Managing People in Nonprofit Organizations: Part II

Managing People in Nonprofit Organizations: Part II Thomas P. Holland, Ph.D. Institute for Nonprofit Organizations University of Georgia

This is Part II of the training unit on Leadership and Management of Nonprofit Organizations.This part focuses on managing people.

Managing People includes • Writing job descriptions • Preparing personnel policies • Hiring • Delegating • Problem solving • Motivating • Communicating • Managing meetings • Making presentations • Appraising performance • Developing staff • Dealing with conflicts • Firing

Defining a New Job Role • Recognize need through problems in completing work assignments or • Anticipate need when planning for new service or program • Specify tasks and competencies through examination of current job roles and gaps • Identify how new role fits with organizational structure, work flow • Write job description • Estimate costs, including salary, benefits, taxes

Writing Job Descriptions • Define the tasks, functions, responsibilities expected of the position • Specify to whom person reports • Identify the knowledge, skills, experience, and qualifications needed to do the job • Describe the criteria and means for assessing work performance • Set salary and benefits

Competencies • Competencies are sets of behaviors that include skills, knowledge, abilities, and personal attributes that are critical to successful work accomplishment. • Identifying competencies needed to accomplish organizational goals serves to • describe the ideal workforce • inform management decisions about feasible objectives • guide employee behaviors and expectations • provide basis for job descriptions, hiring, and for staff training and development • Identify work tasks that should be outsourced

Personnel Policies • Set forth the guidelines and rules governing behavior as a member of the organization, including • Classifications • Requirements • Prohibitions • Procedures, regulations • Ensure consistency in personnel decisions • Minimize staff dissatisfaction, grievances

Typical Components • 1. Job classifications • 2. Terms and conditions of employment • 3. Affirmative action • 4. Recruitment procedures • 5. Compensation • 6. Benefits • 7 Work schedules • 8. Attendance and leaves • 9. Holiday schedules • 10. Leaves of absence • 11. Vacation time • 12. Confidentiality • 13. Conflicts of interest • 14. Harassment & substance abuse rules • 15. Safety regulations • 16. Performance reviews • 17. Staff development • 18. Termination • 19. Appeals, grievances • 20. Work products and files • 21. Forms for • Time off • Expense reimbursement • Annual reviews

Generating Applications • Prepare job description • Decide if role is to be staff or volunteer • Advertise the position, starting internally • Provide sufficient information for reader to do self-screening • Title and general responsibilities • Required skills, experience, education, limitations • Closing date for consideration • Identify application forms and supporting documents required (ie. resume, recommendation letters, references) • Contact information

Screening Applications • Examine applicant’s career objectives • Work history, jobs, dates, gaps • Competencies match those needed by organization? • On best candidates, gather and evaluate reference letters • Get others’ views of applications • Select a few finalists for further investigation

Interviewing Applicants • Contact those on final list to set interview times, location, expectations • Prepare interview questions and follow them consistently in every interview • Questions must focus on performing the duties of the job, not about characteristics unrelated to job (ie. age, marital status, religion, handicapping conditions) • Consider open-ended questions, such as • “Why do you thing your skills are appropriate for this position?” • “What was your biggest challenge in past job and how did you handle it?” • Introduce them to others in organization • Ask about salary expectations and when person could begin work

Compensation • A systematic approach to providing monetary value to employees in exchange for work performed • Forms • Base pay • Commissions • Overtime • Merit pay • Travel, meals, housing allowances • benefits

Candidate Selection • Get impressions of everyone who saw applicants, starting with interviewer(s) • Ask which they prefer and why • Ask about perceived gaps, problems • Look for one with most positive recommendations • Take recommendation to final decision-maker • Inform finalist by telephone and letter

Orienting Newcomer • Go over in greater detail the position, expectations, limitations, policies and procedures, resources, questions • Take to office and provide keys, supplies, important documents, and individual copy of personnel manual • Tour facility and introduce staff, including executive, supervisor, mentor • Invite group to meet for lunch, encourage other social interactions • Schedule any needed training • Meet with person regularly to resolve questions about position, performance expectations and reviews, common challenges

Make use of Volunteers • Traditional “busy-work” not interesting or motivating to most people • Begin with workforce needs and identify tasks at all levels that may be done by volunteers • Must engage staff in planning • Follow similar steps of preparing job description, recruitment, screening, orienting, training, supervising, firing • Monitor performance and satisfactions, make adjustments to retain good volunteers • Recognition and appreciation are essential for retention

Delegation • Assign responsibility for accomplishing a goal or objective to a member of the staff • Allow that person to formulate activities needed to accomplish assignment • Builds motivation • Increases competencies • Risk of assuming “Why bother? I could do the work in much less time.”

