GOAL TEAM 3– Combined Report – May 26, 2011

(From Objective teams 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3, which met separately, rather than as one large goal team.)

To What Extent Has Progress Been Made Toward Goal 3? What evidence do we have of that Progress?

From Team 3.1 - Collaboration

The College is deeply involved in a review of strategic governance that includes addressing how we define collaboration and how we can best use collaborative tools. A report is expected soon from a Steering Committee that reports to the College Planning Council.

Importantly, a plan to improve internal communications in support of shared governance is also being developed, via a second task force. These are first efforts to begin to define communications in a collaborative college and to provide new tools that support collaborative communication. This work is being led by the newly created office of Organizational Development, in Human Resources.

In addition, professional development activities have continued to address collaboration. Good progress has been made.

From Team 3.2 – Career Growth

The College is beginning to make progress towards having a more effective and universal performance measuring tool – the Performance Development Process (PDP). If utilized in the manner in which it was designed, the PDP tool is a positive direction for encouraging Valencia’s supervisors and employees to think and talk about professional development needs. The new PDP promotes conversation between supervisors and employees regarding professional development opportunities and career growth planning. The PDP has facilitated the alignment of various diverse constituency groups across the college into a formalized development process with universal application. Records of attendance for the ongoing PDP training have been maintained by the Office of Organizational Development.

The establishment of the Office of Organizational Development and the alignment of that office under the banner of Human Resources in August of 2010 is another significant step towards accomplishing the objectives of Goal 3.2. This office was created to focus on strategic Human Resources issues which include professional development, employee on-boarding, and talent management. The key responsibilities of this office link directly to developing college employees to further the College’s goals including: performance management, supervisory training and development, and awards and recognitions. This office has already done a great deal of work and utilized various data gathering methods (including survey, job shadowing, in depth-interviews, and a review of existing data) to devise a plan for refreshing the college’s staff development offerings. This data will drive the creation of a comprehensive professional development catalog designed to be used in conjunction with the PDP to align professional development with organizational, departmental, and individual goals and objectives. The first draft of the catalog and 6-month schedule is expected to be ready for release by mid-2011. Additionally, the Office for Organizational Development conducted a series of supervisory development workshops in November and December of 2010 to help support skill development in the areas of coaching, giving feedback, managing performance problems and conducting performance conversations. The Office of Organizational Development conducted an employee climate survey entitled, “The Valencia Experience”, the results of which can be used as baseline data.

A draft set of supervisory competencies/critical success factors have been identified via a DACUM-like process facilitated in February 2011. These competencies will be used as the basis for a multi-layered supervisor development process to be designed and ready for implementation in late 2011. These efforts are part of a bigger “talent management” strategy which reflects the desire to enable employees who demonstrate that they possess potential or exhibit that they already possess specific skill sets to be further developed and be more competitive in the selection process.

The Staff and Program Development (SPD) Redesign Task Force has been reconfigured as a standing committee reporting to the College Operations Council. The committee, the SPD Advisory Committee, revised and updated the current SPD guidelines and created a funding grid to aid employees in understanding and accessing SPD funds. The SPD Advisory Committee will be reconsidering the full SPD system, process, and guidelines throughout 2011 – 2012.

From Team 3.3 – Employee Wellness

The college has an effective Wellness Program in place, and has made progress toward providing a high quality wellness activities to the diverse college community, in partnership with our health insurance provider. While challenges remain, such as providing opportunities on campuses that lack gym facilities, the college is off to a great start with the Wellness Program, and participation continues to increase.

  • A full time coordinator is now dedicated to overseeing the Wellness Program
  • The Coordinator of the Wellness Program is in the draft stage of creating a new Wellness Program Plan which defines Wellness Practices at Valencia
  • The college has received comprehensive statistical data based on the health assessment and biometric screening data
  • A new marketing/communications plan has been created for the Wellness Program, along with the release of an expanded incentive program. A Passport to Wellness has been mailed to all employees.
  • Development of Team Valencia with 75 members has increased the visibility of Valencia’s Wellness Program and participation in local wellness activities (5k runs, charity walks and bike rides)
  • Continue with plan to offer Metabolic Syndrome Improvement Program that began in April 2011 (42 participants)
  • Promote Cigna’s incentive points program (will be evaluated in May 2011)

Do the current and planned activities in the Strategic Initiatives reports show promise of “moving the needle” on Objective 3.2 by 2013?

