When I left the arena of clinical dietetics in which I worked in the neonatal and adult medical areas and accepted a position with OSU Extension 14 years ago, OSU Extension did not offer an Onboarding Program. We did have an “orientation day” on campus but otherwise our orientation was in the county and with our mentor. (Argabright, 2014) At that time we were assigned one mentor to help guide us and answer our questions. The mentor was from the same program area and close geographic vicinity but that may have been where the similarities ended. The mentor may not have shared a specialization or area of interest with me at all. I believe I fell in the category of the “sink or swim” situation described by Derven (2008) and the readings mentioned that compelling evidence shows this really is not an effective way to guide and hopefully retain those in one’s organization.

The size and complexity of OSU Extension was a major hurdle for me. (Derven, 2008) I muddled along with many programs, most of which are still continuing in some form today, but many of those came about because of seeking out ideas on my own or researching on line, calling specialists, or others in the field. As examples I started a youth cooking class for juvenile offenders and their families in conjunction with the juvenile court, an adult to youth mentoring program with two schools. I also started a truancy school for students and families, that the Judge in the county requested and numerous nutrition programs with the hospital and health department.

Fast forward 12 years when many FCS Educators were accepting the early retirement offer and our county began having financial difficulties. It was appearing that the county would only have the funds to support a 4H Educator. The OSU Extension structural model at that time involved EERA leaders. Our EERA leader, who would be retiring, approached me about a “new opportunity.” With all the FCS vacancies in the Erie Basin she explained that there would be no coverage for the SNAP-Ed (then FNP) program assistants in many counties. FCS and OSU Extension Administration were interested in having a pilot or trial position to help cover those program assistants in the 10 county area that were without programmatic supervision. Although apprehensive, I moved into this position. I had never been a County Director, thus had never worked with the budget, purchasing, and other areas of hiring and training, but I soon learned this would all fall under my responsibilities. How was I going to learn about purchasing, budgets, hiring and training and all the other skills I needed? Who would I call and turn to? What happened if I failed? Reese (2005) talks about “old road maps helping to provide a sense of direction, but new positions meaning new territory to navigate.” I really was in a world of “new.”

I would have loved to have an Onboarding Program that allowed me to learn the OSU Extension purchasing, budgets, hiring and other human resource policies and procedures. I was very lucky to have a Community Nutrition Leader that had years of experience who was only an email and phone call away. And that became my umbilical cord/mentor. I would email or call Joyce when the unexpected or novel request or question arose and work through it in each situation, as each county was vastly different. I also took it upon myself to schedule meetings, referred to as self-directed in this week’s PowerPoint, (Argabright, 2014) with the Business Office Manager and the person at OSP who processes all of our expenses. I spent a day with each to see what I could glean from their work that would help me in my new world. Unexplored in the area of positions, we as a team looked at pros and cons of this type of a position possibly becoming the norm. Every week we held a conference call to catch up and discuss what was and was not working, what had been accomplished that week, etc…. This actually allowed for timely performance feedback between the Community Nutrition Leader, Director, and FCS AD as well as other state programmatic staff. (Reese, 2005)

Other structural changes such as Educators leaving to take field specialist positions created more need for the SNAP-Ed coverage in EERAs and soon I was piloting a 20 county area as opposed to a 10 county. With the retirement of the Community Nutrition Leader, my source of knowledge was gone, and now we have new grant guidance as well as the Regional Program Specialists positions created. As I applied and moved into this position, I had a little more experience, mostly learned the “hard way” that now I could share with our team. Again an Onboarding Program would have been so helpful. The other two program specialists had had some County Director experience, which does help, and all three of us work together, very well, in my opinion. We not only work on projects together, but email, call and text each other scenarios and situations that we work through together. I love our team and enjoy the job very much, but could I have performed better with more direction and guidance early on?

How might our experience have looked had we had an Onboarding experience at the start? What theories come to mind as I look at our situation? Vroom’s Expectancy theory? Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? Motivation and Hygiene theory? So many diverse and unique county situations, personalities of program assistants and county office staff and so much to figure out and learn. Wonderful experience, but maybe less intimidating and stressful with a great onboarding program and support! (Argabright, 2014) I am very happy and supportive of OSU Extension having such a program and believe it will only make our organization better and stronger!