Steps of delegation • Give whole tasks to individuals/ teams • Select the right person/team for tasks, matching skills and interests with tasks • Clearly specify results expected, not the methods for accomplishing them • Make sure recipient understands and agrees with assignment • Agree on criteria for monitoring progress, times for reporting & feedback • Maintain open lines of two-way communication • Set up means for addressing problems/ barriers • Evaluate and reward successful performance

Problem Solving • Problems inevitably arise when people try to work together • Impulse is to react in ways that have been used before • Satisficing: looking close to familiar solutions, selecting easiest one (fewest demands) to apply • Instead, seek to understand why you and others think there is a problem • Ask what do we see, where, how occurring, when, with whom, why, own role in it? • Seek to frame the issue in ways different from past • Engage others in examining definitions and potential solutions • Set priorities in addressing components

Further steps in problem-solving • Examine potential causes for the problem; ask for views and advice from staff, peers, managers, outsiders • Brainstorm to identify creative alternative approaches to solving it in long term, including asking others views, opinions • Screen alternatives for feasibility, likelihood of long-term resolution, risks and benefits, potential consequences

Staff Motivation • Motivating others starts with motivating yourself. Enthusiasm is contagious. What energizes you? • Find out what motivates other individuals (ask, listen, observe, recognize differences, honor them) • Note important distinction between satisfiers and hygiene factors • Link assignments and rewards with individual motivations, and keep fresh on this as work and people change over time • Align tasks with mission and goals of organizations, and help others stay clear of those links. “Here’s why you and your skills are so essential for our success.” • While positive relationships are important, make sure policies, assignments, and procedures are clear and fair to everyone • Recognize and celebrate successes in variety of ways

Communications • Everyone should submit periodic progress reports to supervisors; each is crucial audience for other • Hold regular meetings with staff to discuss progress on assignments, with individual/team summaries, open feedback • Learn to listen actively; ask for clarification, check to see if you and others understand one another’s points • Demonstrate practices of open communications, asking for and giving feedback • Encourage staff to initiate discussions when tasks accomplished or barriers encountered • Solicit views of ways to deal with barriers; invite others to help solve problems. • Spread news of successes; show appreciation for others

Managing Meetings I • Meetings are costly in staff time, so must be productive • Decide specifically what should be accomplished with meeting • Identify who should attend, based on purpose of meeting • Decide on meeting agenda and work plan (structure, format) • Make sure agenda engages participants early and actively. What do you want them to do and why? • By each agenda item, indicate the type of action sought (decision, vote, brainstorming, assignment) and time estimates for each item • Conclude with brief evaluation of meeting

Managing Meetings II • Invite participants, providing clear statement of meeting purpose and expectations for participants • Make sure that agenda and background materials are distributed to participants well in advance of meeting • Open meeting with summary of purposes, making sure everyone understands expectations and goals • Clarify ground rules (such as participate actively, stay focused on topic, maintain momentum, get to closure) • Make sure someone takes notes and distributes them • Clarify own role in meeting; model the behavior you want others to follow

Managing Meetings III • Manage the time carefully, keep the process moving • Make sure that extraverts don’t crowd out the introverts by calling on silent ones and reminding those who have spoken • Ask participants to help you keep track of time • If time gets out of hand, ask participants for input on resolution • Do periodic checks on satisfaction, suggestions • Check your conclusions with group on conclusions and delegated tasks • Leave 10-15 minutes at end for open evaluation • Try to end on time and on positive note

Presentations • Identify the goals and purposes of your presentation, what you want to accomplish with this audience • State clearly the top 2-3 things you want these listeners to hear and take away. • Start presentation with brief overview of the purposes and plan of the session, why topic is important for them. • Maintain positive tone, engagement with audience, use humor when possible, give examples of key points • Make sure that handouts or slides address key points, use consistent format. Check out computer in advance. DO NOT read slides or handouts. • Maintain eye contact, talk a bit louder and slower than usual in conversations, stand still, use gestures, smile • Invite questions and feedback. • Conclude with restatement of the major things you want audience to take away.

