WFED 585 Lesson 7 Blog

S.Schumann Stakeholder Assessment Tool (1)

Checklist for starting the evaluation

1. What needs to be achieved through the OD intervention

Creation of Succession plan

a. Development of internal career ladder

b. Increased diversity across staff with more diversity at leadership levels

Development of internal career ladder

a. Skills assessment of all employees

b. Review of job descriptions

i. Rewrite job descriptions with the skills required for each position

ii. Rewrite descriptions to bring into alignment with actual work being done.

iii. The creation of vacant positions/ new positions includes skills required skills for each new role.

iv. All job descriptions to be run through a biased editor to remove biased language.

c. Management training

i. How to write a job description

ii. What biased language looks like and how to avoid it.

iii. How to perform a skills assessment as an individual and with your staff.

iv. How to have career focussed conversations.

v. What’s the difference between a sponsor and a mentor?

1. 1. 1. How to be a mentor/ mentee
      2. How to be a sponsor/ how to get a sponsor

vi. Expectations on the number of career conversations with staff a year/ how it will be included in the performance review.

vii. How to use SkillSoft (set up a skills program, how to track staff progress, reporting).

2. What would the desired change state look like?

The creation of a succession plan for the department of Development and Alumni Relations at Urban Campus Research University will shift the organization to a state where there is more control over the hiring process. Currently, there is no concrete plan in place for when a high-level fundraiser is either promoted within the organization or departs. Positions remain vacant for six or more months. Internal candidates are cycled through the hiring process but wait for months (anecdotally there have been three senior-level positions for which internal candidates were selected, but not after a six to eight-month nationwide interview process). A six-month vacancy can cost UCRU $250,000, at the low end. When this plan is implemented, the length of time a position remains vacant will decrease from six months to three months, allowing for UCRU to meet its fundraising goals quicker, leading to higher donations. This could have significant ramifications for UCRU as it moves into its next campaign. The cost to the university when a senior level gift officer positions are vacant for six months is a potential loss of $5,000,000. 

The creation of a succession plan will decrease the lost revenue dramatically. If a succession plan is in place so that vacant positions are filled within three months, UCRU will raise more money each year. 

One of the ongoing issues that have been vocalized by employees is the lack of career growth. To support the succession plan, a career ladder will be developed within each department, and across departments, so that staff, especially junior level staff, can see potential areas of career growth. 

Providing discussions around career growth allows managers to have deeper more meaningful conversations with their staff so that they can better understand the ways in which they can either manage or lead members of their team.

The chart below shows how DAR has performed on the Gallup Employee Engagement Survey over the past three years.

The questions of the survey are noted below. The questions that are highlighted will be impacted directly by the implementation of the succession plan.

Basic Needs (what do I get?)

1. 1. Do you know what is expected of you at work?
   2. Do you have the materials and equipment to do your work right?

What do I give?

Individual Needs

3. At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?

4. In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?

5. Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?

6. Is there someone at work who encourages your development?

Teamwork Needs

7. At work, do your opinions seem to count?

8. Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?

9. Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?

Do I Belong Here?

10. Do you have a best friend at work?

11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?

12. In the last year, have you had opportunities to learn and grow?

Urban Campus Research University will have a robust pool of external talent who are waiting to join the DAR team. Internal candidates will be groomed to be ready for promotions to higher-level positions as they become available. Employee engagement will increase by .3. The pool for talent at all levels will be more diverse. Women and minorities will comprise fifty percent of the leadership roles.

3. What metric will be used to measure success for the desired change after the intervention?

The metric which will be used to measure the success of the desired change of the intervention will be the cost of vacancy. Successful implementation of a succession plan and career ladder will allow DAR to fill vacancies faster with internal candidates, it will increase employee engagement, leading to decreased turnover. 

The second key metric that will be used is the increased number of women and underrepresented populations in leadership roles.

4. Who/Which are the targets of change (e.g., people/ group/ units)?

Below is the way in which each unit falls within DAR. 

Below is the hierarchy of positions across the division. Each level will be impacted in some way and asked to participate in varying degrees and with varying roles.