References:

Argabright, K. (2014). Motivation, Supervision, and Onboarding. Video PPT.

Derven, M., (2008). Management onboarding, T&D, 49-52.

Reese, V. (2005). Maximizing your retention and productivity with on-boarding. Retrived from: www.interscience.wiley.com.

As the Farm Bill allocation clears USDA and Food and Nutrition Services and funnels down to Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Ohio’s SNAP-Ed team is soon to be on a path of hiring and growth.  The state team has been meeting frequently in anticipation of this occurring.   What seems like a fairly straight forward process is very complex in part due to our infrastructure in Ohio State University Extension.   As the article Hiring without Firing stated, as high as 30 to 50% of filled positions end in firing or resignation. (Fernandez-Araoz, 2006)  One of the goals I hope to meet is for this number to be as low as possible.  How can I assure that I hire the right people for these positions so that they will stay, enjoy their job, make an impact and be well received by their counties?

The topic for next week on orientation, training and on-boarding is a large part of this, in my opinion.  If the people we bring in are not well trained to understand the position and what they need to do, I believe that is one major reason that people get frustrated and leave.  Additionally, the idea of hiring the right people into the “right” environment is the other piece of this puzzle and the topic that I will further address in this reflection.  Fernandez-Araoz stated that “the systematic approach can greatly improve the chances of hiring the right person.  This approach takes time and discipline if it is to be accomplished in the best manner.” (Fernandez-Araoz, 2006)

Each of the four Program Assistants that will be in the first round of hiring for the Northeast Region will require different skills and personal styles to fit the county and the level of supervision they will have.  I will be filling positions in Lorain County, which is a larger urban type county with numerous schools and agencies that a Program Assistant can work as well as Richland County, another suburban county, with a large number of persons on SNAP and living in poverty.  Additionally, Crawford and Wayne County are smaller and more rural counties but the needs of the population are still great and the schools and agency requests continue to mount in each of these counties.  The fact that the county culture is so different in each of these four first county hires is an important factor in this process, but the other important factor that can’t be overlooked is the OSU Extension Office staff and structure that these new hires will be working in.  

SNAP-Ed has an interesting reporting structure for these positions.  In counties with a Family and Consumer Sciences Educator, this person is the direct line of supervision for the program assistant.  This FCS supervisor will be receiving a portion of their salary as release time to help write the grant and supervise the day to day operations of the program in their county. If that person is not the County Director, then they will not handle the human resource issues such as timesheets and performance reviews, but will assist the CED in those roles.  The more interesting scenario occurs in those counties in which no FCS Educator is employed.  In those counties the Program Assistant will receive the majority of their support from the Regional Program Specialist with the CED still handling the human resource portion of their positions.  This is where this becomes tricky and I fear may have more of an influence on our losing people.  With the Regional Program Specialist just an email, text or phone call away, it is still difficult for many people to not have as much day to day personal supervision.  Dependent on the person and the county they are in, some people are more comfortable with this unsupervised and more independent structure and others not as much.   Is this structure partially to blame for the loss of the 3 positions we had during our funding cuts?  Were the program assistants not feeling supported in those counties?  What could I have done or can I do in the future to help prevent this from happening again?  Each time we lose someone we have to reexamine that county position, determine if we should fill the position in the county and start the process over again.  Not only is that process time consuming, but the county is left with no services during this void and the training curve is rather steep for these positions.  For each of these counties I plan a minimum of three weeks of training for the program assistants to feel they are ready to start getting out there teaching on their own.  How much does flexibility and cross-cultural literacy play a role in the success of the program assistant? (Fernandez-Araoz, 2006) Are we trying to move too expediently to get these positions filled and not taking our time to find the right fit? What happens if we cannot find people with the right qualifications to fill these positions?  As we have moved into the less supervised roles we have required some education/certification for the positions.  What if this becomes a problem to find these candidates? For our interviews we do ask the candidates to do a short demonstration about a given topic. Is this helpful to us finding the best candidates?

Finding the right people so that we do not have to redo the search is a time and energy saver. I want to do the right thing from the start so that we have the best fit and quality people to deliver the programming in all counties. I hope through exploring and asking questions I will improve this process and have better fits for all counties!

Fernandez-Araoz, C. (2006) Harvard Business Review.  Retrieved from: http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/1999/07/hiring-without-firing/ar/pr

King, J. (2014). Staffing and Staff Selection PPT.

