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L162 Critical Issues in Library Personnel Management RICHARD RUBIN Editor University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science Urbana-Champaign, Illinois ALLERTON PARK INSTITUTE Number 29 Papers Presented at the Allerton Park Institute Sponsored by University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science held November 6-8, 1987 Allerton Conference Center Robert Allerton Park Monticello, Illinois This Allerton Park Institute has also been published as the Summer 1989 issue of Library Trends (Volume 38, No. 1) 1989 by The Board of Trustees of The University of Illinois ISBN 0-87845-08 1-5 ISSN 0536-4604 3 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 Richard Rubin BUILDING JOB COMMITMENT AMONG EMPLOYEES 3 Martin L. Maehr COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN PUBLIC LIBRARIES: PRESERVING MANAGEMENT PREROGATIVES 11 Norman Holman ORGANIZATIONAL ENTRY: HUMAN RESOURCES SELECTION AND ADAPTATION IN RESPONSE TO A COMPLEX LABOR POOL 21 Kathleen M. Heim EMPLOYEE TURNOVER AND THE EXIT INTERVIEW 32 James G. Neal CONDUCTING PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS 40 Lucy R. Cohen MANAGING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE 53 Sharon L. Baker WHY TRAINING DOESN'T STICK: WHO IS TO BLAME? 62 Anne Grodzins Lipow ACHIEVING HIGH PERFORMANCE IN LIBRARY WORK . . .73 Charles Martell STRESS IN THE LIBRARY WORKPLACE 92 Charles Bunge DEVELOPING COMPENSATION SYSTEMS IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES 103 Frederick Duda DEVELOPING A COMPENSATION SYSTEM: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE DOWNERS GROVE PUBLIC LIBRARY 127 Christopher F. Bowen ALLERTON PARK AS METAPHOR 143 Peggy Sullivan CONTRIBUTORS 149 INDEX .152 Introduction People run libraries; they provide the essential services, process the materials, prepare the budgets, and establish the policies and practices that shape the institution. This is not always recognized by a public that often perceives the library as a place for collections of books. Certainly, an important aspect of any library is an array of objects that contribute to library service: the media, physical facilities, and electronic technolo- gies. But a human being is responsible for combining these elements into effective library service, and failures in library service are often failures to deal appropriately with human issues. Perhaps someday the wholly electronic library will make people unnecessary. But today the proliferation of library technologies has highlighted rather than dimin- ished the vital role that people play in the changing library environ- ment. The purpose of the 29th Allerton Conference was to identify and discuss some of these issues, and to provide a forum for exchange of ideas on critical issues in personnel management. Managing personnel is an especially difficult task because the reasons people act as they do are varied and often opaque. The library manager, whose training emphasizes librarianship more than manage- ment, is forced to operate in this difficult environment with few guide- lines. What motivates staff members? Martin Maehr, from the University of Illinois, addresses this issue in the general context of worker motivation. Similarly, Charles Martell explores the necessary conditions for high achievement in the library workplace. In each of these articles, the emphasis is on library workers as people. The articles are a recognition of the importance of human needs and the implicit potential of greater productivity in their fulfillment. As the library environment becomes more and more complex, greater demands for flexibility are placed on a library manager and staff. Confronting this problem, Shay Baker offers some fruitful observations on managing resistance to change. Failure to deal with the human aspects of the workplace can have serious and negative consequences; one of these consequences is stress. Charles Bunge, professor of Library and Information Science, explores the role of stress in the workplace. Although understanding the psychosocial aspects of a library worker is vital, the mechanics of personnel management also constitute a major concern for library managers. Kathleen Heim explores the topic of entry-level recruitment of employees in libraries based on the com- plex labor pool. It has become clear in today's litigious labor climate that what you do may be less important than how you do it. To this end, Anne Lipow examines the subject of training library staff. It is also necessary to deal effectively with the employee who has decided to leave for one reason or another. James Neal reviews key considerations in conducting the exit interview. Organizational issues involving personnel must also be explored. Without doubt, collective bargaining has become a prominent issue in the minds of many managers. Norman Holman offers a perspective on bargaining in a public library. Of equal importance are issues concern- ing wage and salary administration. In an era of "comparable worth," the manner in which we value our jobs and compensate our employees is subject to considerable scrutiny and legal liability. Frederick Duda reviews some of the major points for academic librarians, while Chris- topher Bowen reviews a technique for wage and salary setting in a public library. The subject of job evaluation naturally leads to the subject of evaluating people in their jobs performance evaluation. In this regard, Lucy Cohen offers suggestions for creating and conducting performance reviews. Given the number of issues explored at the 29th Allerton Confer- ence, obtaining perspective on many of the challenges of personnel is difficult. In a synthesis and summary of the Conference, Peggy Sullivan offers some guidance through a maze of issues that confront a personnel manager. Attempting to deal with the myriad issues of personnel man- agement in one place, at one time, is, of course, doomed to superficiality in regard to any one topic. But this discourse is essential if managers are to confront, control, and deal with a fundamental force in libraries the human being. MARTIN L. MAEHR Professor of Education and Psychology University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan Building Job Commitment Among Employees ABSTRACT This article is concerned with how persons in leadership roles can elicit the motivation, commitment, and personal investment of members of an organization. Recent research on employee motivation is briefly summarized and interpreted. It is argued that those in leadership roles bear a special responsibility for creating a sense of purpose in the organization. It is as leaders engage the members of an organization in establishing goals, in focusing on the purpose of their work and the mission of the organization, that they are most likely to elicit personal investment. The design and use of other management tasks, especially evaluation, play an important complementary role in reinforcing the sense of a shared purpose and therewith can contribute significantly to the development of employee commitment. INTRODUCTION One would have to be a 1980s Rip Van Winkle not to realize that "organizational effectiveness" has become a major, sometimes all con- suming, problem. It is virtually impossible to pick up a newspaper or magazine without seeing a reference to this problem. Almost everyone who walks to a speaker's platform these days seems obliged to issue a call for reform of this or that practice or this or that organization its effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. The resounding theme through all this seems to be that if our society is to remain viable, if our way of life is to be retained, we must be more productive; the various organizations associated with such productivity must become more effective. Perhaps it was initially our loss of a competitive edge to the Japanese first in autos, later in TVs and stereos, and most recently in the basics of computer technology that started this train of thought regarding productivity. But it soon turned to the effectiveness of public schools and then to our colleges and universities. It has, to date, touched virtually each and every organization and agency of significance. Con- sider, for example, that health care organizations are virtually under siege, even though they are hardly in competition with Japan. And what about libraries? It is suspected that libraries and librar- ians have felt the same kind of effectiveness pressures that most organi- zations today are experiencing; it is virtually inevitable. The dollars are fewer; we are expected to do more with less. Productivity has been one of the dominating issues of the day. Doubtless the recent volatility of the financial markets will reinforce what has already been a persistent and dominating concern. It is doubt- ful that these issues are just another fad. If anything they will likely increase in importance. Those concerned with issues of management cannot escape the scrutiny, the challenge and perhaps also the opportunity that this brings to their job. THE IMPORTANCE OF WORKER/EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT Organizational effectiveness what it is and how you get it is a complex issue. Simply defined, organizational effectiveness means accomplishing the goals of the organization. Implicitly or explicitly it often means accomplishing goals with a minimum of resources and doing it efficiently. To do that, one has to be careful how the resources available to an organization are managed and utilized. It means careful attention to such things as copying expenditures and to duplication of services and purchases, but it means much more than that. Several weeks ago, Lester Thurow, a prominent economist and dean of the Sloan School of Management of M.I.T., presented the David Kinley lecture at the University of Illinois. In that lecture he alluded to a fact that he has regularly mentioned in the last several years: In order to have what we think we want to have in this society, a qualified work force is an absolute necessity; there has to be not only skillful, but also motivated and committed workers. Undoubtedly he would not object to his point being rephrased by saying that an effective society needs effective organizations and effective organizations exist only as there are committed workers. Employee commitment at all levels in the organiza- tion is the sine qua non of any effective organization. People have to be willing to give at least a day's work for a day's pay. They must be willing at times to adjust their needs to the needs of the organization i.e., adjust their personal schedule as the job demands, pitch in to help out even when their job definition does not specify it. Effective organizations this author has known and studied could not be effective if there weren't individuals in that organization a MAEHR/BUILDING JOB COMMITMENT 5 significant number who were fiercely loyal to it, a significant number who were commited to doing the jobs that needed to be done, a signifi- cant number who were willing to stick with the organization in good and bad times, a significant number who believed in the organization's ultimate worth. In discussing employee commitment, the term personal investment comes to mind since it seems to suggest the kind of personal involve- ment needed in an effective organization. And essentially two things are meant by that term (for a fuller discussion see Maehr and Braskamp, 1986). First, the term implies a certain personal identification which involves loyalty staying with the organization through thick and thin. Second, the term implies a willingness to put forth one's best efforts in making the organization work. All have the capacity to be committed to something. All have talent and energy to commit. The question is how will they choose to invest these personal resources that they possess? Why do persons commit their time and talent in this case but not in that one? The inevitable question of concern is What is there about a particular job or job context that does not serve to elicit worker investment? There is not really anything "wrong" with the person he or she is not lacking in drive; he or she is not lazy. She or he simply is not attracted to the task in this case. WHAT CONDITIONS ENCOURAGE COMMITMENT? It is doubtful whether any of you would be here if you did not essentially agree with most of what has been said thus far i.e., organi- zational effectiveness is important; organizational effectiveness is sig- nificantly dependent on employee