting that the Financial Aid email team will reach a customer service approval percentage score of the 90% or better by the next month and by the next quarterly report. This will alleviate the issues that affect the organization and improve relations within the Financial Aid department and organization with the immediate turnaround.
• The introduction of new streamlined processes and new email templates will cut down on the time and resources expended by each team member per response. But, increase productivity to meet the required daily email completion quota, that will reduce the email backlog which presently challenges the team.
• With the introduction of new email templates, streamlined processes (including “additional email elimination”), additional structure fixated on the daily goals instead of monthly goals, increased involvement and partnerships with onsite management there will be an increase of accountability. This will help the Financial Aid email team to forge better relationships with their management staff and the rest of their department. The result of this action will be a more integrated team which can effectively communicate (with internal/external customers), be able to adopt new methods to increase its problem-solving skills, and understand how achieving its goals benefits them and the rest of the organization.
• The impact of improving this team’s customer service skills, will alleviate the students (the customers) concerns about their interactions with this specific part of the University and attending a for-profit University overall. Increasing the status of Omir University’s reputation on the administrative side amongst its student population will decrease the possibility of negative public scrutiny in various media outlets.
• An increase of employee morale (non-tangible) and a decrease of employee turnover for this small team in the Financial Aid department are also expected to occur over time as organizational goals are met.

Anticipated Roadblocks or Difficulties

• Segregating the team has a profound effect mentally as it does not realize the impact of its collective negative performance upon the rest of the department and organization overall. Getting the team to realize the impact of their performance upon the organization collectively and the individual is one challenge.
• Another challenge is getting the cooperation of the entire Financial Aid department to assist with email responses (since half of the team will be in training sessions). This resistance to help the email team is a direct response to the office politics created by the competitive organizational culture. Assistance may also be needed even after the initial training sessions of the Financial Aid email team; therefore, it may be required to cross-train members of the Financial Aid call and chat teams. However, due to conflicting responsibilities and organizational culture assigning training times to properly train assigned individuals from these teams will be another (possibly major) issue entirely.
• Having the Financial Aid email team onboard with new policies and procedures that will maximize their overall team productivity. The team is very resistant to operational changes, structure and “interference” from their management and even from the onsite directors (onsite management team).

Organizational Clarity: Personal Development Intervention

In one of my classes we discussed practicing HPI and what possible interventions one would personally choose when it comes to the workplace. Although I do not have the text connected to the blog you can still get the idea of the discussion and follow this quick entry onto one of my required discussion posts that helped me maintain my grades ha! Please post any comments or questions to facilitate a discussion in the comments sections below.

Directions: One of the most challenging aspects of HPI practice is accurately matching interventions to problems.  Chapter 9 (page 213) contains an intervention selection tool that lists a variety of interventions.  Choose at least one intervention from the list (more if you have time) and 1) Tell us when you would use the intervention AND when you would not use this intervention, 2) Provide a link to a website that either tells us more about the particular intervention or includes an example of the intervention, 3) Review the posts of fellow students and add your thoughts.

Post:
I believe I chose the Personal Development Intervention (PDI) Feedback or 360 degree (“meetings”) feedback for the assignment in the last module, so I will go with it once more. I like the idea of not critiquing an employee’s performance but telling them what they did right and giving constructive feedback on the areas or aspects in which they can improvement upon.

I can easily see when to use the PDI: Feedback during one on one training sessions or even during annual employee performance reviews. These are times or opportunities in which management or trainers are in the position to mentor employees, build morale and encourage teamwork with the organization in a positive manner. I would use this intervention only if the organizational culture fosters a positive environment however or if it is really necessary to bring certain issues or problems to light with a measure of depth and detail.

Although this intervention can be used in a group setting, if the issues concern only one member of the team or the problem must be discussed with various details I would not use this intervention. I can easy see in a group setting that focusing in too much, on a problem may cause even further divisions and problems on a team.

