Workplace:

Making a positive impact on the workplace is role of HRM's 'performance specialists'

By Ellen Mathia

In the middle of her presentation to IUB employees on "Enhancing Self-Esteem: How to Project a Positive Image at Work," training specialist Deb Nelson wants to know if participants ever scold themselves for being less than perfect.

"When you make a mistake, do you tell yourself you're a failure?" she challenged. "Do you think, 'now they'll fire me' or 'I can never do anything right?'"

When heads nod in agreement, Nelson smoothly shifts gears. Here, she said, is how you change the pattern of negative self-feedback. It isn't easy, she warned, "habits take 21 days to change" ‹ but these employees will now have tools to improve their efficiency as well as their attitudes about the work they do.

One of the group, IU benefits specialist Ann Hart, had a concern. "Negative thinking can be subtle," she told Nelson. "We can't always recognize it. What do we do to address that?" Nelson offered several suggestions, then split the class into groups to apply the tactics.

Nelson and her Human Resources Management (HRM) colleagues Mary Ellen McCann, Brenda Bailey-Hughes, Paula Bourne and director Susan Gastony offer more than 50 classes and multi-session courses each semester at IUB, in addition to many at other IU campuses, all with a single objective: improve the work performance of IU employees.

"Our training specialists would be more accurately described as 'performance specialists' because that's the whole point of their jobs," said Gastony. "It's why we don't use 'canned' generic courses here, and why we always ask ourselves, after every class or consultation, whether there was transfer of training."

In layman's language, that means whether the employees absorbed the instruction and can remember what they learned. To ensure transfer of training, the programs are all custom designed especially for IU by the training specialists and all programs utilize the three primary learning processes of listening, reading and doing.

Another concern is whether the employees' new knowledge and skills have an impact on the workplace, although that outcome doesn't rest solely with the employee. "When people leave the sessions, they're eager to apply what they learned," Gastony said. "But it doesn't last if they return to a non-supportive work environment." Supervisors, she said, also have a "strong role in giving employees the chance to exercise new skills."

Systems and procedures long in place can also be inhibiting factors. In fact, helping units determine whether their operations are as efficient as possible is one of the reasons HRM also provides "in-house" consulting with departments, divisions and schools within the university, in which the training specialists conduct meetings and work with the units on-site.

"It's like one-stop shopping; they can get their skill enhancement, team building, strategic planning and operations review accomplished on-site," she explained.

"For example, if we're working with the School of Optometry, we can use case studies and examples right from their daily experience," Gastony said. "And we can do specific follow-up later to see how the changes are working."

In examining unit operations, "we want to know, in an ideal world, how would this unit function?

"It all centers on customer service. At a university, our primary customers are the students, although we all have overlapping and different customer sets."

Ultimately, here at IU, "all of us are actually 'customers' to each other," she concluded.

To access a training and development guide to classes offered during the academic year or to register for classes, visit the Web site listed in the link at the top of this story.

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