DAR Leadership Hierarchy

5. What are the specific evaluation expectations at each level?

Director and above: Mentorship

Each director and above will be a mentor to two junior or mid-level professionals. They will be expected to meet with their mentee at least once every three months.

Managers will have the greatest involvement in the program. Managers range in all levels of the organization and will be expected to complete the following:

• Provide a skills assessment for all positions for their direct reports
• Rewrite current job descriptions with an emphasis on the skills required of each role
• Write any open job descriptions with an emphasis on the skills required of each role
• Screen all job descriptions to remove gender and race bias
• Complete an evaluation of their interest in either becoming a mentor or acquiring a mentor.

The manager will also be required to do what is expected of the individual contributor:

Individual contributors:

• Will work with their manager to rewrite their job description to more accurately reflect what they do as well as the skills that are needed for the position.
• They will have a career conversation with their manager to discuss their future in DAR. If they are pleased where they are, no further action is needed.
• If they would like to advance in DAR, the will work with their manager to create a skills-building curriculum through SkillSoft.
  • Four times a year they will present a work (paper, presentation, project) that allows them to use their new skills.

6. Are the evaluation expectations aligned with the aims and levels of the change intervention?

In order to build a succession plan and career ladder, it is imperative that everyone across the organization participates in the process. Two pilots will run in advance of rolling it out to the entire divisions. Once the pilots are successfully underway and data has been collected through individual and group interviews and surveys, changes will be made based on feedback, and then the program will be rolled out to the entire division.

The overarching evaluation expectations are aligned with the aims and levels of the change intervention.

7. Are you in agreement with each level of targets, with regard to evaluation goals and objectives?

The client is in agreement that each level of targeting their goals and objectives are in line with the needs of the organization as well as the units that make up the division. 

Factors of evaluation strategy planning

1. How will you secure time for designing, data gathering, analyzing, and reporting the evaluation outcomes? Include who you will network with to get these resources

Before beginning the project, we will work with two teams within the division who will pilot the program. It will begin with an Appreciative Inquiry-based session to discuss what’s working and where they would like to continue to build their strengths in the direction of a career plan and succession plan. In addition, we will discuss diversity and inclusions and how the other strategic goals of the university around diversity and inclusion can be implemented and adopted with DAR.

The two groups to pilot the project will be Leadership Giving and the support staff of Stewardship. Both departments are now running at full staff, and know too well how difficult it is to run with a partial team. The leaders of the two groups are very forward-thinking, have been with the organization or five or more years, and have a strong commitment to their staff. They are strong and vocal leaders and well respected across the organization. Because their groups have a wide range of talent experience so all aspects of the program will be able to be tested through their groups, these leaders have been advocating for a career ladder and the implementation of a succession plan. 

Time will be carved out of their quarterly planning meetings to discuss the project and lay the foundation for the AI half-day retreat. The leaders of these teams have been vocal in requesting a career ladder.

2. How much time will each employee or groups of employees need to participate in the evaluation elements you have defined to date? What will they need to do in these events – what is their role?

3. What other departments will need to be included in order for your project (and the evaluation plan) to be successful? What is their role in approval/chain of command/resource allocation/general support etc?

Additional departments that will need to be included are:

• Central Human Resources
  • They will assist with job postings and receive all applications
  • Skills assessments and skills inclusion on all job descriptions will be shared with central HR. We need to ensure that their HRM can manage store the information correctly.
  • New job descriptions will be shared with central HR and will be inputted into the HRM.
  • Glassdoor DAR specific account will be created and maintained by DAR, however central HR will plan a part in managing the account
• Diversity and Inclusion department
  • Provide training to staff on how to be allies and ensure that DAR is a welcoming place for all.
• Procurement
  • Work with procurement to purchase software/licenses such as:
    • Glassdoor.com

4. Will you need to purchase expertise – consultant or other help to complete the project AND should those additions be included in the evaluation plan – if so what would you evaluate (stick to the outcomes rather than evaluating the person who is performing the tasks).