This is a link to a website called “What is 360 Degree Feedback?” from Custom Insight, that explains more about the Personal Development Intervention (PDI) Feedback intervention:
http://www.custominsight.com/360-degree-feedback/what-is-360-degree-feedback.asp

Organizational Clarity: LinkedIn connect with your Alma Mater part 1

Connecting with professionals and academic mentors is a key part of networking, LinkedIn is a great tool for this if you are comfortable with having a LinkedIn account. The LinkedIn account does expose you to everyone your places of employment, academic status and those within your professional circle. If you are okay with that then one suggestion I have is to link up with Professors from your Alma mater, this way now only can you give the appearance of that student who excelled in their classes so much that their professors actually like them! Ha! But also, you can reach out to them for questions regarding your degree field, mentor ship, or even possibly letters of recommendation.

This is an example of one of the messages I sent to a Professor on LinkedIn was:
“Good afternoon Professor

I was wondering if I could ask you for some advice. After graduation as I work on my job search, are there any keywords or areas I should be applying my focus in regards to organizational development?
Have a good day”

It is very basic however by sending a short message I was able to reach out, connect, and add a Professor from my Alma mater to my connections for my LinkedIn account. I was actually successful 5 times with his approach and it adds some variety to my body of connections. This is very important to have a connection list from various bodies of affiliation especially to potential employers who will then see that you an outgoing professional not just at one job or school but multiple.

And potential employers do search the internet for your LinkedIn account so building up your connection list is key. Keeping thinking variety, variety, variety and having a Professor or two from your Alma mater only adds that necessary “sparkle” to your profile, where nothing else can.

Organizational Clarity: Goals when learning about HPI

In one of my classes we were asked define our goals when it came to the class and what we should learn from HPI these are very general goals so bear with me! This is an actual entry from that class, please add any questions or points you want to share to this blog post. Please add points or possible solutions to the comments section of this blog entry.


What are your learning goals for this course? Why are they important to you?

My learning goals in this course is to understand the definition of HPI comes in the forms of questions as HPI translates differently from the academic (text) to real world application. For example, who is accountable for Intervention maintenance after the invention is completed and what factors determine the length of maintenance? This is important to me because even though an intervention is successful if the intervention is phased out after less than a year in operation what is the point of it?

I have seen this multiple times in which HPI programs have been rolled out and were implemented with success, the program got great feedback from management and the employees only to be trashed six months later. The reason I usually hear is because the program was not maintainable, whether due to budgetary concerns or staff allocation, which if proper planning was done this would not be a problem! However, it is usually because of other external factors which somehow floats the responsibility of such programs to different individuals each month like a game of spin the bottle that makes the program lose its consistency.

Another goal is to understand how Sponsors are really aligned with HPI, because accountability seems to be a problem whenever I see a workplace intervention that deals with HPI. Sponsors simply have no connection nor want to communicate or interact with anyone else involved other than say how good the intervention is going which is usually not the reality. In textbooks like the one for this class, sponsors are required to be in it for the long haul, but that is not really the case in real life applications (Van Tiem et al., 2012)! I hope that this class and the text can give me the insights to nail down disappearing sponsors that shy away from things like accountability and sustainability but look for a sizable ROI nor want to make decisions that affect change.

Oh I was sure I had to add this with the goals forum altogether but this is my questions forum post as well:

One of the burning questions that I have about HPI that I hope to be able to answer is, how to gain or maintain sustainability after a success intervention? Also another question I have, is how do you hold accountable a sponsor who is interested in a HPI one moment, then loses interests (and the HPI loses support) the next, only to be shocked when the HPI fails?

Organizational Clarity: Organizational Development terms

As in many fields, OD has acquired its own language. There are many terms, ideas, and concepts that may be new to you. Here you will have the opportunity to begin to master "OD" speak. Below are a number of common practices in OD. Some are theories, some are practices, but all are part of the field.
Create a thread and put the name of your term in the subject box. In your post, define one term and add at least one link to a site that corresponds to that particular term by cutting and pasting the URL (website address) and placing it in your post. Review the posts and links of others asking questions, adding supportive comments, and offering new ideas.