commitment. In a way, this is "preaching to the choir." The significant question is What conditions are likely to encourage such commitment? Over the years change occurs in the variety of strategies initiating motivation because encouraging personal investment and employee commitment have been discussed, developed, and implemented. Reviewing what has been said in this regard one might suggest that in general there are thought to be three "pressure points" for change: the person, the job, and the organization. In the first case, one can view the problem as resting particularly in the individual and work on changing something about him or her. Or, if change is not easy, one can concentrate on selecting the "right" persons; that is, persons who are judged likely to exhibit high personal investment in the role assigned. In the main this has been the approach pursued by such notables in the area as David McClelland (1978, 1985; McClelland & Winter, 1971). The second and third possible pressure points for change involve the situation. In this case the focus is not so much on the characteristics of individuals but on features of the situation that will bring about change. Within the broad category of "situation" one can specify two important subcategories. First, there is the task, the specific role to be played by the person; the job to be done. From the work of Hackman and Oldham (1980), as well as that of others, it is clear that there are a variety of factors that can be adjusted to change the task which will in turn affect motivation. Second, as will become increasingly evident in this address, the job situation, the task to be done, or the role to be played, is not the sole determining feature of the context. The nature, structure, policies, goals, and values of the organization as a whole make a difference. The pragmatic question for those who are in roles where they must manage motivation is whether it is more practical to change the situa- tion or to select the persons who happen to hold the desired meaning biases. If the latter is chosen, enhancing personal investment in an organization will involve especially a stress on recruitment, personnel selection, or perhaps an emphasis on changing persons to fit job and organizational expectations. If the former strategy is pursued, then the stress is on changing the work situation redesigning the job, changing the work climate, or designing the organizational culture to enhance the personal investment of all regardless of the individual biases they may bring to the situation. While each of these strategies may have a role to play in managing personal investment, the one that seems most practicable so far as leaders are concerned relates to changing the organizational context. Thus managers, administrators i.e., leaders cannot rely solely or primarily on personnel selection or placement as the means for influencing the commitment i.e., the personal investment of their staff. They have too few opportunities to select and place. But there is some reason to believe that they can affect the context in which their staff works. In particular, there is some reason to believe that they can have their most important affects on staff commitment through the way they manage organizational climate and culture (Maehr, 1987). And, within that broader domain, there is reason to believe that it is especially important to concentrate on setting goals, defining the pur- pose of the organization, and articulating a sense of direction. In short, it is as the leader establishes or articulates, and therewith communicates, a mission that staff are likely to exhibit personal investment. A simple way of putting this is to suggest that the leader's role in eliciting motivation and commitment begins and ends with an attempt to make work meaningful. A major function in this regard is to convey the purposes of the organization where it is going and how the individual contributes to and is a part of this overall direction of the organization. How can the leader/manager/administrator create condi- tions which foster such sense of direction and which give meaning to the employee's efforts? What the leader can do revolves significantly around three critical functions: diagnosis/assessment, goal and mission establishment, and MAEHR/BUILDING JOB COMMITMENT 7 evaluation/performance appraisal. While each of these processes is worthy of a detailed discussion in its own right, this discussion will be limited to a few brief words in each case. The reason for this is: first, the time is short; and second, there is an unwillingness to get so involved in describing the trees that we forget that the forest is "the thing." Strate- gies, tactics, and processes are important. These processes can be instru- mental in establishing a sense of purpose in an organization. But in the final analysis they must be part of a broader whole. That broader whole is the overwhelming reason for making purpose important in the organization. Diagnosis /Assessment It is self evident that as a leader/manager/administrator you are not likely to create an organization from scratch with goals and purposes of only your choosing. One gets placed into an ongoing system and has to accept an organization or work group as it comes to you and perhaps inch it along to what you think it should be. Whether or not the overall culture of the organization, its goals, and sense of purpose need chang- ing, one somehow needs to grasp what it is. That is what "diagnosis/as- sessment" is about. If indeed the communication of a "mission" and the establishment of a certain organizational culture is important, then one does well to exercise concern by assessing just what that culture and mission are perceived to be. A diagnosis/assessment approach to the analysis of the character and operation of an organization and its units is desirable and increasingly possible (see, for example, Braskamp & Maehr, 1985; Maehr & Braskamp, 1986). Thus, even at this early stage of organiza- tional evaluation and assessment, there is good reason to believe in the ultimate worth of an information based approach in building the organization into a smoothly functioning organism in which the separ- ate parts are truly invested in the overall functions and goals. Data very seldom tell a manager specifically what to do, but they are very often the first step and a necessary step in the process (Braskamp & Brown, 1980). As managers consider production figures and ledger sheets, they also do well to view the health of the organizational culture. With increasing evidence that work motivation might be significantly determined by organizational culture, the necessity to systematically identify, assess, and evaluate this variable rightly becomes a significant concern at the highest levels of the organization. Goal setting. Assessment lays a basis for action and for the evalua- tion of such actions. But what action might be taken? Goal setting clearly must be a focus of an organization if it is to exhibit the kind of sense of purpose that, as has been argued, is critical. This is not to suggest that there is available somewhere a "cookbook" on goal setting that you can employ and some mechanical procedures that you can easily put into practice for doing this although to some degree this is true. But, to make a more general point which is believed to be more adaptable to your individual situations, one does not have to create artificial situations in order to establish goals, purpose, and a broader understanding of why the organization exists. Meetings of the staff are a proper venue for goal concerns. Too often these meetings are merely concerned with trivia. But they can be important occasions for serious discussions of what the organization is and what it is to be. What kind of service does it provide? To whom does it give its service? What is the constituency? What is its unique role? What does it do that other groups cannot or do not do? How do various subgroups contribute to this overall purpose? Those are the "ultimate goals." The penultimate goals are equally important. They relate to what kind of place we want this to be so we can get the job done. Do we have to have more or fewer meetings? Do we have to recognize good work more? Do we have to cooperate more? In short, the overall point here is that in order to establish goals, purpose, and a mission one first has to engage the organization in goal talk. Second, one has to get a significant number of persons involved in specifying what the organization is about. If any one technique for doing this should be emphasized, develop- ing a strategic plan of some sort would be the one. The plan itself is not as important as the process of writing it. Through the years students have said that they really know some things but that they have a hard time writing them down. This author's response has been: you don't know anything until you can maybe until you do write it down. The process of opera tionalizing a collection of vague thoughts has an importance all of its own. Especially in establishing goals within an organization, writing a mission statement a set of goals or a strategic plan is an occasion for at least beginning to establish answers to the purpose of the organization, answers which relate to the meaning of why one should be personally invested in and committed to the organization. Evaluation There are few better ways of expressing what is expected than through the evaluation process and the reward and recognition that accompany this process. In attempting to foster organizational change of almost any type, the domain of reward and recognition must be extensively considered. Of course many managers personally evaluate the performance of only a few and certainly do not administer or actualize the evaluation process in a specific or direct way in many cases. But they do play a major role in establishing what is valued. They also set the tone for how evaluation is to be accomplished. In these two respects they can communicate the broad goals and mission of the organization. MAEHR/BUILDING JOB COMMITMENT 9 To be a bit more concrete about this: Managers can choose to concern themselves with setting up systematic evaluation procedures and stress certain criteria. The mere fact that he/she establishes a group to do this and gives it some visibility may itself be sufficient to make it clear that there is concern and interest not only in evaluation but in certain performance criteria. Most important of all, doubtless, is that the manager must be seen to act in terms of the evaluation information. They must take it seriously and be recognized for doing so. In one form of the evaluation process performance appraisal it is clear that one can communicate what is expected through indicating an association between performance and reward (see, for example, Lawler, 1971; 1977). Evaluation and assessment are integral parts of management style. Evaluation implies a caring and an interest in what is being accom- plished. Not to evaluate is to imply indifference. Evaluation, although at times painful and difficult to do, has several important consequences. It provides an occasion for articulating the goals and mission of the organization for specific programs, persons, and units. The mere fact that evaluation occurs indicates that the organization cares about what is done. Properly done, evaluation can also reflect a concern for the growth of the individual worker as a contributor to the organization and suggest a stance that is generally growth oriented rather than static. It is through a concern with evaluation tht leaders affect the organizational culture. It is one of the buttons they can press for action in this regard. Summary In brief, this author wishes to stress the overwhelming importance for the leadership to be concerned with goals. The strategies alluded to earlier are really all a part of one whole. The whole concerns developing a set of shared goals which guide the operations of the organization. There is little question but that commitment personal investment is likely only as such a shared sense of purpose is extant within an organization. CONCLUSION There should be little doubt in anyone's mind that a sense of purpose is key to the development of personal investment in an organi- zation. What may be less clear is the leader's role in this regard a role which is both critical and problematic. Leadership is critical to the establishment of a sense of what the organization is about. The leader is certainly not the only person involved in establishing purpose in the organization. But someone in a leadership role is inevitably critical in this regard. Someone has to initiate the process. Someone has to assess what is going on and project this into a sense of direction and purpose. Someone has to conceptual- ize, symbolize, and communicate the meaning and purpose of an organ- ization. And that quite logically often is the formally designated leader of the organization. 