• Consultant for DAR who specializes in Diversity and Inclusion in fundraising, currently working with staff, this project may extend her contract.
  • This will tie back to the attrition and advancement of women and underrepresented minorities in leadership positions.
• Communications expert
  • Develop intranet site
  • Write content to keep the project interesting and front of mind for staff
    • Blog posts
    • Emails
    • Surveys
    • posters

5. Is there a need to acquire any technology? Use current technology in a new way? Request technology help?

Current technology

• iModules 
  • create internal career advisors/ mentors digital platform
• Graduway
  • Create staff affinity groups/ discussion groups to gather feedback from the process. 
• Intranet
  • Continue to use DAR intranet site, but will require more staff time to build out the site as it pertains to the project

6. What are the opportunity costs for doing the project and not doing the project AND for planning and implementing an evaluation plan and for doing no evaluation?

DAR has managed without a succession plan for years and can continue to do so for years to come. However, if we want to be successful with the next campaign, which could have a goal of $5 billion the faster we can fill vacancies, the less our goal will be affected. Fundraising relies on relationships that have been forged over the years. The larger the gift amount, the stronger the relationship between the fundraiser and the prospect. When a major gift officer leaves, whether for another role in the institution or for a new opportunity, the relationship is impacted. As stated above, the vacancy cost can be a significant amount – if the fundraiser’s annual goal is $10 million, each month the position is vacant is a loss of $83,000. If we’re not filling positions quickly, it will impact the amount of money raised.  The attrition rate is 13% which translates to twenty-eight vacant positions a year. That is a lot of lost revenue. If a succession plan is not implemented, DAR won’t be able to reach campaign goals.

As with a campaign where we measure our revenue weekly, measurement of the tasks of creating a succession plan will need to be closely monitored. DAR is a culture where we measure everything and adjust as needed to ensure we have the best results. Our culture is one that relies on constant analysis and diagnosis in order to make small corrections along the way. Measuring our progress with the creation and implementation of a succession plan fits in with our culture. Why do it if it can’t be measured? A lot of hard work will go into this project which will yield even greater results. Like we are fond of saying of alumni engagement, “if it’s not measured, it’s like it never happened.” We need to make sure this succession plan happens.

References

Jones, M. C., & Rothwell, W. J. (2018). Evaluating organization development: how to ensure and sustain the successful transformation. CRC Press.

Gallup (2017) State of the American workplace report.
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/238085/state-american-workplace-report-2017.aspx

What is the organization’s strategy?

USRC completed a $1 billion comprehensive campaign in September 2019. It was a tremendous success as the first-ever comprehensive campaign instituted by the university. At the close of the campaign, the university raised $1.8 billion. 

USRC has set its sights on the next campaign, and although the goal has not been released, it is safe to assume that the goal of the next campaign will be between $4 billion and $6 billion, based on the campaign goals and success of peer institutions.

To reach the goal, it will be necessary for Development and Alumni Relations at UCRU to increase their staff to ensure that a campaign goal of that size can be met.

The mission of Development and Alumni Relations at UCRU is to support students, faculty, and research through the philanthropic support of alumni. 

The university recently completed a comprehensive campaign and raised $1.8 billion. Following the campaign, a task force of alumni and university leaders evaluated where development and alumni relations is now, and where it should be at the beginning of the next campaign. One of their recommendations, accepted by the trustees, was to increase staff resources by increasing the number of positions across the divisions.

The goal of this change effort is to implement a succession plan which will ensure that relationships with donors remain consistent, which will lead to increased donations. The creation of a succession plan, for both high level and mid-level positions, the following division-wide projects will be necessary:

1. Development of a career ladder
2. Diversity and Inclusion (D&I)- an increasing number of minorities and women in leadership roles (this supports the university’s strategic initiative of creating a more diverse and inclusive campus).

The table below lists the division-wide projects which will need to be implemented to ensure that the strategic goals are met. The strategy to which the project most closely aligns is noted, as is the sponsor and key stakeholders.

Developing a succession plan will provide DAR with the resources to fill new and vacant positions faster once the hiring freeze is over. DAR will be able to swiftly execute the recommendations of the task force when the university is hiring again. The table below lists the project, it’s relation to the organization goal and the project outcomes for the development of a succession plan. 

The development of the succession plan relies on two sub-goals; the development of a career ladder and/ or Diversity and Inclusion (D&I).

