CASE
STUDY: ROCHESTER
INSTITUTE
OF TECHNOLOGY’S
HUMAN RESOURCES DEPARTMENT INVESTS IN IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY
AND TEAM CONFIDENCE
Client:
Rochester
Institute of Technology (RIT) – Industry: Higher
Education
Project
Location: Rochester,
New
York
Client
Profile: Founded
in 1829, RIT is an internationally recognized leader in
professional and career-oriented education. Enrolling 15,000+
students in eight colleges, RIT offers an incredible array of
academic programs with more than 92 undergraduate degrees,
70 graduate degrees, and four doctorate programs. As one of
the oldest and largest cooperative education programs in the
world, RIT helps students obtain a co-op (or an internship)
with a leading company in their academic field of study,
giving students real work experience to display on their
resumes when they graduate. With a unique blend of rigor and
imagination, of specialization and perspective, of intellect
and practice, RIT is a vibrant community of ambitious and
creative students from more than 95
countries.
Business
Challenge: Finding
something. That was the issue causing shared frustration by
the Assistant Vice President of HR and her assistant. Getting
their hands on the information they needed, when they needed
it, just was not happening. To have a successful relationship
and smoothly operating office environment, any good
manager/assistant team needs to be able to find that synergy
on how best to work together. Effectively managing paper,
filing it, finding it, and processing it proved to be
obstacles for this micro-team within the HR department. They
recognized this issue but were also aware that this problem
existed at a macro level; effective paper management was a
department-wide issue.
People
on the HR team had their own way of managing the life cycle of
a document. From a document’s creation, to its status or
association with a project, to filing, to retrieving, to
archiving, and to sharing, individual work style and thought
processes defined where each document was located. While
individual solutions may have been working,
the highly interactive nature of the department required a
system that everyone could use. As the department was growing
so too was the level of disorganization growing, and the
duplication of effort was increasing. In addition, the
department needed to improve its confidentiality compliance
process to meet industry standards. Productivity was suffering
because there was no paper-management system to support the
department’s goals and objectives, and because of the
department members’ personal work styles.
Additional
key issues included:
- Shared
information was hard to find and keep track
of.
- Retrieving
information was a challenge. Where did I put
it?
- There was no
file “check out” process; once a file was removed, who had
it?
- Duplicate
copies made version control difficult.
- Photocopying
costs were associated with multiple
copies.
- “To dos” were
falling through the cracks or not getting done in a timely
fashion.
- The traditional
filing system could accommodate only one idea at a
time. To
overcome this, multiple copies of a document were then filed
several ways to capture the ideas or thoughts in that
document.
- Workers felt
that the lack of a system reflected on their competency at
work, creating an undertow in an ordinarily dynamic and
vibrant group.
- A
member’s absence due to vacation or illness was a further
challenge due to the individualized and non-interactive
nature of the person’s filing system.
The
team knew they had to seek outside help, but they did not know
what they needed or what it would entail from a time, energy,
commitment, and budget standpoint. However, the pain that the
company’s disorganization was causing was becoming too great
to ignore. Something had to be done!
Solution:
Starting
with the micro-team of Patty Spinelli, Assistant Vice President (AVP)
of Human Resources, and her assistant Georgeanne Hogan, we implemented The Paper
Tiger software program. This tool created a filing system to
accommodate their different thought processes, to allow either
team member to retrieve filed documents, and to clear out the
piles that had encroached on nearly every work surface in the
office. A month later, another Manager/Administrative
Assistant team “wanted what they have.” While we were
implementing The Paper Tiger for this team, and customizing it
to their unique needs, work style, and personalities, a third
Manager/Administrative team “wanted in on this.”
“The
key to the success of this program was that I could retrieve
information when I needed to or when others requested it.
Filing was not the problem; finding it was my headache.
Therefore, I stopped filing and started piling and spreading,”
said
Patty Spinelli. “The great part about the
solution Mise
En Place
gave us is that it didn’t take long for it to become ‘second
skin.’ I am now confident that when I file a document, I (or
anyone in the department) will be able to quickly retrieve
it.”
The
solution was infectious simply because it was working. People
within the department saw that Patty kept her office clean,
found information when she wanted it, and had a sense of
calm.
We
further enhanced the solution by having all The Paper Tiger
users attend a GO
System Workshop. As Kathleen M. Martin, RIT Associate
Director—RIT Human Resources for Employment, Employee
Relations & Professional Development, put it, “This
is what tied it all together. I now know how to handle the
work in progress and how it all connects to an effective
filing system.”
To
date, this combination of The Paper Tiger and The GO System has
continued to spread throughout HR, with 16 people as well as 4
other departments within the university implementing this
solution as well.
Notable
Results
“The
help from Ann Michael Henry [Organization and Productivity
Consultant at Mise
En Place]
was invaluable,” said
Patty Spinelli. “What she did for us was
more than just clean out our files. She was able to
successfully put us in control of our information instead of
it controlling us. We are more productive and confident in the
way we manage information today. A common filing system that
accommodates our individual work styles and job
responsibilities has had an incredible impact on our
department.”
Additional
notable results include:
- A new filing
system can scale and grow to the meet the changing
compliance and general information management
needs.
- Everyone in the
department can easily understand and use the filing system
and supporting process.
- The team now
has a centralized filing system and “location.” Everyone
knows what information is available and where it
is.
- All information
is captured within The Paper Tiger database, making it
extremely quick and simple to retrieve
information.
- The department
now has a sign-out system so everyone knows where the files
are at all times if they are not in the filing cabinets.
- Per
industry standards, confidentiality compliance has
improved.
- The
team feels more confident knowing the information found in
the files is the most up-to-date version.
- The
team works better together. The sense of individual
confidence and productivity has increased, helping to
stimulate better collaboration and team efficiencies.
- The
system makes the offices (the overall department) look more
efficient and organized—no more worries or embarrassing
drop-in moments.
- Ramping up new
hires or helping those making job transitions is so much
easier and quicker when it comes to assisting them in
finding information pertinent to their
roles.
“It
doesn't unnerve me anymore when I spread out papers all over
my desk. While it may look like things are out of control, I
am fully confident that in a matter of minutes I can, if
necessary, reset and get things back in
order,”
said Kathleen M. Martin. “So, if things are a
little crazy for a couple of days, that's ok. I know what I
need to do and when to wrap up and get myself on track with
other projects quickly and easily. It feels great to be in
control of my workload and environment versus it controlling
me!”
For
more information about the Rochester Institute of Technology
(RIT), visit www.rit.edu.
For
more information about this project, e-mail info@m-e-p.com or
contact Ann Michael Henry at 585.924.8470 or annmichael@m-e-p.com.
ABOUT
MISE
EN PLACE
Mise
En Place
is an organization and productivity-improvement consulting
firm that works with organizations throughout the
United
States.
Our clients are interested in developing easy-to-use and
sustainable organization systems and processes to increase
worker productivity. Organization and Productivity Consultant
Ann Michael Henry has years of experience helping numerous
business owners, executives, and their staff create
organizational systems based on their specific work style and
needs, and these systems strategically align with internal
business processes and procedures.
Copyright
2009. Mise En
Place