Performance Appraisals • Provide informal feedback on performance when first noted in work. Don’t allow negative build-up. • Design formal appraisal method based on job description, assignments, and expectations • Use standardized forms, available to everyone in advance (many are available on Internet) • Include closed-ended ratings and space for comments • Announce schedule to everyone, then stick to it • Remind individuals of scheduled reviews • Invite individuals to offer changes to job description and to evaluation forms

More on Performance Appraisals • Record accomplishments, exhibited strengths and limitations, recommendations for improvement • Use observed behaviors of that employee, not hearsay or rumor • Invite employee’s input, self-assessments, accomplishments, needs for improvement • Provide honest, constructive feedback based on own observations • Disagreements are acceptable; note them • Nothing should be surprising if you have given informal feedback as work has proceeded • Allow employee to add own statement at end of form • Conclude with next steps for improving performance, resources, and expectations for demonstrating change

Many Ways of Staff Development • On-the-job experience • Formal or informal learning • Apprenticeships, internships • Career counseling • Coaching, mentoring • Continuing education • Professional conferences • Job rotations, cross-training • Peer learning, feedback

Forms of Learning for Individuals • Training: helping person learn specific knowledge or skills. • Coaching: guidance on mastering skills or solving interpersonal problems (using, for example, 360 assessments, Johari’s window, Myers-Briggs, stress management techniques) • Goal setting: helping people formulate goals and priorities for improving their own effectiveness • Performance appraisal: modifying ways of assessing employee performance more carefully and using feedback to improve. • Job descriptions: useful when job duties are ambiguous and expected results unclear. • Cross-training: rotating individual to other positions in organization • Career planning: for individuals who have outgrown their roles and want new skills and challenges. • Procedures manual: formalizing the approved methods for handing common problems in work. • Process improvement: steps to improve the effectiveness of ways people do their work and interact.

Addresses current, real-world problem Person highly motivated to solve current problem Involves actual applying new ideas and materials Exchange ongoing feedback about trial experiences Self-directed, learner centered Based on competence and trust Addresses pre-formulated problems External motivations by rewards and penalties Involves applying ideas already provided Periodic feedback via tests Learner is dependent on the teacher Based on power and control Andragogy vs Pedagogy

Requirements of Adult Learners • Must be willing to grow, take risks, face new experiences • Openness to ongoing feedback from trials of new ideas • Trust instincts, engage in self-directed learning • Requires high internal motivation to pursue growth, mastery of new skills, self-improvement

Requirements of Supervisors • Include learners in development planning to build engagement and ownership • Schedule regular times to discuss progress and concerns • Provide ongoing feedback and support • Maximize opportunities for feedback focused on successful applications of new ideas

How Supervisors Help Staff Learn • Help person identify needed improvements in performance • Encourage person to see knowledge as contextual, created together • Create partnership via learning contract • Foster atmosphere of trust, openness • Offer ideas about inquiry, critical thinking, making decisions, personal choice, self-assessment • Recognize individual learning styles • Use job experiences as opportunities to learn • Promote learning networks, learning exchanges

Coaching focuses on a specific job skill Agenda set by supervisor Short-term engagement Provides specific feedback to improve skill Tell person how to do task Watch as she tries Give feedback to fine-tune Person tries until she gets it right Mentoring focuses on overall career development Agenda set by mentee Long-term engagement Provides more general, non-directive interactions Explore work issues together Discuss options, possible consequences Offer suggestions, support, encouragement Roles of Coach and Mentor

Styles of Learning • People have different approaches to learning, such as • Visual, auditory, tactile • Reflective, experiential • Explore the differences by searching the Internet for “learning style.” • Make use of several of the questionnaires to identify your own style and to understand those of others. • Identify the implications of these differences for the performance of work teams. • Identify approaches to staff development activities that would take into account the differences among participants.

Steps in formal, systematic staff development • Assessing what knowledge, skills, abilities are needed by learners • Designing the learning activities, including goals and objectives, methods for implementation, and criteria for evaluation • Developing the training methods, materials, schedule, budget • Implementing them • Evaluating whether goals and objectives have been reached (and may address the quality of the training itself)

Self vs Other Directed • Self-directed development: learner decides about goals, what experiences are to be sought, and how to do so • Other-directed: Supervisor responsible for setting goals, planning activities, applying criteria. • Mixes are common.

