Culturally Sensitive Problem Solving

Blooming Park: Learning Organizations vs. Traditional Organizations

· Introduction

· Learning Organizations vs. Traditional Organizations

A friend of yours, Jemma McKinney, has two job offers. She wants your help in deciding which one to choose! It’s important to Jemma that she works at a  learning organization. A learning organization is one that has a commitment to facilitating the ongoing learning of its employees. These organizations avoid rigidity through a willingness to continually transform, and this transformation draws from the learned knowledge and skills of employees. Help Jemma decide which of the two organizations is more of a learning organization.

Hi. I’m so glad you’re here. I have good news: I have two job offers! They’re both assistant director positions in departments that address diversity and inclusion issues in their organization. The first position is with Blooming Brands, which is a growing local online retail company that sells home goods. The second position is at Blooming Park State University.

I’m trying to decide which position to accept, and I need your help! The positions offer similar salaries and benefits. The work at both places seems interesting and challenging, and the people I’d be working with seem like great potential colleagues.

What it comes down to for me is the degree to which each of these organizations is a learning organization. That’s very important to me! Can you help me decide which organization has the most characteristics of a learning organization, and which is a more traditional organization?

Let me start by giving you and handout that explains the difference between learning organizations and traditional organizations. Then, I’d like to show you the two position descriptions, and tell you about how some of the people who interviewed me addressed my questions.

Here’s a handout from Jemma that articulates the differences between learning organizations and traditional organizations.

Here’s the job description for the position that Jemma was offered at Blooming Brands.

Job Description

Assistant Director of Diversity and Inclusion, Blooming Brands, Blooming Park headquarters.

Blooming Brands, a major online retailer with headquarters in Blooming Park, is hiring an Assistant Director of Diversity and Inclusion. The individual hired will report to a Director, and will be responsible for ensuring that Blooming Brands is a welcoming and respectful place that serves the needs of all of its employees and its customers. The individual will be responsible for maintaining existing diversity initiatives, and for creating new and innovative initiatives.

Job Duties:

· Serve as a point person for diversity and inclusion related issues. This includes issues involving employees, customers, distributors, and other stakeholders.

· Develop and promote innovative initiatives that address diversity and inclusion-related issues in effective and positive ways.

· Maintain, enforce, and improve upon existing diversity and inclusion initiatives in the company.

· Identify the changing needs of the company through communication with employees, customers, distributors, and other stakeholders.

· Serve as a voice for the company about diversity and inclusion related issues, and communicate effectively with the public and the media.

· Work with the company’s legal team to address legal issues related to diversity and inclusion.

Required Qualifications:

· An MBA or a master’s degree in Human Resource Management or similar area.

· Three years of experience in industry; Human Resources or related area preferred. Special consideration will be made to candidates from other fields (like nonprofit, government, or education) if they have exceptional experience with leadership and diversity.

· Three years of direct experience in a position directly related to diversity and inclusion, or extensive work experience where knowledge of diversity and inclusion is an essential part of the position.

· Two years of direct leadership experience, or extensive work experience where leadership is an important part of the position. Strong, documented leadership skills are essential.

· Documented ability to develop innovative, outside-the-box solutions and strategies.

Preferred Qualifications:

· Special consideration will be made for internal candidates.

· Work experience with an online retainer.

· Volunteer work or other community involvement in issues related to diversity and inclusion.

Jemma interviewed with a number of people at Blooming Brands. Here are their answers to some of her questions.

Samara Perkins, Director of Diversity and Inclusion, Blooming Brands

What opportunities does Blooming Brands give to employees to learn new knowledge and skills?

That’s a good question! We intentionally set aside a portion of our budget each quarter for professional development activities. Employees need to apply for funds, but we rarely turn anyone down. Employees can use this money to attend conferences and training sessions, and to purchase materials like books and learning apps. We had someone on the marketing team apply for funds to take a creative writing class. That may sound like a stretch, but she argued that the course would help her with the writing she does in her position. After she took the class, she created a workshop to pass on what she learned in the class to her team, and to anyone else in the company who felt they could benefit. That’s one of the stipulations when we give employees professional development funds; we want them to pass on the knowledge and skills they learned in some kind of concrete way, like a presentation or workshop.

What does Blooming Brands do to encourage innovation?