According to Dr. King in his PowerPoint “Deciding what’s best and knowing how best to decide are two different skills.   The mastery of that difference has major implications for both the decision maker and those affected by the decisions.”  (King, 2014)

I had made my decision about what to write this week, SNAP-Ed of course, when I received another person’s decision via email that caused me to take a moment and reflect before moving ahead.  I have invested a great amount of time and effort writing an OSU Cares Grant for facilitation of a youth mentoring program utilizing the SNAP-Ed nutrition and physical activity curriculum.   This started when I was approached by the school’s health educator and asked to work with the leadership classes in the high school to help fill the need for content when the students performed their required youth mentoring.  The decision the health educator made was not approved by the district curriculum director, so all that work on the grant with a program I am really passionate about got scrapped.  The major implication of this decision affected several people and my job now became having to tell the team.   It is a great example of not only how quickly one decision can impact so many, but how heartbreaking one person’s decision, for no stated reason can be and the ripple effects it can cause.  Why was no reason given for the decision about not wanting to be involved?  Was it not explained well enough?  What had I done wrong?   As I tearfully sent out the emails informing the team that the project would not be able to move forward, the responses I got were overwhelming.  Of course my husband, who is my biggest supporter, was empathic and my mother, who was a former curriculum director and principal was upset, but also my co-workers were super supportive.  These are the types of messages I received confirming my decision that I am at the right place with the right co-workers.

“These setbacks happen all the time. It just means that you are destined to do something else this summer! If anything opens up for me, you will be the first to know! Do not be discouraged- in academia, rejection happens about 90% of the time. Hang in there.”

So my next decision is where do I go with this project from here?  I have many other projects and work tasks on my plate, but I am very passionate about this type of nutrition and physical activity delivery and want to see it work.  I was sure I could empower the program assistants to feel the same about this program as they worked on it!  (Yuki, 2008)  I realize that the idea of clarifying my problem with the answer to “what’s stopping me” is critical at this time. (King, 2014)  I have received much information after the fact regarding the contact I made at the school. Had I had that information previously maybe I would have met with the Superintendent or other members of the school administration rather than the curriculum director, or meet jointly. (Rue & Byars, 2010)  As I work through the steps of the Hoy and Miskel model recognizing and defining the problem, analyzing the difficulty, finding a criteria for a satisfactory solution, developing a new plan and initiating the plan, I believe I need to keep moving ahead. (King, 2014) So the next step for me is to think in terms of the decision style and what I want our next approach to be.  Is it simply a fact finding and investigating position where I find another alternative school if possible or is it to be more collaborative and use teamwork to make the decision? The outpouring of emails has given me contact names and suggestions to start with.  Should I start over and hope to find a match by the grant deadline or should I be patient and try again next year?   By discussing this with my team and inviting the stakeholders to help with that decision the chances of making the right choice should emerge.  (Snowden& Boone, 2007)   What is the right choice at this time?  Is the hurt of this “failure” too fresh to start over right away or should I give it some time?  The grant is due soon therefore time is not on my side at the moment.  Using the decision matrix to determine my next steps has been very helpful and I will continue to fill in the matrix and make the decision along with my team about where to go from here.  Interesting how as one co-worker stated—“other opportunities will come your way and maybe this was meant to be!”  Maybe the topic of decisions fell right at the opportune time!

 King, J., (2014, February). Video lecture.  Leadership and  Decision Making, PPT.

Rue, L.W., & Byars, L.L., (2010). Supervision. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Snowden, D., &Boone, M., (2007). A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making. Harvard Business Review, retrieved from www.hbrreprints.org.

Yuki, G., (2008). Leadership in Organizations (7^th Edition) New York: Pearson.

Many examples of situations of right or wrong came to mind as I read the articles, watched the PowerPoint and read the posts this week, but the situation that kept resurfacing as I read the materials was that of my experience of being on the Regional Director search committee.    According to Yuki (2008) in the Values Emphasized in Theories of Ethical Leadership the definition of integrity, stating the importance of openness and honesty, as well as not attempting to manipulate or deceive people kept playing over and over in my mind.  Is this what I or we as a committee did when we conducted the searches for the Regional Directors?