For Team 3.1 – Collaboration

Yes, the team expects to be able to see refinements to our shared governance model based on the results of the review currently underway. Also, professional development activities in the use of collaborative tools will continue to be offered.

For Team 3.2 - Career Growth

Should the Office of Organizational Development be successful in accomplishing the goals of PDP integration and utilization and the development and training of supervisor competencies at the same time that the redesign of SPD fund eligibility and distribution is completed, there should be some “movement of the needle” through late 2011 and into 2012. All of these significant initiatives possess great potential for fostering increased employee satisfaction and engagement, grooming better supervisors and managers and lend traction to more effective and dynamic talent planning.

Committed and intentional talent planning and professional development efforts will eventually increase the number of individuals in the “leadership pipeline” who would be ready and able to fill key positions. The need to fill key positions will become more critical as the College experiences the first wave of “baby boomers” retiring.

For Team 3.3 - Wellness

Yes, the College can expect to continue to see increases in self-reported wellness practices between 2011 and 2013. Incentives and added program variety continue to encourage participation.

Are there significant challenges or opportunities related to Goal 3 that should be noted?

For Goal 3.1

The governance review underway provides an opportunity to improve our governance model based on what we have learned. It remains a challenge to be certain of which decisions require collaboration and why, and how the collaborative consideration will be structured.

For Goal 3.2

One key challenge will be to shift employees’ paradigm from “the way it has been done in the past” and integrate new perspectives, new procedures and processes, and new skills into our ongoing practice. In regards to supervisory training, for example, a shift has to occur between looking at job descriptions based on competencies vs. skills. Another example relates to moving away from the term “succession planning” which entails the concept of grooming specific individuals for specific positions and adopting “talent planning” which reflects the desire to have a pool of talent no matter who the talent is.

The Data Analysis Results from the 2006 Strategic Planning process indicate that the number of students enrolling in community colleges is increasing at the same time that the retirement of baby boomers is creating workforce vacancies. Valencia’s current expansion plans are compounding this vacancy challenge. Additionally, current HR trends predict that the necessity of growing talent from within due to both a shortage of qualified external resources and the desire to foster employee engagement and retention is increasing. This is further evidenced in the “Alerting a Talent Void” article in NACUBO’s Business Officer Journal regarding Daytona State College’s response to the anticipated leadership gap prompted by retirements. For these reasons Valencia must be focused on growing and developing employees to their full potential.

There are several challenges in effectively implementing the PDP across the College. For example, it could be years before the PDP truly become a part of the culture. It is evident that the training for utilizing the PDP has been inconsistent across the College and some teams have not been trained as of the writing of this report. It is recognized and supported that any teams that have gone through the PDP training should be utilizing the process. Is there an effective tracking mechanism in place to ensure that each employee has received a PDP annually? Who ensures that the PDP has been completed honestly and effectively and not treated as a “paper drill”? There seems to be some indication that there are areas within the college who are not embracing the PDP fully enough to make it significant and meaningful to all employees. There have been reports that some managers are having employees fill out PDP’s with no discussion, obviously defeating to the purpose of the PDP. There are also reports that a large majority of administrative and executive staff are not using this process. There is a need for upper management to demonstrate their support of this process by utilizing the PDP and effectively modeling the work. Some employees are not seeing the connection between one’s current PDP and a potential future career path. Rather many complain that the PDP is just another form to fill out. These employees will continue to request to attend random conferences and workshops without proper direction and counsel from supervisors and managers. It is recognized that the PDP should be an on-line tool to enable data to be more quantitative, as well as qualitative as it is now. Further, the PDP should be viewed as a coaching and developing tool, not an instrument for addressing performance issues. For this reason, Valencia needs to have a formalized Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) process in place for when performance isn’t where it should be. Hopefully, the continuous improvement approach of the PDP consulting team and ongoing communication from the Office for Organizational Development to ensure the eventual successful implementation of the College’s new Performance Development Process through training, coaching, consulting, and on-line support tools will help overcome these challenges. Valencia has a prime opportunity to get the process right by laying a firm foundation, building a supportive structure, prompting supervisors to complete the various phases of the process and monitoring feedback from employees.