We do our best, but I think we can do more! That’s one of the things we’re looking for in this position. We want someone who can think outside of the box and come up with innovative diversity initiatives. Overall, though, I definitely feel that we have an environment where employees are encouraged to come up with new ideas. Next month, we’re having an Innovation Day contest, where employees will be asked to present an idea that they think will be helpful to the company. They can do this in a group, or individually. The idea for Innovation Day came from an employee, incidentally. I’m hoping we can do this at least twice a year, and I’m also hoping some of the innovations will be put into practice. In fact, I was wondering if you might have any ideas for ideas you could present at Innovation Day?

Would you describe processes at Blooming Brands as flexible or rigid, or both?

Rigidity isn’t an option in online retail, in my opinion. This is still a fairly new way of doing business. It’s also a competitive marketplace. Of course we have to have processes, especially in areas like Human Resources and Customer Service. But we try our best to have ongoing conversations with employees about what’s working and not working about the processes. Our employee handbook gets updated a fair amount every year, and while it can be a pain to teach new processes, it also pays off in the long run.

Carla Barrios, Customer Service Supervisor, Blooming Brands

What opportunities does Blooming Brands give to employees to learn new knowledge and skills?

I think the company does a good job with this. Here’s a good example. I kept hearing Customer Service agents lament that they wish they spoke Spanish, since we have so many Spanish-speaking customers. We do have a few fluent speakers on our staff, and calls can get forwarded to them. But this process can take a while, and employees wanted to have a good working knowledge of Spanish so they could take some of these calls.

No one around here has time to take a traditional Spanish class. But I did some research and found a good Spanish language app. The company was willing to purchase a premium memberships for the all employees. They also were willing to let us devote some hours weekly for employees to practice the app at work, which was very helpful. There’s no limit to how many employees can use the subscription, so employees from other departments have taken advantage of this opportunity and signed onto the app. I can already see that this is making a difference. Spanish-speaking customers appreciate it when they speak with people on the phone or on live chat who know a little of their language.

No one’s become fluent, but that’s not the point. I’m thinking of proposing some optional Spanish conversation circles for the company to help build people’s skills. One of my employees is presenting a proposal on Innovation Day about incentivizing people’s use of the app by rewarding people small prizes for being top participators.

What does Blooming Brands do to encourage innovation?

Customer Service isn’t an area that lends itself to lots of innovation, but I do think the company encourages us to think of more efficient ways of doing things. The live chat function we’ve been using is getting overloaded and inefficient. We’re not sure how to fix the problem, so we’ve put together a committee that’s going to hold brainstorming sessions with people from various departments. I’m confident that we’re going to be able to put our heads together and figure out a better way to communicate with customers in chat.

Would you describe processes at Blooming Brands as flexible or rigid, or both?

I’ve worked in customer service at two other company, and hands down, Blooming Brands is the best place I’ve worked when it comes to being flexible with processes. Employees are consulted regularly about what’s working and what’s not. And actual changes are made based on their feedback. At other places where I worked, employees were nervous about speaking out too much about problems, but that’s not the case here. Employees aren’t punished for complaining about stuff that’s not working. They’re rewarded for providing valuable feedback that helps the company’s bottom line.

Ben Dahlquist, Human Resources Representative, Blooming Brands

What opportunities does Blooming Brands give to employees to learn new knowledge and skills?

I’ve been impressed with how much the company encourages up to make changes based on current research and trends. We’re encouraged to go to conferences regularly, and to read up on what’s going on in the field, and then we’re asked to present what we learned to the group. I’ve been surprised at how many changes we’ve made—or at least tried to make—based on the ongoing knowledge of the changing field. I wish that the company gave tuition reimbursement for ongoing coursework! I know they’re looking into that, though.

What does Blooming Brands do to encourage innovation?

Well, I’m sure you’ve noticed that your job description includes explicit language about innovation. All of our job descriptions do. That’s a company-wide directive that reflects the values of Blooming Brands. Hiring committees are strongly encouraged to find employees who can think outside of the box.

Would you describe processes at Blooming Brands as flexible or rigid, or both?

I think the best thing the company does is listen. I mean, we can’t always make changes when it comes to Human Resources, since we’re following a lot of legal guidelines, and also working with outside vendors. But we can let people voice their concerns and ideas, and whenever possible, we can make changes. We send out an annual survey to employees to get feedback, and we also have listening sessions periodically. We’re in the process of updating our PTO processes, based on lots of feedback.

Here’s the job description for the position that Jemma was offered at Blooming Park State University.