Choose one of the following terms or another term of your choice.

Action Research
Appreciative Inquiry
Team building
Search Conferences
Strategic Planning
Learning Organizations
Knowledge Management
Process Consultation
Open Space Meetings/Conferences
Resistance
Whole Systems Change
Coaching
Mentoring
Myers-Briggs
Data collection methods
Qualitative analysis
Quantitative analysis
Systems Theory
Change Models
Culture
OD Ethics
Confrontation meeting
Workout

For this forum OD Speak I chose the term Myers-Briggs (Type Indicator) or MBTI this is an engagement assessment based on the theories of Carl Jung that broke down personality types in to sixteen various categories. The questions are divided even further into different groups of questions such as Favorite world, Information, Decisions, and Structure how the individual answers each of these questions shapes the assessment of their personality (Myersbriggs.org, 2017).

This is a great tool usually for personal usage but also for use in professional settings by consultants to gather a vague idea of individual viewpoints and personality types. Although it is not a strict, detailed assessment of an individual’s personality it can give the consultant insight of how to address individual tastes and tailor organizational programs to increase retention and cooperation. The results of the MTBI may also assist the consultant in addressing such aspects as roadblocks to team building, assist in one on one coaching sessions, and getting a better understanding for conflict resolution purposes.

The high reliability of the test makes it a great tool for professional usage, but should only be “loosely” used so that individual test takers are not “pigeonholed” as one personality type and eliminated by the consultant from programs or activities that may be apathetic to the personality classification (Anderson, 2013).

This is a link that discusses briefly about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator:
http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/

You can take the personality assessment here:
https://www.mbtionline.com/TaketheMBTI

References
Anderson, D. L. (2013). Organization development: The process of leading organizational change. Sage Publications.
Myersbriggs.org (2017) “MBTI Basics” The Myers & Briggs Foundation Retrieved on March 22, 2017 from: http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/

Organizational Clarity: Status plus moving forward

Looking through old assignments and found a couple of useful things that I can post upon here to help give some clarity to the field of organizational development. I noticed that many students and professionals post a few blog posts online with some great information but after a while either get disillusioned and quit or did it for an assignment then stopped after it was completed.

I started the blog as an assignment but decided to add more to it because there just is not a lot of information about the field out there. Plus, if there is any information it is usually disjointed or all over the place, giving the researcher multiple sources with bits and pieces everywhere. Hopefully, these new posts will streamline that process for everyone and make researching for material and sources easier for everyone.

Organizational Clarity: Social Networking and Organizational Learning does not always work.

Although there are a lot of modern day organizations using Web 2.0 social networking applications, these are usually organizations that are trying to meet a market standard and a certain customer in order to maintain engagement between the organization and its clientele. However, this is a challenge for those organizations without the budget or nor desire to focus on social networking and learning technologies as a viable option to how organizational procedures are currently structured.

The motto, especially within my organization, when it comes to interdepartmental communication or any type of basic training is: “This is how we always do it” and usually none of the technology mentioned in this post associated with either process. As most organizations are moving towards using video conferencing, online wikis and other options to decrease costs and standardize training methods there are still organizations that will always defer to traditional methods as the “best way” to do things.

I personally have used online training, wikis at other organizations and have created multiple blogs for academic reasons each of these instances allowed me to see the benefits of Social networking and Learning technologies. Unfortunately, it is hard to create tangible examples of these benefits to create the desire that all organizations even the reluctant ones I have aforementioned to buy into this way of thinking.

Reference
Iverson, Kathleen (2011) “Social Networking and Organizational Learning” May 31, 2011          Retrieved on March 29, 2017 from: https://rutraining.org/2011/05/31/social-networking-and-organizational-learning/