The creation of an increased number of staff positions, as directed by the board of trustees,  relies on two sub-goals; the development of a career ladder and/ or Diversity and Inclusion (D&I).

There are a few projects that overlap with the goals of the creation of staff positions and the creation of a succession plan. Those projects are noted below.

KPIs that will be measured, as shared in a previous blog post, will be:

What are the key performance indicators that will be monitored during the project?

• Employee Engagement scores.
  • Increase overall engagement scores by .3
• Skills training through SkillSoft.
  • Supervisors will be held accountable for the number of training employees complete to further develop agreed-upon skills.
• Turnover rate.
  • Decrease turnover from 12% annually to 9%
• Internal promotion rate.
  • Increase internal promotions from 10% to 25%
• Minorities and women hired
  • Percent of minorities and women hired into leadership roles.
    • Increase the executive team from 20% women to 50% women in five years.
    • Increase minority representation on the executive team from 0 to 25% in two years.
• The increased average tenure of staff from 3.2 years to 5 years.
• Increased alumni and donor satisfaction with their prospect managers.
• Increased giving to university from long term relationships with prospect managers.
• Increase the number of qualified applicants in the talent pool by 100%.
• Decrease the average time a position is filled from six months to two months.
• Glassdoor reviews of UCRU DAR applicants, employees, and former employees. (new initiative)
• Vacancy costs (new initiative, not currently measured).
• Quantity of communications
• Quality of communications
• Survey results
• Focus group discussions and feedback sessions
• Individual interviews

References

Jones, M.D. (n.d.) Lesson 4: Evaluation models. Retrieved from Penn State University World Campus, Assessing Data: Appraising Organization Development. Canvas: http://canvas.psu.edu

Jones, M.C. (2020, February 9). WFED 525 aligning strategy to project outcomes [Slides]. VoiceThread. https://psu.voicethread.com/myvoice/thread/13649422/

Jones, M.C. (n.d). WFED 525 aligning strategy to project outcomes [Slides]. VoiceThread. https://psu.voicethread.com/myvoice/thread/13649422/82924868/76860818

The Kirkpatrick Model shown below is comprised of four areas. It has traditionally been used to evaluate training programs. The model was developed in the 1950s by Donald Kirkpatrick. The primary use of the original model was to discover the success of the training program. 

https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/Kirkpatrick

The model has been adapted to be used to evaluate this change effort. 

The CSO I’m working with has stated their objective to implement a succession plan successfully. To support the development of the succession plan, two additional purposes have been added; developing an internal career ladder and increasing gender and minority diversity in leadership roles.

This is a department-wide initiative and will require the support of all managers and supervisors. They will be called upon to support the following:

• Skills assessments of employees.
• Determine the skills required for each role.
• Provide an interactive map of the different departments and job functions DAR employees interact with across the university (this will assist with future recruitment efforts).
• Discuss career growth and strategy with employees.
• Have career-related conversations with employees from across the division.
• Hold career-related conversations and progress towards skills completion goals with their staff twice a year (minimum) and be held accountable for having them by their supervisor.

For the manager to successfully meet these new expectations, awareness of the program, systems training, and knowledge of the impact that this will have on the employees and overall organization must be clearly communicated and supported by managers.

Kirkpatrick’s model will be used to show the efficacy of the implementation of the program.

Stage 1 Reaction:

The objective is to create a succession plan for all managerial and leadership positions within DAR. Strategic Talent Management will create two internal focus groups of ten managers each to present the initial project design. The change effort is reliant on managers being able to help train and motivate their employees to take advantage of the resources available to build upon their current skills and develop new skills. It will also require that managers are having conversations with staff from different departments. These conversations will expose interested employees with those in a management role. It will also help the employees to understand what skills and knowledge are needed in various roles o succeed. Within the unit to help employees understand the skills required to succeed within each department, and as necessary, expand the responsibilities of their employees to support their growth into higher-level roles.

Focus groups will provide their feedback through individual and group interviews and surveys. We will be looking to achieve:

• 80% participation in focus groups
• Four individual interviews
• 2 group interviews with a minimum of 3 people
• 85% survey completion rate

Stage 2 Increase knowledge and skills: Roll out of the program to all managers and supervisors.