10 LIBRARY TRENDS/SUMMER 1989 But the role is problematic. To begin to articulate a set of goals and purposes, one has to go a bit beyond the information given. One does not have purpose handed to them on a silver platter. In helping an organization define purpose, leaders take a bit of a risk. Is this really a viable way to conceptualize what this group is about? Is it really accept- able both to the group and its constituency? Will it work? To the point: moderate risk-taking is implied in the role of leadership described earlier. That implies something about the kinds of persons that can and should be leaders. Perhaps that is a fitting note on which to conclude a talk to leaders about what is an important facet of their leadership function. REFERENCES Braskamp, L. A., & Brown, R. D. (Eds.). (1980). Utilization of evaluation information. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Braskamp, L. A., & Maehr, M. L. (1985). Spectrum: An organizational development tool. Champaign, IL: Metritech. Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1980). Work redesign. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Maehr, M. L. (1987). Managing organizational culture to enhance motivation. In M. L. Maehr & D. A. Kleiber (Eds.), Advances in motivation and achievement: A research annual. Vol. 5: Enhancing motivation (pp. 287-320). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Maehr, M. L., & Braskamp, L. A. (1986). The motivation factor: A theory of personal in- vestment. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. McClelland, D. C. (1978). Managing motivation to expand human freedom. American Psychologist, 33(March), 201-210. McClelland, D. C., & Winter, D. G. (1971). Motivating economic achievement. New York: Free Press. NORMAN HOLMAN Deputy Director Cleveland Public Library Cleveland, Ohio Collective Bargaining in Public Libraries: Preserving Management Prerogatives ABSTRACT Drawing mostly from the history of public sector collective bargaining in Ohio, laws and chronology are examined for insight into the impor- tance of management rights and prerogatives. Special attention is given to dispute resolution and the respective rights of management and labor in it, since the existence of a dispute is likely to reveal an issue where one or the other party may acquire previously undefined authority. INTRODUCTION Collective bargaining, or its absence, has been governed for years in Ohio by the Ferguson Act. The Ferguson Act was enacted in 1943 in direct response to numerous crippling strikes in the private sector following World War II. The law was sweeping and unambiguous. All strikes in the public sector were outlawed. The stated penalties for striking public employees were severe; the act provided for termination of employment for failure to end illegal strikes. It further provided that illegal strikers could not receive increased compensation for one year following an illegal strike and included probation for a like period. The law held firm and intact for many years, but in the 1960s and early 1970s public employees in Ohio, as in many other states, began to organize and seek representation at the bargaining table. In 1975, decid- ing on a case referred to as the Dayton Classroom Teachers Association v. Dayton Board of Education, the Ohio Supreme Court held that public employees could meet and negotiate binding collective bargaining agreements with employers. The court also held, however, that 11 12 employees have no constitutional right to require their employers to bargain collectively. In the following years, collective bargaining spread unimpeded to most of the public sector employment throughout Ohio. Public librar- ies, however, seemed not to have been affected. Perhaps the wealth bestowed upon many public libraries by the intangible personal prop- erty tax (imposed on stocks and investments) induced satisfaction or complacency among library employees. Staff associations, in their roles as social organizers and combined with benign advocacy, may have participated sufficiently in organizations' governance. The exception was the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, an association library under Ohio laws, which had a collective bargaining agreement for years under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Rela- tions Board, since a state labor relations authority had not existed until the recently enacted Ohio Public Employees Collective Bargaining Act. The first drafts of the Ohio Public Employees Collective Bargain- ing Act (the act), Chapter 4117 of the Ohio Revised Code, were consi- dered in 1971, a year after the neighboring state of Pennsylvania passed its collective bargaining bill. After a 1973 senate defeat and vetoes in 1975 and 1977 by then Governor James Rhodes, Governor Richard Celeste signed the bill into law on July 6, 1983. The act became effective on April 1, 1984. Ohio became the thirty-ninth state to pass a public sector labor law. One might have expected Ohio to be among the first group of states to do this because of its extensive labor history in the private sector with steelworkers, autoworkers, and the Teamsters. By the time Ohio had passed a public sector labor law, the legislature was essentially catching up with history. Collective bargaining in the public sector in fact had been established for years. Among other accomplishments, the act created a regulatory body in the form of the State Employment Rela- tions Board (SERB). SERB was accorded authority to make rules for executing the act, which has not been a small task in light of the large amount of public sector collective bargaining that preceded its existence. The point here is not to list and summarize the act in Ohio but to draw from it as a source for discussing bargaining procedures including dispute resolution and subjects of bargaining in public libraries. A discussion of dispute resolution procedures leads inevitably to a consid- eration of strikes in the public sector who can and who cannot strike and the inclusion of public libraries among those employers where strikes are permitted. DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROCEDURES Bargaining typically is initiated by a notice of at least sixty days prior to expiration of an existing contract or the date termination or modification of an existing contract is to be effective. Initial negotia- HOLMAN/COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 13 dons must be conducted for a minimum of ninety days, according to the Ohio Act, before dispute resolution procedures apply. The parties can mutually agree upon dispute resolution proce- dures, which would supersede the procedures mandated by the act; that is, provided the procedures negotiated lead to final resolution and not merely to mediation. If the parties cannot agree to a dispute resolution procedure, the one specified in the act will apply. Objectionable to the employer in most state mandated impasse procedures is the inclusion of fact-finding following mediation. In state mandated impasse procedures, Ohio being a typical exam- ple, SERB will appoint a mediator to assist the parties in the process of collective bargaining. The mediator's sole function is to reconcile dif- ferences between the parties which may take the form of: (1) settlement of the overall agreement; (2) reduction in the number of overall issues; or (3) narrowing of the differences on the open issues without completely resolving them. The mediator will have only a brief time, fourteen days, within which to work magic. If the mediator reports to the state agency that impasse still exists, a fact-finding panel will be appointed. Fact-finding is a process that requires the parties at a hearing to present evidence to a neutral fact-finder supporting their respective positions on outstanding issues. Usually the fact-finder must meet with both parties' approval unless the parties cannot agree in which case the state agency would select the panel. In some states, such as New York, the state agency makes the selection without input from the parties (New York Public Employees' Fair Employment Act, 1985a). During fact-finding, each party provides the fact-finder with state- ments, probably written, specifying the unresolved issues and the par- ties' position on each. The panel makes final recommendations as to all unresolved issues. Either party may reject the fact-finder's recommenda- tions. Since the fact-finder's recommendations either will be adopted or, if not, will have set the stage for a strike or interest arbitration, they are not subject to judicial review. Specific elements of fact-finding facilitate impasse resolution. Fact- finding is a more formal process than either negotiations or mediation because the parties must prepare rational arguments supporting their positions to submit to the fact-finder at a hearing. The strength or weakness of the rationale significantly affects the outcome. Fact-finding is effective because it may have the power of persuading the parties to move from relatively unreasonable positions to the reasonable solutions recommended by the fact-finder. Furthermore, weakness in the parties' positions is exposed through cross-examination, presentation of evi- dence by the other party, and through inquiry by the fact-finder. Fact- finding also carries the power of the final step before a strike, which is the terminal step in statutory impasse procedures and may impose costs that both parties view as unacceptable. Voluntary dispute resolution procedures in states where the parties 14 have the option of agreeing to them are usually preferred. As stated earlier, provided the procedure leads to final resolution, the parties are able to forge a method of resolving impasse that suits each party's individual and collective circumstances. Procedures could include: (1) conventional arbitration of all unsettled issues, in which case the arbitrator is not limited to a choice between the last offers of the parties; (2) arbitration limited to a choice between the last offer of each party as either single package or on each issue submitted; or (3) any other settle- ment procedures agreed to by the parties. The parties may include the right to strike except those that are involved in safety-related jobs which are usually prohibited from striking. Methods involving arbitration probably would be rejected in situa- tions where the parties are confident in their abilities to resolve impasse on their own and where arbitrarily imposed solutions are unacceptable. As an example, Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, Ohio, and District 925, Service Employees International Union, during their negotiations that began in May 1987, mutually agreed not to follow the dispute resolution procedure provided by the Ohio Public Employees Collec- tive Bargaining Act and substituted their own procedure as permitted in Chapter 4117 of the Ohio Revised Code. During negotiations, the parties expressed or implied that neither wanted the delay and cost involved with fact-finding. Furthermore, the library bargaining committee did not want publication of the fact- finder's recommendations resulting from fact-finding. Neither the library nor District 925 wanted to refer the matter of impasse to a SERB appointed mediator, and the Cleveland Public Library in particular did not want to have its economic fate, should economic issues be among those at impasse, determined by a third party. If the parties had followed the procedure available under the stat- ute, they could have agreed to resolve the economic impasse by means of interest arbitration, and the arbitrator would determine the economic issue or issues presented by the parties. For a publicly supported institu- tion with a fixed budget, the risks connected with interest arbitration outweighed the advantages of following such a procedure. Under the Alternative Dispute Resolution between the library and District 925 (discussed later), the parties could bargain for as long as five months, in contrast to the ninety day period under the statute, prior to either party's having the right to request the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to appoint a federal mediator. It is interesting that the parties agreed also that an actual impasse did not have to exist for either party to request a mediator, rather that "the differences of posi- tion are so substantial that further negotiations may not produce a satisfactory agreement." "Impasse" suggests deadlock, which may not be present in the situation characterized in the procedure. ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROCEDURE 1. The dispute settlement procedure set forth in this agreement shall HOLMAN/COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 15 govern negotiations conducted between the Employer and the Union and shall be the agreement of the parties hereto and shall supersede the procedures set forth in Ohio Revised Code 4117.14 and related sections and regulations. 2. When tentative agreement is reached through negotiations, the ten- tative agreement shall be reduced to writing and shall be submitted to the Union membership for approval. After approval, the tentative agreement will be submitted for approval to the Employer. Each negotiating team shall urge and recommend approval of the tenta- tive agreement. 3. If either party at any time after midnight (date) determines that the differences of position are so substantial that further negotiations may not produce a satisfactory agreement, either party may request the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services (FMCS) to appoint a federal mediator for the purpose of assisting the parties in reaching an agreement. 4. If after thirty days from the first meeting with a federal mediator the Union believes that negotiations cannot be resolved through the procedure outlined earlier, it may engage in a strike upon ten days written notice to the Employer and to the State Employment Rela- tions Board (Cleveland Public Library District 925. Service Employees International Union, 1987, p. 1). With due recognition to the time needed to obtain a federal mediator and schedule meetings, thirty days from the first meeting between the parties with a federal mediator must elapse before the union may engage in a strike, and then such a strike must be upon ten days written notice to the library and to SERB. The state mandated dispute resolution, which included fact-finding, and the alternative dispute resolution procedure, described and outlined earlier, include the union's right to strike upon notice to the employer and SERB in the event the parties fail to reach an agreement. Only safety forces in Ohio are not permitted to strike even after exhaustion of bargaining, mediation, and fact-finding. All states are not the same in their positions on whether public employees have the right to strike. In Massachusetts and New York, for example, the law prohibits public employees from striking (Annotated Laws of Massa- chusetts, 1983; New York Public Employees Fair Employment Act, 1985b). In all states that permit public employees to strike, however, none seems to include librarians among those prohibited as safety forces or otherwise from striking. While the arguments pro and con regarding the union's right to strike in the public sector are familiar to many, they bear repeating for the benefit of the uninitiated and as a review for the rest: Pro: 1. Public employees are entitled to the same rights accorded private employees. 16 2. The right of public employees to engage in collective bargaining is meaningless unless supported by some mechanism for clout such as a strike. 3. Strikes are an effective extension of the collective bargaining process, do not occur frequently enough to justify their prohibition, and generally are not harmful to public health, safety, or welfare. Con: Public and private sectors are very different and public sector employees are therefore not entitled to the same rights accorded private sector employees. 1. Public employees provide unique and essential services. 2. Private sector market forces are missing from the public sector. 3. Strikes may damage public health, safety, and welfare. Once notification has been given that a strike will occur, the public employer is empowered to seek injunctive or court ordered relief. Injunctive relief is unequivocal where the strike is illegal, such as during pendency of the act's settlement procedure or during the term of the collective bargaining agreement in states where such strikes are clearly prohibited by law. Even under circumstances of a legal strike, the employer may seek a restraining order while continuing to bargain, which would usually be assisted by a mediator. Such restraint on the public employees' right to strike would have to be preceded by the finding that a strike may pose clear and present danger to the health or safety of the public. INTEREST ARBITRATION In discussing the rationale for an Alternative Dispute Resolution Procedure between Cleveland Public Library and District 925, interest arbitration was characterized as a risky option to resolve economic impasse. In interest arbitration a designated neutral party is used to determine future contract terms which will bind the parties who have been unable to achieve a new agreement through the bargaining process (Elkouri & Elkouri, 1973, pp. 47-50). Interest arbitrators generally pos- sess liberal authority to formulate the actual employment terms which will govern the relationship of parties who have been unable to achieve a voluntary agreement themselves (Overton, 1973, pp. 159-66). Although interest arbitration also known as final offer settlement, conciliation, or mandatory arbitration is mandatory for safety forces, anyone covered by the act may agree to such a settlement procedure. Interest arbitration is conducted by a conciliator who must conduct a hearing as soon as practicable. By a given period of time each party must submit a written report summarizing the unresolved issues, the party's final offer, and the rationale for that position. The conciliator, HOLMAN/COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 17 in turn, selects, issue-by-issue, the final settlement offer of one of the parties. The conciliator by Ohio law cannot suggest a compromise position. Interest arbitration carries risks for both parties and generates, of necessity, serious policy considerations. Interest arbitration may dele- gate policy-making authority illegally to an unelected person or board that is not designated by the statutes to perform a particular function. Boards of Library Trustees for public libraries in Ohio are accorded vast powers to set policy for their respective institutions. Specifically men- tioned in the Ohio Revised Code 3375.40 is the authority to "appoint and fix" compensation. Economic issues resolved through interest arbi- tration appear to circumvent the appropriate authority to set compensa- tion and related benefits such as sick leave. Since a conciliator's decisions may impose an untenable economic burden on the library, the subsequent adjustments to spending priorities and probable need to generate additional revenue also may violate equal protection, since the effect would be to shift improperly to a person or board the power to tax. There are other arguments less esoteric than apparently constitu- tional issues to be leveled against interest arbitration. From the employ- er's vantage point, interest arbitration may result in administrative awards of unaffordable wages. From the vantage point of both parties it is a risk to have a third party write the contract who is unfamiliar with the practicalities of the shared situation. Perhaps of greatest signifi- cance, however, is that it damages collective bargaining because the parties ultimately fail to bargain. The process does not encourage cooperation; rather it tends to push the parties apart and separates them from their mutual concerns. Only when strikes are prohibited such as for safety forces, and the state must provide a substitute for resolving impasses is interest arbitration desirable. States where collective bar- gaining is permitted in the public sector recognize that there should be no work stoppages of services that may endanger the health and safety of the public. MANAGEMENT RIGHTS Collective bargaining, by its nature, limits management rights. In the place of unimpeded management rights is a contract which restricts both parties in the exercise of their respective rights and obligates both parties to act in responsible ways. As a subject of bargaining, management rights are regarded as both mandatory and permissive. Typical mandatory subjects of bargaining are wages, hours, other conditions of the contract, and changes in existing provisions of a collective bargaining agreement. Management rights are mandatory to the extent they affect wages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment. Typical permissive subjects of bargain- ing are the method of recording minutes of bargaining sessions and benefits of retirees. To the extent that there may be areas remaining 18 where management rights can be exercised at all, they are a permissive subject and are in the category of those for which only the parties may bargain. In many contracts, management rights outside the mandatory subjects would be reserved in all areas of responsibility "except where otherwise provided." In Ohio, management rights are itemized under the list of permis- sive subjects included in the act. These are: 1 . Determine matters of inherent managerial policy which include, but are not limited to, areas of discretion or policy such as the functions and programs of the employer, standards of services, its overall budget, utilization of technology, and organization structure; 2. direct, supervise, evaluate, or hire employees; 3. maintain and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of governmen- tal operations; 4. determine the overall methods, process, means, or personnel by which governmental operations are to be conducted; 5. suspend, discipline, demote, or discharge for just cause, or lay off, transfer, assign, schedule, promote, or retain employees; 6. determine the adequacy of the work force; 7. determine the overall mission of the employer as a unit of government; 8. effectively manage the work force; and 9. take actions to carry out the mission of the employer as a govenmen- tal unit (Ohio Revised Code, 1987). The presence of detail in the act outlining management rights suggests that omissions may be deliberate and intended to be restrictive. Whether that is true or not, management must establish rights to create rules, policies, and practices in areas not mentioned by the act and in situations arising during the life of the contract not anticipated by the act or the bargained contract. Practically, management must assume responsibility in those areas anyway because it will be held accountable for resolving the problems such situations may generate. To that end, as an addendum to management rights, the following language not found in Ohio's Act would ensure management's ability to be responsive: The exercise of the foregoing rights, and the adoption of reasonable policies, rules, and practices in furtherance thereof, shall be limited only by the specific terms of this Agreement and pertinent statutes, and then only to the extent such specific terms hereof are in conformance with the Constitution and laws of the State and of the United States (Cleveland Public Library and District 925, Service Employees International. Union, 1987, p. 4) The exercise of management rights, even those seemingly protected by laws and a collective bargaining agreement, evolves reluctantly. Acting in the interest of the institution it safeguards, management's good intentions may be thwarted by the legitimate rights of its employees. Management's responsibility to act for example, against drug HOLMAN/COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 19 abuse in the workplace and its right to create policy that establishes a drug free environment must be weighed against employees' right to privacy. The possession, use, and sale of drugs on library premises clearly are criminal acts. Employers have a right and responsibility to halt criminal activity. To protect the rights of all employees to work in a hassle-free environment, the employer has a right and responsibility to eliminate unruly behavior that accompanies illegal drug abuse. Fur- thermore, employees whose skills are impaired by the presence of drugs can pose a health and safety threat to themselves, fellow employees, and the public. Everyone who is prudent and reasonable should recognize the management's right to prohibit possession, use, and sale of illegal drugs in the workplace. For the sake of argument, imagine an employer that believes that efforts to deter drug use are more effective when detection and therapy are available during the early stages of drug use. Such a judgment could be made for purely humanitarian reasons, totally lacking in nefarious motives, and because there is an interest in identifying and correcting individuals' drug abuse before it is manifested in significant perfor- mance shortcomings. Since employees have no right to possess, sell, or use illegal drugs in any environment, including the workplace, and employers have a legitimate right to prohibit employees' possession, sale, and use of illegal drugs, the employer may have sound reasons to conclude that drug testing is an effective means to therapeutic intervention. The implementation of drug testing would inspire opposition from labor advocates and representatives on the grounds that it violates employees' rights to privacy and perpetuates discrimination against the handicapped and Title VII discrimination. Furthermore, they would argue from the employer's standpoint that it invites wrongful discharge suits. All of that may be true, one argues, but management rights are stifled if such a clearly pernicious problem as drug abuse cannot be addressed by the rightful party which is management. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently issued a complaint against an employer that unilaterally implemented a drug testing program (National Labor Relations Board, 1987). State labor relations agencies are likely to fashion similar decisions in their respec- tive jurisdictions. In fact, a regulatory agency, such as the NLRB or a state board, could require, in a unionized workplace, that the parties should meet and bargain in good faith on the subjects of drug testing or employee assistance programs (EAP). Because the consideration of these policies and practices would constitute the change in a condition of employment and the subsequent modification or deletion of an existing provision of the collective bargaining agreement, it becomes a manda- tory subject of bargaining, and adhering to a claim of management rights on the subject of unilateral implementation would be futile. The parties must bargain. 20 Employee and management cooperation can be difficult to achieve. In many workplaces, joint employee and management committees pro- vide the method by which employers effectively solicit employees' con- cerns and, where it is appropriate, include them in the decision-making. It is typical that negotiated agreements contain specific provision for committees to work on subjects of health and safety and position classi- fication. Some contracts provide for the formation of a general commit- tee with sweeping responsibilities limited only by an understanding that contract interpretation and pending grievances are forbidden sub- jects. These committees can be productive vehicles for solving problems and addressing contentious issues before they become problems. They may generate a cooperative approach to shared concerns, assuming their processes do not deteriorate into institutionalized value bashing, and successfully ameliorate the traditional adversarial relationship between employees and management in the public library. REFERENCES Annotated laws of Massachusetts. (1983). Chapter 150E, Section 9 (A). Cleveland Public Library and District 925, Service Employees International Union. (1987). Alternative dispute resolution: Proposed contract language. May 28. Cleveland Public Library and District 925, Service Employees International Union. (1987). Agreement Between Cleveland Public Library and District 25. April 12. Elkouri, F., & Elkouri, E. A. (1973). How arbitration works (4th Ed.). Washington, DC: Bureau of National Affairs. National Labor Relations Board. (1987). Pratt vs. Whitney. Case No. 39, CA 3263. June 3. New York Public Employees' Fair Employment Act. (1985a). Section 209 (3) (b). New York Public Employees' Fair Employment Act. (1985b). Section 210 (1). Ohio Revised Code. (1987). Section 4117.08 (C). Overton, C. E. (1973). Criterion in grievance and interest arbitration in the public sector. Arbitration Journal, 28, 159-166. KATHLEEN M. HEIM Dean School of Library and Information Science Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, Louisiana Organizational Entry: Human Resources Selection and Adaptation in Response to a Complex Labor Pool ABSTRACT Entry-level recruitment to library organizations is discussed in light of the complex labor pool. Suggestions are provided for better techniques to accommodate both employer and employee goals. The need for clearer articulation of specializations to facilitate targeted preparation of new entrants is presented as a strategy to develop a broader cadre of entry-level personnel. INTRODUCTION The complexity of the labor pool comprised of individuals holding an accredited degree in library and information science presents special problems regarding organizational entry. This article examines three topics: (1) the complexity of the labor pool; (2) the scope of organiza- tional entry considerations; and (3) considerations for organizational entry in a library and information environment. Historically, the organization has been the focus of study regarding recruitment of personnel. That is, individuals have been seen in terms of how they will fit into an organization, what skills and abilities they bring, and how they will be trained. Recently, some researchers have begun to consider the process from the dual perspective of the organiza- tion and the individual. Wanous (1980, p. 10) has proposed a matching process that considers the needs of human beings and the capacity of organizations to meet those needs. While the traditional view of organi- zational selection is that an individual's abilities should meet the organ- ization's job requirements resulting in good job performance a more expansive view is that the needs of individuals and the organization's 21 22 capacity to reinforce those needs, results in job satisfaction and commit- ment to the organization. Needs represent basic strivings, and abilities represent what people can or are able to do. Clearly the individual is concerned with the former and the organization with the latter. The challenge of successful recruitment is to strike a balance between the two. THE COMPLEXITY OF THE LABOR POOL FOR LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE POSITIONS For simplicity, this discussion considers only first positions. Mid- level and upper-management positions involve different sets of norms and factors relating to occupational culture and require separate analy- sis. Dailey (1982) has posited that a completely new personnel selection system is required at these levels based upon "track record inquiry." However, since recruitment at higher levels requires a considerably different set of factors (including, but not limited to, institutional comparability, career stage development, and professional affiliation), this discussion will focus on the composition of the labor pool for the first position. Since most accredited programs of library and information science education grant an "all-purpose" degree, it might be assumed by employers at the outset that the potential labor pool for any entry-level position is fairly homogeneous. However, this is certainly not the case. Most new graduates with mobility target public service in an academic library as their most desirable job (Heim & Moen, 1989). Each program will graduate a few students with clear and specific career goals based, usually, upon preprofessional experience such as health sciences libraries or music librarianship but most new graduates will modify career goals in light of constraints on mobility, available positions, and recruitment strategies of potential employers. The primary fact to keep in mind is that each employer will find a different labor pool for different jobs subject to many variables. A few examples will illustrate this. A large urban public library with no library education program in the local metropolitan area will experience difficulty in identifying youth services personnel for an entry-level post. A small academic library in a small town will experience little diffi- culty in attracting candidates for a public services position. An urban academic library with library education attainable through part-time or full-time study will find it relatively easy to obtain can- didates for most entry-level positions. School library positions in states where the accredited degree is not a requisite for employment will not be difficult to fill if teacher edu- cation programs provide state required courses. Large urban libraries whether academic or public will experience difficulty in hiring if cost of living is extraordinarily high. HEIM/HUMAN RESOURCES SELECTION 23 Suburban communities, in areas where there is no library education program, will experience difficulty in hiring entry-level personnel especially for public library positions. Far more than we like to admit, mobility plays a great part in the candidate pool for entry-level positions. Because the median age of new graduates is high mid-thirties many have already begun families or made commitments to given communities, drastically cutting back the pool of mobile candidates for entry-level positions. Because entry-level salaries are low, relocation is generally based mainly upon an impacted local labor market. A good case in point is this author's experience of recent graduates at Louisiana State University. Until recently, local entry-level salaries were extremely low $3,000-$4,000 below the national average. Consequently, graduates with mobility tended to relocate. However, recent salary increases in the local job market closer to the national average have tended to keep a larger portion of new graduates in the state even those from other regions. Whereas a $3,000 to $4,000 differential was impetus to move, a differential of $1,000 to $2,000 was not, given that entry-level positions seldom provide moving expenses and often do not even provide interview reimbursement. Additionally, when graduates move they tend to move for positions they perceive (rightly or wrongly) as providing potential for growth and advancement. Thus the public services positions in academic libraries are pursued as these seem to hold promise for careers and development. Positions that candidates view as somewhat static (such as youth ser- vices or technical services) do not draw a large and geographically diverse labor pool. A solid example of this would be school library media positions. While an individual may move for such a position, this is generally due to family relocation not due to the candidate perusing openings throughout the nation and then applying. (Compounding this problem is the school systems' own tendency to hire and promote from within and to prefer less experienced candidates due to costs.) Available Positions To a large degree, those graduates without clear career goals are rather open-ended as to first job. For those with no mobility, career goals are flexible enough to modify the job search to meet local labor needs. Again, to use the example of Louisiana State University, few matriculated students enter the program with the idea of service in state libraries or state agencies. However, the proximity of state government means that such positions are available and are generally filled by new graduates. Although the state library regularly advertises its positions in the national press, the salaries are not high enough to attract many distance candidates and the labor needs are largely met through hiring nonmobile new graduates. It seems that students will modify their course of study for the jobs that they perceive as desirable. "Online searching" and "bibliographic 24 instruction" courses attract students who are targeting public service positions in academic libraries, but few students will enroll in our "management of technical service" seminars. There is a break between students' perceived ideas of positions and their desire to prepare for positions. While those in the public services career stream can take little credit for the fact that many students will modify their studies to meet job requirements, it remains true that this appears to be the only reasonably well understood career stream on the part of most students. This is probably due to the visibility of these positions during under- graduate or other graduate study. What is needed to generate career