Integrating Organizational Values With Workplace Performance

With an end goal to build and maintain a new workplace culture to support workplace performance, the central human resources shared services group for a large university initiated a pilot project to improve the performance of their processes, systems, and its human resources. Through the guidance of a performance improvement professional facilitator, the central group consulted various cultural models and change management methods to identify a pilot project. The implementation of a multilevel change methodology for performance improvement was applied to the work performed by the human resources information services (HRIS) group. Using their newly defined mission, vision, and values statements as a guide, the central human resources shared services group piloted one project with the subgroup then moved onto others. This case study focuses on the pilot project within the human resources information services (HRIS) group, the work of the performance improvement facilitator and the group's members, and the outcomes of their efforts.

Resolving a Workforce Crisis in the U.S. Roofing Industry

The National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA), a nonprofit construction trade association established in 1886, was challenged to find a solution to overcome a severe industry workforce shortage that emerged as the economy recovered from the great recession. The NRCA leadership, staff, and other industry stakeholders focused on developing strategies to address the workforce crisis head-on and committed resources to develop a series of performance-based programs to overcome the crisis. The new initiatives relied on limited U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data to support development decisions. Aware that the available BLS data was insufficient, NRCA commissioned the Arizona State University (ASU) to conduct the roofing industry's first ever comprehensive demographics research study. New data gleaned from the research changed not only NRCA's approach to resolving the workforce crisis, but it may potentially change how the entire roofing industry operates.

Cultural Communications of Mainland United States-Based Organizations and Their Hawaiian Workforces

The Hawaiian Islands are a diverse melting pot of people, cultures, and languages that make doing business in the state a unique challenge for organizations based on the mainland United States. While Hawaii is indeed the 50th state in the union, culturally they are more closely aligned with Asia and other Polynesian cultures than the United States as a whole. Doing business in Hawaii can often feel as though one is doing business in a foreign country, a place where one only partially speaks the language. Understanding these cultural differences and shaping communication styles to align with the cultural values of the Hawaiian sub-culture is essential to success for any organization planning to start operations in Hawaii. Through a process of cultural analysis, organizations can more effectively manage change within their operations and engage their Hawaiian workforces with great success.

Root Solution

There are three kinds of solutions to business problems: symptom solution, pattern solution, and root solution. Symptom is simply visible phenomena; they are not problems; therefore, symptom solution is only temporary, such as adding cold water to a boiled water. Pattern solution looks alright, but it is not sustainable, costly, and sometimes risky; therefore, it also won't help the business in the long run, such as adding cold water through a thin pipe to the same boiled water. Root solution is powerfully simple, because it dives to the bottom of the issue, such as turning the stove off. Obviously, businesses need to seek root solutions. For years, Company Q has been trying to seek the “right” answers to manage the company, but facts have always left them disappointed, until they found out that the GPS-IE® Management Improvement System is truly systematic, logic- and result-driven, and sustainable.

Applying Appreciative Inquiry, Performance Improvement, and Positive Psychology

As a member of multiple organizations, one may find that there are relationships and situations that span those organizations. When reviewing the intersection of those relationship/situations, it is a good idea to use innovative principles and practices of performance improvement to offer recommendations. This case study describes the approach to reach a positive recommendation for a non-profit, faith-based organization. By using concepts of appreciative inquiry, the ten principles of human performance improvement (ISPI), and positive psychology as described in Flow by (Csikszentmihalyi in 1990, the practitioner was able to “step back” and view the big picture. The situation required reviewing whether the church daycare could continue to sustain operations despite a challenging financial outlook. Some members of the church council were concerned about the financial reports while others thought that the daycare was a valuable ministry that should be continued. The council president appointed a task force to review viability of the daycare organization.

A Leadership Coaching Case Study

Barbara, Manager of Talent Development for a business-to-business sales operations outsourcing company, was badly underperforming. Her manager had received complaints about the quality of her customer service and collaboration with peers. Her manager endorsed coaching to improve critical skills and related performance. Barbara enthusiastically accepted the chance to be coached. Client and coach co-designed an individual development plan with goals. The client completed self-assessments and the coach structured 360 interviews and debriefed the data. Client and coach refined the development plan and goals. Coaching calls were held regularly, with learning assignments made and regular reviews done for progress, challenges, and lessons learned. Overall, the client progressed in several emotional intelligence skills, delivered better customer service, and collaborated better. When reassigned to an individual contributor role, she adapted well, led, and contributed to two critical projects.

All the World's a Stage

This chapter provides a case study where a systematic, organized method of storytelling, presented as the Story-based Learning model, is used to design a series of integrated and engaging activities for cybersecurity training (to protect computer systems and networks) that fosters deliberate practice and improves performance. To address the talent shortage in the global cybersecurity workforce, the client developed a blended curriculum designed to provide practical experience to prospective cybersecurity professionals. A key component of this curriculum was the capstone exercises, activities focused on application of the content introduced in the courseware. Essentially, this is a story of using stories, one of humanity's oldest technologies, to solve the problem of training and cultivating expertise in future cybersecurity personnel. Based on solid prior evidence supporting the use of stories to increase engagement and retention, this case study focuses on detailing the thought process used to reach this set of solutions, as captured by the Story-based Learning model.

Advancing Gender Equity Through Mentoring and Leadership Development

A new president and provost at the University of the Southeast (pseudonym) recognized the high rate of attrition among female and minority faculty and implemented a faculty mentoring and leadership development program to improve gender equity in a large higher education institution in the US. In total, 28 tenured faculty of which 60% were women participated in this 9-month program. The authors designed this program to be an organizational change intervention; hence, a human performance technology framework was used to design and evaluate this mentoring and leadership development program, along with a logic model, and Kirkpatrick's four levels of evaluation. This mixed method study included pre- and post-surveys (T1, n = 26; T2, n = 14) to determine participant satisfaction and knowledge gained and assessed behavior change through participants' interviews (n=18). Outcomes determined that human performance technology, a logic model, and Kirkpatrick's evaluation approach were useful methods to design and assess this program.

The Flow System

This chapter provides an overview of techniques, tools, and methods for organizations to manage and operate in today's complexity. Current literature is lacking in providing techniques and tools for organizations to operate in complex environments. This gap in the literature is especially troubling for practitioners who are trying to learn and apply new tools to support their customers in implementing new innovation initiatives. The techniques, tools, and methods provided in this chapter were derived from a joint effort from academia, industry, and the Navy. This juxtaposition of tools and practices provides a praxis that ranges from creativity, innovation, performance improvement, organization development, organizational improvement, and organizational transformation.

The Use of Companion Applications to Support Instructor-Led Training

This case study reflects on the use of a mobile training companion application to overcome limitations of supporting a level-three evaluation of the participants following a face-to-face training course. A level-three evaluation determines how well a person that attended training is able to transfer the information they learned to their job. The rapid adoption of smartphones enables the creation of solutions not previously considered viable in this industry, which has typically used either a traditional web-based training strategy or a traditional face-to-face training strategy to meet its training objectives. This solution is especially important because the training attendees work individually and each person covers a different territory than another, making it even more difficult to measure transfer.