The next step, once 85% or more of the focus group participants are supportive of the change effort is to begin training them on how to have conversations around career growth, skills training, performance reviews, and informal progress reviews. Managers will be held accountable for ensuring that the staff who are interested in growing their careers within DAR are working on developing their skills. Managers will need to know how to navigate SkillSoft.

In advance of the rollout, a survey will be deployed, sharing a bit about the initiative and why it’s been supported by senior leaders. The survey will then solicit feedback from managers about their feelings of the program, any reluctance they may feel to participating, what they hope will come from it from both an organization and an individual point of view. Responses to the survey will be addressed in the rollout.

Select managers from the focus group will help to facilitate the role out of the initiative by leading a small group or unit-specific discussions on the objectives and reason behind the effort. These managers will work with the Strategic Talent Management team to facilitate training on how to deliver useful feedback, how to run a skills assessment, and how to create an interactive map

Surveys will be sent following the training to provide feedback to the presenters on the way they presented the material.

Managers will be asked to submit completed skills assessment forms and a training schedule for their subordinates. Subordinates and managers can opt-out of their individual training plans; however, a skills assessment and interaction map will need to be provided.

KPIs-

• A participation survey will be sent to all management participants to ensure that questions are answered and to gather additional feedback
• Managers participation in SkillSoft- providing feedback modules
• Submission of skills assessment of employees
• Submission of the department interaction map
• Registration of internal coaching/ mentor calendar (interested managers will act as coaches/ mentors for entry-level staff.

Level 3 Behavior

One of the main ways that we’ll be able to measure if managers are implementing what they’ve learned is that we will begin to see their progress through the program training, such as feedback and skills assessments. As new jobs are posted and recruiting takes place, we will measure the number of internal candidates, as well as see the active internal recruitment of current staff for available positions.

KPIs

• Adaption of more staff and completing modules in SkillSoft
• Increased promotion to the team about open positions through emails
• Increased applications from current staff to open positions
• Increased participation in employee engagement survey and greater engagement
• Increased number of career conversations across teams and levels of management.
• Interview focus group participants assess the implementation of the program.
• Increased number of communications from senior leadership and Associate Vice President of Strategic Talent Engagement, further promoting the career development program.
• Inclusion of staff development metrics in annual reviews.
• Creation of talent pool of internal candidates who have shown the skills, ability, desire to be promoted, and remain with the organization. 
• Development of staff affinity groups to further encourage staff engagement and retention.

Level 4 Results

If successfully implemented, we expect to see the following results:

The problem/ opportunity is three-fold:

1. There is no current succession plan for Development and Alumni Relations at UCRU.

• • There are three director level and above positions which have been vacant for six months.
  • When it was announced that the new Sr. Vice President of Development and Alumni Relations would be filled by an internal candidate, her position remained open for ten months.

Outcome:

a) Fill vacant positions

b) Cut down length that director level and above positions remain open from an average of six months to two months

 2. The only way to move up in the organization is to work at another institution in the area to grow professionally and then return to UCRU to move into a higher position.

• • This is the narrative shared by 20% of the staff who left DAR for other fundraising opportunities and returned to DAR within eighteen-month when a higher-level position became vacant.
  • The only staff to return to DAR are those in a fundraising role. All other roles and units lose their staff and don’t see them return (these employees leave for other industry-specific roles, such as communications and media, software development).
  • Provide manager training on how to communicate with employees to discover their career goals and then how to align those goals with positions across the organization
  • Create an employee awareness campaign that focusses on the top ten skills required to succeed in each department. This will provide an initial foundation for the ways that supervisors and employees can begin to talk about career growth within the organization.

Outcome:

a) Create a management career ladder for employees who want to grow into managerial and leadership positions.

b) Create a career ladder for those who want to develop their skills and grow as independent contributors.

3. Increase leadership diversity.

1. • 64% of the employees are female but only 20% of the senior leadership is female. To increase diversity and a conceded effort needs to be made to ensure that high performing female employees have a career path within DAR.
   • Minorities comprise less than five percent of the DAR and hold no position of leadership. 