orientation toward the require- ments of the employing libraries is a profession-wide commitment to delineating career paths for areas of library service in which there is a shortfall of new entrants. While those in library education try to convey the career potential of youth services or technical services, there is not enough provision of role models in the field whose careers have been analyzed to make such specialization attractive. Thus most new gradu- ates will accept these perceived less desirable positions for reasons other than career commitment. Employer Response to a Complex Labor Pool Employers who are disappointed at a small candidate pool for new positions may not realize that positions outside of public service require a different recruitment strategy than simply placing an advertisement in the national press. However, once the factors of mobility and accommo- dation of new entrants to available positions are understood, employers should be able to develop a recruitment plan that enables them to attract a broader selection of applicants. Techniques for managing recruit- ment in light of a complex labor pool will be discussed in the third section of this article. THE SCOPE OF ORGANIZATIONAL ENTRY CONSIDERATIONS Activities Prior to Recruitment "Organizational entry" refers to those components of the hiring process that surround an individual's recruitment, selection, and social- ization. Before any contact is made with candidates for employment, each position whether newly created or ongoing should first be sub- jected to job analysis. Without a complete job analysis prior to selection-related activities, the entire organizational entry process can be jeopardized. A number of well -developed techniques exist for the conduct of an effective job analysis. These include: (1) Job Analysis Interviews a trained analyst collects data by studying employees familiar with the job under consideration; (2) Task Analysis Inventories questionnaires listing tasks associated with the open position that define the principal HEIM/HUMAN RESOURCES SELECTION 25 tasks for a given job; (3) Position Analysis Questionnaires standardized evaluation tools that examine work activities and compen- sation issues; (4) Guidelines Oriented Job Analysis a multistep process designed to develop a selection plan reflecting the job being studied; (5) the Iowa Merit Employment Systems a process designed to lead to content-valid selection devices; (6) Functional Job Analysis a thorough procedure for applying a standardized controlled language for describing and measuring what workers do on a job; and (7) The Job Element Method which is designed to identify the characteristics of superior workers on the job (Feild & Gatewood, 1987, pp. 113-22). In their article, "Matching Talent with the Task," Feild and Gate- wood (1987, pp. 122-24) compare these methods of job analysis in light of the EEOC Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedure which lay out legal reasons for using job analysis as part of a selection program. They also compare the seven methods on twelve variables: (1) operational currency; (2) degree to which the methodological in- struments are directly usable; (3) occupational versatility; (4) standardi- zation; (5) acceptability to users/respondents; (6) required amount of job analyst training; (7) sample size; (8) suitability for content validity; (9) suitability for criterion-related validity; (10) reliability; (1 1) utility in developing selection measures; and (12) cost. The need for job analysis is underscored in Isacco and Smith's (1985) assertion that one of the primary reasons that the hiring process fails is due to lack of attention to prerecruitment activities. In their review, they observe that the spectrum of organizational policies relat- ing to personnel should be surveyed frequently to avoid legal problems and to ensure that the job analysis procedure takes place with appropri- ate attention to position and organizational requirements. Once the new position is sufficiently clear to those who will be involved in hiring, internal selection procedures should be established. These will vary depending upon the level of position. As noted before, procedures and recruitment for mid or upper-level positions are differ- ent enough from entry-level positions to warrant consideration other than that which is the focus of this article. Stages in Entry For entry-level professional positions, however, there are special prob- lems associated with the transition from college to work that need to be considered. The model developed by Phillips (1987) is especially helpful. Phillips's discussion focuses upon organizational entry to profes- sional jobs. Although the model he presents does not differ, on first glance, from traditional models of entry, his focus on those aspects of the process of particular import to new employees who have just com- pleted their professional education has great relevance for this discus- sion (Phillips, 1987, pp. 35-42). In brief, the stages include: Recruitment: This is the period in which employers work to ensure a 26 good match between individuals and jobs. Particular schools may be identified that are known to produce ideal candidates. However, em- ployers should not oversell their organization in such a way that new hires are disappointed upon entering the organization. Pre-employment education: Given the amount of time between selec- tion and entry, this stage can vary greatly. However, a number of acti- vities that can provide early introduction to the organizational cul- ture can be executed that provide for better transition. These include provision of publications (annual reports, in-house newsletters), direct communications from key people (such as memos that would be routed to the new employees if they were already on the job), or job related documents such as policy manuals. Orientation: This begins upon arrival to the new position. Well- planned orientations with clear goals and objectives should take ad- vantage of new graduates' enthusiasm. Initial perceptions of col- leagues and culture make the strongest impact at this time. Attitudes may be shaped if organizational goals are made clear. Education I training: These activities are aimed at preparing the new employee to accommodate pre-entry education to actual position requirements. These activities should be organized with the needs of both the individual and organization's in mind. Adaptation: This is the stage at which an individual through recruit- ment, pre-employment interaction, orientation, and education/ training has adopted the culture of the organization. Performance feedback is crucial to good adaptation. Promotion /assignment: Many organizations bring in strong new graduates with the intent of placing them where they are best suited once initial stages are completed. It is critical to make the first assign- ment to positions in which individuals are challenged and well-moti- vated. Evaluation: This relates to an overall assessment of the management of the transition and is a mechanism for gauging the effectiveness of the methods employed in earlier stages. Each stage of the organizational entry process can be configured to meet the requirements of a given organization as well as to the individ- ual position. What needs to be kept in mind at all times, however, is that this is a process that can be managed and must be managed if the organization is to be successful in identifying and retaining excellent employees. The costs of hiring both actual and in terms of personnel time expended are so great that organizational entry is the most cru- cial aspect of human resources management. ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR ORGANIZATIONAL ENTRY IN A LIBRARY AND INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT How Library and Information Science Entry Differs How do we superimpose general organizational entry considera- HEIM/HUMAN RESOURCES SELECTION 27 lions onto the complex labor pool for library and information science positions? First, we need to delineate how this labor pool differs from the general labor pool to which most of the organizational entry litera- ture is directed, and how library organizations differ from other large organizations vis-a-vis their approach to career development. As described in section one, a very small percentage of new gradu- ates consciously target their graduate education for "a technical services post in a major academic library" or a "youth services position in a suburban public library." Unlike the MBA graduate who prepares generically for a "management position in a large corporation," and looks to the employment market in terms of organizational status and long-term security, the typical MLIS graduate is far more constrained by external factors such as mobility and perceived availability of career development within an organization. While the large corporation accommodates this generic approach through the transition stages out- lined in section two that is taking the best raw talent and reassigning it to posts where skills and organizational needs mesh library employers recruit for a specific position and thus limit the chances that a new employee will develop innate skills. Compounding this is the fact that top positions in library and information science are rarely achieved through excellence in one organization. Recent studies have shown that high achievers in aca- demic librarianship exhibit mobility and, in fact, must plan to move several times to different organizations if they are to be appointed to top administrative levels (Anderson, 1985). This is quite different from other types of organizations that con- sciously work to develop career ladders within an organization and thus may be more inclined to invest larger amounts of organizational re- sources in employee education and assignation. A Functional Approach to Library and Information Science Entry Each individual library administration must certainly develop its own entry process comprised of the components already described. However, the field must take a more concerted stance vis-a-vis some aspects of this process because a given library is not just recruiting for its own needs but for the needs of its entire type of function. Taking this view, which is based upon a more realistic understanding of the poten- tial new-entrant labor pool, there are different explications that might be used to describe some of the stages in Phillips's model. Some of these that consider entry are suggested later not from a specific library's vantage, but from the vantage of the field as a whole or at least from that of a type of library or function. Recruitment. This aspect of employment has long been viewed to lesser or greater degrees as a profession-wide responsibility. Recent shortages 28 for many specializations such as technical processes or youth services have combined to create profession-wide concern (Heim, 1988, pp. 7-9). This concern has manifested itself in the establishment of recruit- ment committees within the American Library Association's various sections as well as through ongoing programs of the association's Office for Library Personnel Resources. In response to this concern, the focus of National Library Week in 1989 was the "information professional," with the intent of demonstrating the importance of librarians to infor- mation provision as well as the viability of information service as a career. The "recruitment" process must necessarily include recruitment to the field as well as from the field. Although most employers are looking to fill a specific job opening, they must keep in mind the reasons that the candidate pool may be disappointingly small. Foremost of these reasons include low salaries. New college graduates today are more oriented to economic rewards. If entry-level salaries continue lower than salaries paid to teachers (who require only a baccalaureate degree), it is unlikely that new graduates will choose to enter a masters degree program without better economic incentive. A first step in achieving a larger labor pool is to raise salaries to a level wherein the library and informa- tion science profession can compete with other professions. While individual libraries may choose to raise salaries to be competitive for the new mobile graduates, this is a matter of libraries competing against each other and does not address the systemic problem of the field's overall unattractiveness due to low starting pay. As a library and information science education program dean, this author receives many requests