Job Description

Assistant Director of Services for Nontraditional Students, Blooming Park State University.

The Department of Student Services at Blooming Park State University is hiring an Assistant Director of Services for Nontraditional Students. This is a new position that is designed to offer support to nontraditional students, who comprise about 60 percent of our population of about 14,000 students. Because this is a very diverse population, this director will collaborate extensively with other campus departments to better support nontraditional students who are also women, people of color, religious minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, disabled individuals, or students who belong to some other marginalized group. We are looking for a candidate with strong leadership abilities and experience working in some capacity with issues related to diversity.

Job Duties:

· Serve as a point person for issues involving nontraditional students on campus.

· Maintain and promote initiatives that support nontraditional students. This includes students from marginalized groups, particularly our First Year Success initiative.

· Identify the needs of nontraditional students through regular two-way communication with students, faculty members, and other stakeholders.

· Serve as a voice for the university about issues that involve nontraditional students and related diversity issues, and communicate effectively with the public and the media.

· Work with the university’s team to address legal issues related to nontraditional students.

Required Qualifications:

· A master’s degree (or similar) in Education Administration, or similar field.

· Five years of experience in higher education, or seven years of experience in the education field as a whole.

· Three years of direct experience in a position directly related to diversity and inclusion, or extensive work experience where knowledge of diversity and inclusion is an essential part of the position.

· Three years of direct leadership experience, or extensive work experience where leadership is an important part of the position. Strong, documented leadership skills are essential.

Preferred Qualifications:

· Direct work experience with nontraditional students.

· Volunteer work or other community involvement in issues related to diversity.

· Ability to article a personal “frame of reference” for understanding some or all of the diverse issues impacting students, families, and employees of Blooming Park State University

Jemma interviewed with a number of people at Blooming Park State University. Here are their answers to some of her questions.

Amyra Patel, Director of Services for Nontraditional Students, Blooming Park State University

What opportunities does Blooming Park State University give to employees to learn new knowledge and skills?

Employees are given access to all the resources we have available at Blooming Park State University. We offer free tuition for all employees. Many of them take advantage of this. Employees also have access to our libraries and our interlibrary loan system. We also send employees to as many conferences when we can. We’ve had some budget issues the last few years, so the university needs to prioritize some conference requests over others. But the budget situation has improved, so I’m anticipating more opportunities for conference participation.

What does Blooming Park State University do to encourage innovation?

There’s a series of innovation workshops every year. I encourage employees to attend them as much as possible. We’re trying to make more of an effort to allow employees to prioritize these workshops, since they sometimes seem to get deprioritized in lieu of more immediate needs. I’ve attended a few of these sessions, and they really are helpful. It’s wonderful to be able to take the time away from work and think critically about things like this.

Would you describe processes at Blooming Park State University as flexible or rigid, or both?

As a department, part of our mission is to encourage innovation throughout the university in regards to diversity. We want other departments to rethink their processes to make sure they’re accommodating diverse needs of students and employees. Since this is a large university, it can be challenging to make changes to processes, as there’s often quite a bit of paperwork and layers of decision making to navigate. But we do our best to get the ball rolling, and to encourage departments to make changes even if those changes aren’t easy.

Josie Morales, Associate Professor, Mathematics

What opportunities does Blooming Park State University give to employees to learn new knowledge and skills?

Well, we’re encouraged to take courses. I haven’t been able to do this since I had kids, but I did appreciate the opportunity to take some courses a few years ago. I took a couple of French classes, which was a lot of fun.

What does Blooming Park State University do to encourage innovation?

I do make an effort to use nontraditional teaching methods in my classes. I’ve attended a couple of conferences and have made an effort to read up about innovative teaching methods in math. A few of my colleagues try to do the same. I suppose we really ought to get together and share our knowledge, right? Maybe have a department workshop? I think the chair would actually be very supportive of this. We’ve all been so busy lately though! It’s too bad there’s not more time for this.

Would you describe processes at Blooming Park State University as flexible or rigid, or both?

I feel like on the department level, things can be quite flexible. People are definitely not shy about expressing their opinions about problems at faculty meetings. The chair has made it clear that our feedback is welcome. In fact, I’m impressed at how well we were able to brainstorm solutions as a group to the problems in our online College Algebra class. We’ve come up with a better system for allowing students to get additional help if they need it. This required us to change our processes on a number of things, but the chair agreed that it was worth a try, and so far it seems to be working. I do think that processes on the university level are less flexible. Whenever I need something from Human Resources or IT, it seems like it takes forever because of outdated processes that are way too confusing. But I guess that’s to be expected in such a big organization. To me, the more important thing is that my department is flexible. That impacts my job more than issues I might have with HR.