Outcome:

1. Actively recruit minorities and women into leadership level positions.
2. Create a mentor program for entry-level and mid-level employees.

How does the project align with the strategic goals of the organization?

The groundwork for the next comprehensive capital campaign

The department just completed its first-ever comprehensive campaign and successfully raised $1.8 billion significantly surpassing the goal of $1 billion. As the campaign came to a close, the trustees began to discuss the next campaign and what would be necessary to make that campaign a greater success. They determined that it would require an influx of resources and staff to lay the groundwork to begin work on the next campaign. 

In February 2020, the trustees of UCRU approved the recommendations put forth by the Alumni Relations Task Force. The task force was charged by the university president, to determine ways to raise the status of the alumni association to one that is world-class. To accomplish this task, the task force made recommendations in the following areas; increase staff size and allocation, implement a university-wide CRM, improve the succession planning and development of current development and alumni relations staff, to increase resources on alumni career development. 

By focussing on strategic planning and internal staff development, we will support the recommendations set forth by the task force. In addition, we will support our own strategic planning initiatives which include the pillars of improving alumni engagement, making Development and Alumni Relations the desired place to work, increasing the profile of the department which will align with strategic talent recruitment initiatives.

The tables below show where UCRU stands compared to its peers. In March the trustees approved to move forward with the recommendations of the ARTF and allocated financial resources to begin to close the gap. The hiring was put on hold, however other parts of the recommendations are proceeding. We anticipate that we will begin to recruit for additional positions in January 2021. 

Recently Urban Campus Research University (UCRU) compared itself to its peers in a number of different categories. Below is the way that the UCRU compares to its peers with the number of full-time employees (FTE) in Alumni Relations.

From this table, it is clear that the staff at UCRU are responsible for working with a significantly larger population of alumni than its peers. The median is 6,713 alumni per full-time employee.

The table below shows the annual budget per alum.

To be more competitive, UCRU will need to spend significantly more per alum.

Benefits of the change project to the organization

Improved Employee Engagement

In 2016, UCRU joined a consortium of sixteen large private research universities and began to benchmark employee engagement using Gallup’s Q12 Employee Engagement Survey. Every year since the university has completed the annual survey maintaining similar results. UCRU’s development and alumni relations department has performed in the mid-range of the consortium. However, the universities that have traditionally run larger campaigns tend to have higher employee engagement. UCRU recognizes that in order to compete for top talent, it must be recognized as a place where careers are made.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that “Employment of fundraisers is projected to grow 9 percent from 2018 to 2028, faster than the average for all occupations. Employment growth is expected to be driven by the continued need of various types of organizations to raise money”.

Massachusetts (location of UCRU) is in the top five states that have the highest employment level in fundraising. According to the US Bureau of Occupational Employment Statistics. The ratio of fundraisers to other occupations is significantly higher in Massachusetts than in other states. 

Within the Boston area, there are thirty-five universities or colleges, each with their own fundraising teams. This does not take into consideration the number of private schools, hospitals, museums, and other associations that employ fundraisers. 

Who is the sponsor?

Associate Vice President of Strategic Talent Management

Who is the client?

Sr. Vice President of Development and Alumni Relations

Are there resources available?

Hiring freeze

Due to COVID-19, the university initiated a hiring freeze for staff which is projected to last through 2021. This freeze amplifies the need to implement a succession plan and creates a prime opportunity to begin looking at internal career ladders, running skills assessments, and implementing training to teach supervisors how to talk to employees about their career path. 

There are three Director level and above positions that are vacant in Development and Alumni Relations. It is anticipated that the senior roles will remain vacant for the next year. 

Staff resources/ training resources

The university offers skills training to all university employees through SkillSoft. It provides training on everything from software systems to management skills, time management, Microsoft office. Staff time would be required to run a skills assessment of the current staff and the skills needed for their positions, as well as the skills needed to succeed in the open positions. Once that is complete, then a curriculum can be developed with the help of the OD&L department at the university.

The new positions that were to be added have been allocated for each team, the funding has been approved, but will be on hold until 2021, so although hiring is not happening immediately, as planned, the time deferred provides great opportunity to fully outline the needs of each position.