Measuring employee engagement is certainly an issue as well. There is study being conducted by teams within the Human Resources Department regarding a new Employee Relations model. One of the elements of this work is determining how to promote employee engagement. The challenge lies in how employee engagementwould be measured and how individual employee goals should be tied to larger institutional goals. A thoughtfully conducted PDP should prove to be a key element in successfully achieving the goal of maximizing employee engagement. Additionally, in theory, Weave On-Line should be able to assist with this as well, but it appears as though the College is still a ways away from having Weave perform at this specific level.

For Goal 3.3 - Wellness

Yes, there are obstacles. Not all campuses have the facilities to support all desired wellness activities, meaning that opportunities vary from one campus to the next. The adequacy of facilities is expected to remain a challenge on smaller campuses. Also, not all employees’ schedules can accommodate wellness activities during the day, which can be an impediment.

Have we learned anything that we are currently using or that we might use to improve the success of future efforts towards achieving Objective 3.2?

For 3.1 - Collaboration

Yes, we are learning how to conduct a review of governance. The task force that is doing this work will include an evaluation of the process used, which will be helpful in the future when a new review is undertaken.

For 3.2 – Career Growth
Identifying essential competencies and behavioral indicators will prove crucial to successfully meeting the goal of designing and implementing an effective talent management process. These competencies can be shared with hiring committees and be utilized in the PDP.

The College must have an effective Employee Relations model in place including meaningful awards/recognition, employee climate surveys, and mediation to expediently and effectively address employee issues if the College is to successfully meet the goals of Objective 3.2, Investing in Each Other.

The team also discussed the College’s interpretation of FLSA requirements to prevent non-exempt employees from teaching. Is there a way to get around this, to offer career development opportunities like adjunct teaching to non-exempt employees without violating college policy? The phrase heard was, “We grow them, and then lose them” in describing how career staff employees go to Seminole State College, for example, where they gain teaching experience and get hired. Valencia loses that valuable employee who otherwise would most likely have stayed at Valencia.

Efforts have to be made to demonstrate the College’s long-term commitment to the talent management process. There are some employees who believe that this concern is only a passing phase like many others in the past. The College’s senior staff must find ways to deliberately demonstrate the commitment to this process. Once it is apparent that the College is seeking internal talent to fill vacancies as new positions arise or individuals retire, Valencia’s employees will begin to acknowledge the reality, the significance, and the importance of such a process.

The team observed that because of the level of diversity among Valencia’s employees, no “across the board” process or tool will be satisfactory to all Valencia’s employees in achieving the goals of “Investing in Each Other”. The mission of strategic planning as applied to this specific goal will best be accomplished by remembering the broad spectrum of employees likes, desires and aims.

For 3.3 - Wellness

Yes, we have learned that employees embrace opportunities to exercise when it can be incorporated into their daily routine on campus, and that the incentive points are effective in encouraging participation.

Does the team have any recommendations regarding Goal 3 or the measure being used to gauge progress?

For 3.1 – Collaboration

No recommendations at this time.

For 3.2 – Career Growth

As the PDP is introduced and integrated into the Valencia system, upper level managers must monitor the process to ensure the integrity of the tool. To simply claim that every employee has had a PDP established does not guarantee that an effective discussion has occurred between the manager and the employee. PDP’s have to be meaningful to both the manager and, perhaps more importantly, to the employee. The Office for Organizational Development could survey managers and employees to determine the satisfaction with and the effectiveness of the process to verify that the goals of the tool are being met across the College. To ensure success, feedback must be encouraged, considered and acted upon, if deemed appropriate.

Additionally, The Office for Organizational Development must continue to be aware of the potential for and identify the critical needs that exist for targeted professional development. Because gaps in training or development will no doubt arise, professional development resources must be either identified as readily available or cultivated to meet the future needs of Valencia’s employees.

Likewise, the SPD Advisory Committee must continue to examine the processes and guidelines of the SPD Program to ensure the relevancy and effectiveness of the program benefits for all Valencia employees.

For 3.3 - Employee Wellness

The team would like to see more uniformity collegewide in opportunities to participate and in the timing of employee participation.Regarding measurement, the college receives helpful data from the passport to wellness program, the use of the incentive program, and through self-reports as a part of the annual health insurance renewal process. Data are reported in aggregate form, and confidentiality of personal data is maintained.