Planning for Staff Development • Determine goals, based on assessments, gaps in performance or job requirements, participants’ interests • Identify competencies needed, set goals • Specify knowledge, skills needed to reach goals; formulate each into learning objectives • Identify resources, activities, methods, and persons needed to complete each objective • Formulate learning activities for learning styles of participants • Specify criteria and procedures for assessing completion of each goal and objective • Set out the sequence steps for implementation, timetable • Identify the costs for each step; formulate into budget

Times and Ways of Evaluation • Before training: What evidence is there that identified methods will really result in participants’ mastery of needed knowledge and skills? • During implementation (formative): monitor engagement; collect feedback from participants; use short tests • After completion (summative): compare current skills with prior levels; supervisor observes work performance; use outside expert evaluators

Handling Conflicts • Definition: when two or more values or perspectives are contradictory in nature • May be internal (within self) or external (between two or more people). • Conflicts are problems when they hamper productivity, lower morale, cause inappropriate behaviors if poorly handled. • Conflicts are useful when they • Raise important but unaddressed problems • Motivate people to attend to them • Help people learn how to recognize and benefit from differences

Things that provoke workplace conflicts • Poor communications, employees surprised by new decisions, don’t understand reasons for decisions, come to distrust supervisors • Alignment of resources doesn’t match work expectations, disagreement about who does what • Personal differences, conflicting values and actions, dislike of aspects of others (that we don’t like in ourselves) • Abuses of power, authoritarianism • Inconsistent or uninformed leadership, passing the buck, repeated poor handling of an issue, managers don’t understand the jobs of subordinates. • Organizational culture of blaming others for problems

Ways People Deal with Conflicts • Avoid or ignore it. May worsen conflict over time. • Accommodate: give in to others. May be useful when you know you will have a better opportunity in the near future. • Compromise: mutual give-and-take when you want to get beyond the issue • Collaborate: seek ways of working together for mutual goals without trying to solve issue • Compete: Try to get your way, expressing strong convictions about your position, seeking to persuade others. May include efforts to discredit opposition. • Warfare: polarizing the conflict, using formal and informal power to undermine opposition and gain control of organizational resources.

Conflict Managementin increasing order of difficulty • Recognize that some differences are useful and always present • Prevent initiation of conflicts by developing clear policies and culture of shared responsibility for solving problems • Set limits on ways conflict may be expressed • Help individuals understand triggering factors and alternative responses • Help individuals find different ways of coping with consequences of conflicts • Resolve basic issues underlying the conflict

Supervisory Actions to Minimize Conflicts • Keep current on job descriptions, making sure that roles don’t conflict and no tasks fall into cracks • Build positive relationships with staff, meet with them regularly, ask about accomplishments and challenges • Get regular status reports, including needs and planned next steps • Provide staff development opportunities on key aspects of work • Develop procedures for handling challenges, drawing upon employees’ input • Hold regular meetings to communicate status of projects, resources and challenges, new initiatives • Foster culture of shared responsibility and mutual problem-solving

Steps in Managing Conflicts • Know what you don’t like in yourself, and recognize that we react negatively to those things in others. • Stop arguing, move to discussion between adults • Manage yourself in interactions. Speak calmly even if other doesn’t. Maintain eye contact. • Move discussion in private room. • Allow person time to vent without reacting or interrupting. • Check to make sure you have heard their concerns correctly. Ask clarifying questions as appropriate, making no judgments about responses. • Clarify where/whether organizational policies touch on issue.

Further Steps • Identify points where you agree and disagree. • Address the issues, not the person. Rule out personal attacks. • Keep focus on the mission and on the future, not the past • Listen carefully, respectfully • Seek mutual solutions. Ask “what could we do to fix this problem?” If more complaints, go back to previous steps, then ask question again. • If possible, identify at least one action that can be done by one or both of you. • If not, ask for a cooling off period before meeting again. Could we “agree to disagree?” • Seek advice from manager. • Consider inviting in mediator if appropriate.

Firing • Should come only after several attempts to change behavior, with documented feedback and warnings to employee and based on specific personnel policies • Take time to talk with supervisors and managers about step, gathering ideas and suggestions • Meet with employee promptly and speak clearly, constructively, avoiding blaming • Document decision in letter to employee with copy to personnel file • Restrict employee’s access to organizational files and resources

Firing Specifics See SHRM handout for overview Issues to consider: • Last paycheck—no statute in GA regarding when to provide. • Last paycheck=last leverage • Suggest providing last paycheck when you receive all company-owned property.

Firing Specifics Cont’d • Vacation and other pay—no GA statute since no requirement to provide • Pay per company policy, if any • If no policy, suggest following company precedent • If no precedent, suggest using vacation pay as incentive—e.g. for not being disruptive as they leave the building. • COBRA—GA has “mini-COBRA” statute • Companies with 2-19 employees must cover for remainder of month plus offer COBRA for another 3 months

Firing Specifics Severance Pay • No requirement to provide but can be used as an incentive similar to vacation pay

Managing People in Nonprofit Organizations: Part II