in the course of a year to consider curricu- lar changes. These requests usually come from committees of profes- sional associations. Typically, model programs are proposed for discrete specializations such as map librarianship, media cataloging, or service to the young adolescent. The reason that many specializations cannot receive attention has already been alluded to few students enter programs with clear career goals. Certainly one reason for the requests to provide curricular exposure to specializations is that the requestors surmise that curricular exposure will lead to career interest. Unfortu- nately, this remedy cannot be all things to all areas in which shortages are occurring. Students must have a sense of what the specialization for which curricular change is requested can lead to that is, what are the long-term career options of map librarianship, media cataloging, or service to the young adolescent? Pre-employment education. The Phillips model views the period between the job offer and organizational entry as a time to begin the socialization to the employing institution. Certainly this holds true for an employing library, but in a broader sense it is time to socialize to the larger profession as well. Given the shortage of new graduates, we have HEIM/HUMAN RESOURCES SELECTION 29 found that some entrepreneurial employers are visiting campus and making offers very early to excellent candidates. With a longer pre- employment period, the new employee can turn some attention to accommodating the specialization for which they were hired. In three very different cases this year (health sciences, youth services, and public library/technical service) students hired early were supported by their future employer to attend local conferences in the area of specialization. This author also noted that these students are developing papers and independent studies in connection with their future work and, in one case, was taking adjunct courses that will be of use on the job. Orientation. There are a number of excellent books and articles slated particularly to library orientation for new employees (Dewey, 1987; Creth, 1986). However, these tend, as does Phillips, to focus on organization-specific orientation. Clearly, in very small libraries, there may be no mechanism for internal career development. Obversely, in very large libraries, the mechanism for career development may well be through identification of a job in another similarly sized institution at a different level. Part of the orientation process should be a discussion of career issues that may not directly affect performance in the employing institution. Also, given the "isolate" nature of specializations, individuals should be given some sanction to initiate interaction with specialists at other institutions. In a large academic library, the new cataloger assigned to Slavic cataloging should be affirmed in seeking and sustain- ing contact with Slavic experts at other institutions. In a small public library, the lone youth services specialist should be encouraged to meet on a regular basis with those at other libraries engaged in similar work. Education /training. Most libraries are unlike large corporations where- in individuals may spend orientation time learning about the organiza- tion for an extended period. In libraries, many employees are given only a brief time for institutional orientation and are then expected to assume the responsibilities for which they have been hired. The carefully planned in-house education and training program advocated by Phil- lips has been formulated and is in place at many libraries (Creth, 1986; Hunt, 1983) but is not usually provided as part of the process of identifi- cation of the right person for the right job. Except at the largest libraries, individuals are hired for specific posts. One possible change for organi- zational entry in libraries at least larger libraries might be employ- ment of excellent graduates with no specific job in mind but later job placement once an individual's strengths are assessed. This idea is not new (the Library of Congress Intern Program is a case in point), but broader acceptance of such a practice might be a workable alternative to job specific employment. The profession is actually well positioned to foster intra- organizational adaptation through mechanisms such as the American 30 Library Association's divisions which provide functional or type-of- library career development through annual program meetings, oppor- tunities to serve on committees with like-minded colleagues, and extensive journal publications. However, all of these opportunities are not available to all professionals due to cost or local barriers, and thus the pool of candidates adapted to the larger organizational culture may not be as large as employers would like. This, in turn, causes problems for recruitment to positions at higher levels. Promotion /assignment. As was noted under the "Education/training" stage, few libraries provide an extended training period at the end of which an individual is assigned a post that best suits their talents and abilities. This may well be an area of human resources management for libraries in which work must be concentrated. What would be the best situation for employers' seeking to fill library and information positions? Ideally, the field would attract large enough numbers of new entrants that employers would be able to delineate specific career preparations and would thus have a broad field from which to choose. Realistically, the small number of entrants and constraints already outlined, such as low salaries and unfocused posi- tion expectations at time of matriculation, means that students are unlikely in the aggregate to identify specific careers at the outset and consciously prepare for them. So what compromise can be reached? This author suggests that, in the short-run, employers and new entrants connect earlier in the educa- tion process perhaps mid-point and thus enable some pre- employment preparation to take place. In the long run, when at long last the world values the skills of information professionals to the point that salaries and career ladders are widely available both within and without the organization, we would see increased numbers of graduates and organizational structures that can accommodate their skills and aspirations. REFERENCES Anderson, D. J. (1985). Comparative career profiles of academic librarians: Are leaders dif- ferent? The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 70(January). Creth, S. D. (1986). Effective on-the-job training: Developing library human resources. Chicago: ALA. Dailey, C. A. (1982). Using the track record approach. New York: AMACOM. Dewey, B. I. (1987). Library jobs: How to fill them, how to find them. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press. Feild, H. S., & Gatewood, R. D. (1987). Matching talent with the task. Personnel Admini- strator, (April), 113-124. Heim, K. M., & Moen, W. E. (In press). Occupational entry: Library and information sci- ence students' attitudes, demographics and aspirations. Chicago: ALA. Heim, K. M. (1988). Librarians for the new millennium. In W. E. Moen & K. M. Heim (Eds.), Librarians for the new millennium (pp. 7-9). Chicago: ALA. Hunt, S. (1983). A structure and seven-step process for developing in-house human re- sources programs. The Bookmark, -//(Summer). HEIM/HUMAN RESOURCES SELECTION 31 Isacco, J. M., &: Smith, C. (1985). Hiring: A common sense approach. Journal oj Library Administration, 6(2), 67-81. Phillips, J. J. (1987). Recruitment, training and retraining new employees. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Wanous, J. P. (1980). Organizational entry: Recruitment, selection and socialization of newcomers. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. JAMES G. NEAL Assistant Dean and Head Reference and Instructional Services Division University Libraries Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania Employee Turnover and the Exit Interview ABSTRACT Employee turnover is an important measure of the health of an organi- zation. All libraries should implement a three-step program of turnover management: the collection and analysis of data on turnover patterns, the identification of those factors contributing to turnover in the library through organization of a formal exit interview program, and imple- mentation of remedial actions which address the main causes of turn- over. This article focuses on the exit interview as an effective tool for documenting the causes of turnover in a library and for influencing management action. The exit interview must be based upon a standard- ized format, assure employee confidentiality, employ talented inter- viewing staff, involve periodic assessment of effectiveness, and provide for routine feedback to management. INTRODUCTION Libraries, despite a significant dependence on human resources and the substantial costs of personnel replacement, continue to operate without effective employee turnover management programs. Staff turnover that is, the termination of employees and the hiring of other individuals to replace them is a complex phenomenon requiring a systematic view and an awareness of many variables within both the work and external environments. Managers in all types and sizes of libraries must expand their understanding of the turnover process and its impact on the employee, the work group, the library, and the larger library community. 32 NEAL/EMPLOYEE TURNOVER AND EXIT INTERVIEW 33 EMPLOYEE TURNOVER Turnover is characterized by two key variables: job satisfaction and opportunity. Job satisfaction, the "push" of internal organizational factors, is the extent to which employees have positive and affective attitudes toward their jobs. Opportunity, the "pull" of the external labor market, is the extent to which alternative occupational roles are available. It is important to distinguish between voluntary and involun- tary turnover, as well as avoidable and unavoidable separations. Avoid- able separations relate to conditions the employer has some control over such as wages, benefits, and working conditions. Unavoidable separations generally are not controllable by management and include retirement, death and maternity leave. Voluntary turnovers, frequently referred to as quits or resignations, are initiated by the employee while involuntary terminations, such as dismissals or layoffs, are initiated by the employer. Most research on turnover focuses on voluntary and avoidable separations because they are more subject to control by man- agement (Price, 1977). The focus of management concern is the impact of employee turn- over on organizational effectiveness and costs. Turnover can be seen as providing some benefits: helps keep salary costs down, creates oppor- tunities for upward mobility, encourages staffing flexibility and organi- zational restructuring, brings employees with new ideas and experiences into the organization, and reduces the frustration created by dead-end jobs. The negative consequences tend to be more visible and the costs greater than anticipated. The fiscal impact, sometimes describ- ed as the positional replacement costs, can be summarized in several categories: costs incurred when an individual leaves, costs of advertising the position and recruiting and selecting a replacement, costs of new employee orientation and training, costs of equipment underutiliza- tion, and costs of lost production and productivity (Flamholtz, 1973). In view of the significant impact of turnover and the value of turnover as a measure of organizational health, all libraries should implement a three-step program of turnover management: the collec- tion and analysis of data on turnover patterns, the identification of those factors contributing to turnover in the library through organization of a formal exit interview program, and implementation of remedial actions which address the main causes of turnover. This article focuses on the exit interview as an effective tool for documenting the causes of turnover in a library and for influencing management action. THE EXIT INTERVIEW The exit interview enables not only an improved understanding of the reasons why employees leave, but provides opportunities for effec- tive communication in several additional areas as well. These include for example: clarification of complaints against employees being released; sharing of information about benefits, including maintenance 34 of medical insurance, pension programs, and eligibility for unemploy- ment compensation; promotion of positive