 I had never been involved with a committee for this type of a position in the past, and although I didn’t realize the time commitment or intensity of the task, I was excited to be asked and agreed to do this. With the conclusion of this process I have to ask myself should I have declined this opportunity.  Did it involve too much time away from my SNAP-Ed responsibilities?  Did our work succeed in doing what we wanted it to do?  Were we ethical in our process and our endeavor?

This committee met twice to determine job descriptions and steps we would take to accomplish our tasks.  We were instructed by the Director of Extension that our goal would be to give pros and cons of the candidates we chose to interview and then the final decision would be made by Administration based on those recommendations.   

Our committee was composed of seven people, with a variety of positions and locations.  I was overwhelmed by the policies, procedures and amount of work required.  We had many more applicants than we could ever interview for the two positions.  We had to be inclusive of all, thus if we did not interview those from minority classes, we would be required to justify our decision.  I asked myself, why not interview and hire the best person for the job based on experience and personal character, not on skin color or other characteristics. Did I or the group have implicit prejudice in those chosen to interview?  Why did we end up with the seven candidates we did, versus others?  Were there unconscious beliefs that drove our group decisions? (Banji, Bazerman &Chugh, 2003)

We chose seven candidates to interview.  Each committee member checked references and set up the interview for one candidate.  What I experienced from the committee chair was a true sense of making sure we were very fair and consistent.   Standardized questions and procedures for all candidates, regardless if they were internal or external, were utilized.  The fairness mentioned in Dr. King’s video lecture was definitely in place in my opinion.  (King, 2014)

 Several interesting issues resulted when we checked references, with one that was very pertinent to the topic of ethics.  One committee member had a “gut feeling” that something was not right after calling the first two references of the candidate.  The references kept referring to a book that the candidate had written but no other details about the book.  After asking the name of the book this committee member googled the title and read the information about the book.  It was discovered that the candidate had been in prison and wrote a book about that experience.  When this was presented to the committee no one knew how to respond.  Do we still interview the candidate?  Do we ask about the situation?  How transparent should we be about this situation?  The committee chair contacted human resources, we were told to continue with the interview and ask a question in the interview about referred journals and other publications.  Was that the right way to handle this situation?  Was it justified to interview this candidate knowing full well that this would disqualify them from being hired?  Was this a good use of the committee’s time?

During the interview we attempted, and I believe succeeded, to have equal time and scenarios of presentations, group interviews, meals etc… with each candidate.   I learned a great deal and believe the experience was very valuable, but was it fair and just to the grant funder, from whom my salary comes, to spend this amount of time on this process?  I work with the Regional Directors and know these positions are stretched too thin and what  the benefit  of having additional directors could do for the SNAP-Ed and the FCS area, but was the cost really worth the time committed to this process?   Does this fall into the category of wasting time at work? (King, 2014)

After the interview process we compiled our pros and cons on the candidates and our committee chair reported our findings to the OSU Extension Director and Administration.  We left believing we had four fairly strong candidates that would be considered for the two positions.  I was surprised when the announcement email containing the new Regional Directors came out.  Three of the four candidates we had scored highly were not included in those receiving the job.   The integrity as defined in the Yugi article as open and honest, the empowerment of sharing sensitive information and the fairness and justice of the experience was now being questioned in my mind. Why wasn’t our committee given any explanation about the decisions made?  Should a conference call or meeting with those of us that had invested so many hours and heart to this process been scheduled to provide some explanation or clarity? Could all of the references we checked and all the people that watched the seminars been wrong about the characters of the candidates?  I have so many more questions than answers.  Where does the fairness and transparency come into place here?  Was this whole process ethical?  Was I unethical for not speaking up more?  Should I have questioned why we interviewed the one candidate?  I did write the committee chair when the email surfaced about those hired for the positions, but should I have asked more questions or simply accepted the decisions and moved on?   I am really not sure if I was “ethical” or not.  What were my responsibilities in this situation?  Was this a process where my “everyday self” became a “better self” or not? (Yugi, 2008)

Banji, M., Bazerman, M., & Chugh, D. (2003). How (Un)ethical are you? Harvard Business Review, 12. 

 King, J., (2014, February). Video lecture.  Ethics and Leadership, PPT.

Yuki, G., (2008). Leadership in Organizations (7^th Edition) New York: Pearson.