Personal responsible or teams responsible

Sr. VP Development and Alumni Relation- client

Associate VP Strategic Talent Management – sponsor

Strategic Talent Management team and Human Resources responsible for:

• Skills assessment
• Job descriptions and salary level
• Working with hiring managers to recruit, interview
• Training managers on how to talk to staff to grow their skills, provide feedback and opportunities for growth within the current role
• KPIs such as turnover, internal promotion, 
• Recruitment of minorities 
• Employee Engagement Surveys

Explore and list the potential risks in doing the change project?

• Increased stress to staff who are worried about lay-offs or furloughs as job and skill assessments are conducted.
• Increased stress to supervisors who will be required to go through more training when many people are working more hours than usual to make up for vacancies.
• Distrust and disbelief that the hiring freeze will end in 2021.
• DAR has tried to create mentoring and career ladder programs in the past and has failed.

What is the scope of the project? Are there any concerns that the scope will expand (or scope creep) and how will you address it?

This is a department-wide initiative. There is no concern about scope creep. 

What associated costs are included in implementing this change project?

Skills-based training – free to all University employees, no charge 

Recruitment for new positions: $500,000

What is the timescale or timeline for the project (as it happened or will happen)?

What are the key performance indicators that will be monitored during the project?

• Employee Engagement scores.
  • Increase overall engagement scores by .3
• Skills training through SkillSoft.
  • Supervisors will be held accountable for the number of training employees complete to further develop agreed-upon skills.
• Turnover rate.
  • Decrease turnover from 12% annually to 9%
• Internal promotion rate.
  • Increase internal promotions from 10% to 25%
• Minorities and women hired 
  • Percent of minorities and women hired into leadership roles.
    • Increase the executive team from 20% women to 50% women in five years.
    • Increase minority representation on the executive team from 0 to 25% in two years.
• The increased average tenure of staff from 3.2 years to 5 years.
• Increased alumni and donor satisfaction with their prospect managers.
• Increased giving to university from long term relationships with prospect managers.
• Increase the number of qualified applicants in the talent pool by 100%.
• Decrease the average time a position is filled from six months to two months.
• Glassdoor reviews of UCRU DAR applicants, employees, and former employees. (new initiative)
• Vacancy costs (new initiative, not currently measured).

What was or will be the impact on operations, human resources, quality, employees?

The initial impact of this on all staff will be excitement, skepticism, and an increased workload. People will need to go through training on how to offer feedback as well as training on how they can improve their skills to put them in a better position to be considered for a promotion. DAR staff has been asking for many of these programs, so although the initial workload will be heavy, it’s something that, however, this is something that has been repeated again and again. This process will also help to cultivate those who want to grow in the organization and provide them with a way to be more visible.

Increasing employee engagement will serve the organization and it’s constituents well. The more engaged an employee, the more productive they become, and the better the customer service they offer.

The initial workload for human resources and operations teams will be significant as they role out training and communications, but they are not actively recruiting or filling vacant positions due to the hiring freeze, so they won’t be losing time from other duties. When this is up and running, it will hopefully, be less work to maintain, and provide them with a strong applicant pool. A strong internal applicant pool will decrease recruiting costs and time.

Organizational Capability 

The organization is ready for change. Over the past year, we wrapped up a nine-year campaign, transitioned to new leadership, and within four days packed up and became a work from home organization. Change over the last year has been constant. This project comes to us in anticipation of a new campaign. It’s an exciting time to think of all the alumni to engage, it’s also a scary time as people wonder what is happening in higher education and what that impact will have on their jobs. The best thing that someone can do for themselves is to continue to grow, develop, and learn new things. This program provides for that, while at the same time setting the organization up for success for when the time comes that we can pick up where we left off and begin hiring new staff and promoting current staff into new roles envisioned to bring about the success of the next campaign.

DAR of UCRU is ready for this initiative.

Reference

U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook https://www.bls.gov/OOH/business-and-financial/fundraisers.htm#:~:text=Employment%20of%20fundraisers%20is%20projected,of%20organizations%20to%20raise%20money.

Occupational employment statistics https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes131131.htm#st