Steven Goldberg, Associate Professor, Communication and Journalism

What opportunities does Blooming Park State University give to employees to learn new knowledge and skills?

You know, we probably don’t offer as many opportunities as we should. My department does prioritize conference participation, even though university funding hasn’t been generous in recent years. I’ve never not been able to participate at a conference I wanted to attend. We also hold periodic faculty meetings to present things that we’ve learned in conferences. I wish we did more of these meetings… They’re fun and useful! I appreciate that faculty members have the opportunity to take courses for free at BPSU. I just haven’t had the time to do this. I might be more inspired to do so if there were courses offered that seemed to be directly relevant to my teaching and research.

What does Blooming Park State University do to encourage innovation?

Well, I think we do a good job encouraging innovation among our students. Our coursework strongly emphasizes critical thinking skills. We are encouraged to help students find ways to use what they learn in class in real life contexts. There’s also a number of campus awards of innovative students. I don’t think there’s much on campus to encourage faculty members to be more innovative. I mean, I think there’s some campus workshops about this? I probably should look into that. I feel like my teaching gets a little stale. Now that I have tenure, I have a little more time to figure out how to be more innovative in the classroom.

Would you describe processes at Blooming Park State University as flexible or rigid, or both?

I don’t know. Honestly, I’ve been so heads-down these past few years trying to get tenure. I haven’t wanted to make any waves. There are a few processes in my department that probably could be updated. Now that I have tenure, I feel more empowered to talk about things like this with my chair and my department.

Now that you’ve looked over these two job descriptions, and heard about some of the questions that Jemma asked on her interviews, it’s time to give Jemma some advice.

Which position do you think Jemma should choose: Blooming Brands or Blooming Park State University?

What characteristics of a learning organization does this organization offer?

In what ways is the other organization a learning organization, and in what ways is it not?

Hi. Thanks so much for your feedback! Let me tell you what I decided.

I accepted the position with Blooming Brands. I felt they were definitely the stronger learning organization. The job description has explicit language in it about innovation and thinking outside the box. I was impressed that the company sets aside resources and prioritizes learning opportunities. These opportunities aren’t seen as ancillary to the work they do; it’s seen as a valuable part of their work. I was also impressed that the company has employees share what they learn with others, and that there seems to be a genuine effort to incorporate new knowledge and skills into their processes.

The people who interviewed me were able to give me concrete examples of how learning gets incorporated into work. The example of using an app to help customer service reps gain a working understanding of Spanish blew me away… And the fact that learners were given time at work to use the app shows me that learning isn’t seen as something ancillary to the regular job duties. Of course, innovation Day sounds like a great idea too. And it seems clear to me that employee feedback is highly valued across the company.

I did see some elements of a learning organization at Blooming Park State University. The fact that employees can take college classes for free is valuable, and something that Blooming Brands does not offer. The university also offers innovation workshops that sound potentially very useful. However, it also seems clear that learning and innovation opportunities are seen as ancillary, and that these get deprioritized. Moreover, when employees do have learning opportunities—like going to conferences—they are not strongly encouraged to share their knowledge with others. At Blooming Brands, there’s a company-wide effort to make changes that are based in part on the acquired knowledge and skills of employees. This does not seem to be the case at BPSU.

It also sounds like processes on the university level are rigid, and that employees have little or no opportunity to offer feedback on these processes. The thing that bothered me the most was a comment made by Dr. Goldberg. He said that he didn’t feel like he had freedom to question processes until he got tenure. Granted, that’s just the perspective of one person in one department. But I was nevertheless alarmed.

Again, thank you so much for your input!

Conclusion.

Remember that you need to look at several years of data and multiple measures of data before determining inadequacies. One test does not give enough information to make appropriate evaluations of teaching skill. Many of the examples in this presentation involve only one test. Keep in mind multiple measures need to be used to make evaluative decisions regarding instructional decisions. As you go back to your sites, you each have different assessments that can be used to determine areas of strength and weakness. You may find information that conflicts or confirms the state test results. Which assessments might you consider as you set goals for your site?