I am privileged and fortunate to work with a very talented and diverse group of people on our state Family and Consumer Sciences team and our Community Nutrition team.  As mentioned in Goleman and Boyatzis’s article in the example of Janice (pg. 80), I have some very good role models and coaches that can provide stimulation for my mirror neurons.  (Goleman & Boyatzis, 2008)   Dr. Bruns, who is the FCS AD, often approaches ideas very differently than I or our other Community Nutrition leaders might.

In looking at the Emotional Intelligence traits of our leadership in Community Nutrition, I now wonder as we make and enact policy and procedures if Dr. Bruns had a different purpose in mind when creating the structure of the three Regional Program Specialists.

Prior to our current structure, the Family and Consumer Science Educators in the counties had the supervisory role for their program assistants.  Out of necessity, due to educators retiring and leaving the system, a newly created level was put in place to help oversee the professional development and fiscal management of all program assistants in a region and provide day to day oversight of those program assistants with no county FCS educator.  I now wonder if the intent was to have the three of us, who are out in the counties with the program assistants, be the liaison and buffer to handle the communication out in the counties in more of an emotionally involved or socially smart way.    Goleman stated, “people wonder how leaders can make hard decisions if they are “feeling” for all the people affected.” (Golemen, 1998)  Although we are involved in much of the decision making, we come to those discussions with a different perspective, one from those out there doing the work.    Although I see positive social and emotional characteristics in our state staff, I am not sure the trust and bond between the county personnel and the state personnel is always there.  I think the intention is that we are the conduit between the state staff and the county personnel trying to “develop the genuine interest in and talent for fostering positive feelings in the people whose cooperation and support we need.” (Goleman & Boyatzis, 2008)  Maybe this is what Dr. Bruns had in mind when this was first piloted all along.  Although never stated, has that been the underlying mission or goal?  Could this lead to stronger and more impactful performance?  Are we seeing success as a result of this structure?

Because we have developed the rapport with many of the program assistants and have more of the empathic touch, are we more suited in many situations to deliver the “news?”  I also wonder if because the state leaders are not out in the counties they just don’t see what we see or hear,  thus making the feelings for the “people” come to life.

One of the biggest challenges for me is the ability to develop the trust and bond with the program assistants due to the geographic distance between us.   Since each of the program assistants are so different and have such different needs, (as one of my PAs reminded me once, “we all need something a little different to feel valued”), the time and effort involved to really do this well creates a major challenge.  How can I do a better job of remotely supporting and really knowing the different program assistants I work with?  Since I am unable to physically be in 10 plus counties every week or even month what methods will help me be more successful?

Finally, I really examined the work by George in Northouse’s chapter. (Northouse, 2013)  Is it the sense of strong relationships that I need to continue to build if I really want to see the results I think are possible from this structure?   The third characteristic of authentic leadership that George mentioned was that of establishing the connection with others through sharing ones’ own story and listening to others stories.  Are my personnel experiences and stories too personal, embarrassing or hard for me to share?  Do I take the time to really listen to the program assistants or do I have too many other tasks and concerns on my mind?  Do I fully listen to my daughter when I am home or is my mind on work or other concerning situations?  I am afraid I have more questions than answers at this point.  

 At stated in Northouse, “in a sense people are asking leaders to soften the boundary around their leadership role and to be more transparent.” (Northouse, 2013)   How do I really make that happen?  Do I need to continue my journey of self-awareness and self-knowledge?  As suggested in the Northouse chapter, increasing one’s sensitivity to others’ culture, background and living situations can help leaders develop compassion.  I have applied and been accepted into a study abroad class to Honduras in May. This is a huge stretch for me.  Although very nervous, I am also very excited to learn more about myself through really opening my mind to new and different experiences and being flexible.  What can I learn about myself and give to others from this experience? 

 I have many more questions than answers in this week’s reflection with more topics of interest than space allows.  I really look forward to further topics and exploring the team leadership in times of changes.  How do I focus on the skills that will lead to the greatest success of our team?

References:

Golemen, D. (1998). What Makes a Leader? Harvard Business Review.

Goleman, D., & Boyatzis, R. (2008). Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership. Harvard Business Review.

Northouse, P. (2013) Leadership Theory and Practice (6^th Edition).  California: Sage