relations with former employees; discussion of policies on references and eligibility for rehire; and identification of problem areas that require corrective measures. The exit interview should not be seen as an opportunity to retain competent employees by exploring the causes of dissatisfaction and seeking solutions to their concerns. The two major elements of the exit interview are discovery and communication. Neither the discovery of an employee's motivation for vacating a position nor the sharing of this information with manage- ment are easy tasks. A commitment of sufficient time and appropriate staff for dialogue, analysis, and feedback is essential. Staff understand- ing and cooperation are also critical so that the exit interview is viewed as more than another mandatory procedure that must be completed before a final paycheck is issued. The literature of librarianship provides little information on the use of exit interviews in libraries. A study completed during 1981-82 surveyed the management of 1 50 North American university libraries on turnover of employees in support staff positions. Findings indicate that approximately 50 percent of these libraries always carried out exit interviews, 36 percent sometimes, and 14 percent never. In addition, the individuals responsible for conducting the exit interviews were identi- fied. In nearly 60 percent of the cases, the library personnel officer or a representative of the university personnel office was involved. The balance of the respondents cited a library administrator or the employee's supervisor as the interviewer, and in three instances it was the preference of the departing employee (Neal, 1982). Critical to the success of an exit interview program is the structure and content of the contact with the departing employee. Key elements are the clear assignment of responsibility for conducting the interviews, effective scheduling procedures, the creation of a proper climate for the interview, and a productive format. The exit interview does not create a mutually beneficial condition, and, with little to gain from the expe- rience, an employee may be unwilling to provide detailed and accurate information. If the interview is scheduled hastily and conducted hap- hazardly, it will be even more difficult to identify reasons for termination. Exit interviews in an organization should be conducted by one individual, preferably a personnel professional who is knowledgeable about the work of the library, who is effective in a private and face-to- face interview setting, and who is trusted by the employees. Credibility and approachability are essential qualities. In some large organizations it may be necessary to share this responsibility by assigning one inter- viewer to each major employee group. In some small organizations, where a personnel professional is not on the staff, contracting with an outside office or individual may be appropriate. NEAL/EMPLOYEE TURNOVER AND EXIT INTERVIEW 35 An important initial question to broach is whether exit interviews will be optional or mandatory. The inclusion of a review of employee benefits and outstanding accounts as part of the interview promotes cooperation and participation. The exit interview should be scheduled in advance and the employee should understand the objectives of the meeting. The literature on exit interviews presents conflicting recom- mendations on the best timing, some advocating the last day of employ- ment, while others favor a time earlier in the final week. The scheduling of the interview will enable the interviewer to gather information, review appropriate files, discuss relevant issues with the employees' immediate supervisor, and budget sufficient time for the meeting. The interview should be conducted in a private office in an envir- onment free of interruptions and which encourages an open exchange of information. The interviewer should clearly describe at the outset the format of the meeting, the expectations for the discussions, and the intended use of the information gathered. On this latter point, an employee must be confident that any negative points will not be imme- diately shared with management and attributed to the employee. Furth- ermore, because the exit interview is a confidential exchange, information obtained should not be available directly to unemploy- ment compensation claim examiners. The individual conducting the exit interview should be aware of several basic prejudices the departing employee may bring to the pro- cess. The employee may not perceive personal benefits of participation and thus make it difficult for the interviewer to obtain accurate informa- tion. A sense of failure or resentment may provoke the employee to exaggerate the difficulties encountered in the organization. If the employee feels that it is either too late or too difficult to effect construc- tive changes, then it might be viewed as wiser to leave a "clean" and noncontroversial record to avoid problems when applying for other positions. The format of the exit interview is essential to its success. The interview should have previously defined objectives and subjects for discussion and should be structured and standardized so that generally all employees are asked the same basic questions. The basic purposes of the interview are to draw out the departing employee's opinions about the employment experience and to obtain through discussion an informed understanding of the reasons for termination. In this process, it is essential that the interviewer not introduce personal biases or take a value stand on the accuracy of statements presented. A basic outline for conducting the exit interview should include the following elements: statement of purpose, relevant background infor- mation, positive aspects of the job, negative aspects of the job, critical incidents, reasons for leaving, suggested changes, and separation agree- ments. Some organizations have found it effective to distribute a pre- interview questionnaire and to use this information as a guide for the 36 interview discussions. Employees may be more willing before the inter- view to share opinions about the organization, their work, and their supervisors in a written format. The interview itself may be guided by a checklist of areas to be covered including: orientation to the library, on the job training, challenges and opportunities provided by job assign- ment, participation in broader library and professional activities, major strengths and weaknesses of the department, major strengths and prob- lems of the library from both employee and patron perspectives, major individual contributions to the library, and benefits of employment (University of Michigan Libraries). A series of questions can be devel- oped to serve as the basis for discussions such as: What did you like most about your job? What did you like least about your job? Describe the amount of variety in your job. How would you evaluate the quality of the training you received? What would you suggest that might improve the orientation/ training of the person who replaces you? What could be done to make your job easier/more challenging/more interesting? What improvements in communication would make this a better place to work? What resources might be made available to make this position better for your successor? What contributed to making your employment here enjoyable? Do you feel that performance expectations were reasonable and clearly explained? Did you receive clear and adequate directions regarding the specific duties of your position? How would you characterize the support you got from your supervisor? Was the feedback you received about your performance timely, help- ful, and specific? What makes your new position more attractive than the present job? What factors contributed to your decision to leave (University of Indiana)? Regardless of the structure of the exit interview, it should always include four basic elements: a diagnosis function, a therapy/improve- ment function, a separation assistance function, and a determination of reasons for leaving function. THE POST-TURNOVER SURVEY Many organizations employ a post-turnover survey as a substitute for, or as a complement to, the conventional exit interview. Several advantages are cited for the use of questionnaires. The lapse of time will encourage former employees to make more rational and honest assess- NEAL/EMPLOYEE TURNOVER AND EXIT INTERVIEW 37 ments of the employer and supervisor particularly if offering opinions from the security of a new position. If surveys are conducted anony- mously, both the employer and the employee are relieved of the pressure of a face-to-face confrontation. The use of questionnaires enables the organization to sample consistently rather than depend on evidence produced by the sporadic statements of individual employees (Your- man, 1965). An effective cover letter can promote participation by stressing the survey objectives as improved employee performance and job satisfaction and by underscoring the anonymity or confidentiality of the responses. The issue of exit interview versus post-turnover survey comes down to a choice between objectivity of data versus response rate. The effective design of the questionnaire in terms of choice of questions, layout, and language; the ease of completion and minimizing of time commitment; and the identification of the former employee with the objectives of the survey can help to maximize response. Many organizations now rely completely on the survey method and have canceled exit interview programs. Skilled interviewers, able to persuade departing employees to talk honestly about their experiences and decision to leave, are not always available. The unwillingness or inability of personnel managers to follow-up on information received in the interview and to communi- cate the findings to management compromises the entire process. The questionnaire results similarly should not digress into a record-keeping device, for if they do not prompt corrective measures, such surveys quickly become viewed as another futile personnel gimmick. BENEFITS AND LIABILITIES OF EXIT INTERVIEWS AND POST-TURNOVER SURVEYS Information gathered through exit interviews or surveys is invalu- able management data. No exit interview program can proceed success- fully without a clear organizational commitment to communicate and act upon the findings. Findings may take the form of aggregate sum- mary reports for senior administrators which document important trends and patterns. This information can be used in departmental/unit reviews, in the identification of areas requiring policy attention, and in the targeting of positions or supervisors experiencing problems. Care must be taken to protect the confidentiality of the employee and to handle discreetly and in a positive manner the feedback of information to individual supervisors. The exit interview results will generally target several key areas: management practices, employee placement, training and develop- ment, compensation and benefits, health and safety, job security, and supervisor/employee relations. Preliminary findings on reasons for turnover in libraries confirm this trend with the following factors most often cited as reasons for leaving (Neal, 1984): better opportunities elsewhere lack of job challenge unfair or unequal treatment poor supervision weak interpersonal relationships unsatisfactory salary inability to perform duties effectively moving/graduating spouse return to school inadequate selection/assignment procedures ineffective grievance procedures lack of well -organized training programs The key element in the management of employee turnover is exit interview feedback to first line supervisors. They must be informed and knowledgeable about the technical and administrative aspects of their position and about organizational policies and procedures that affect their subordinates. They must be skillful in applying constructive discipline, effective in interpersonal communication, and creative in challenging committed and productive employees. But most impor- tantly, they must understand the positive and negative aspects and impact of their performance as supervisors. Evaluations of exit interview programs have not been well- documented. Several studies suggest a considerable amount of distor- tion in the information gathered through exit interviews when compared with the results of surveys completed by the same employees. One study concluded that unavoidable terminations appear to be the only exit interviews that elicit accurate information. This may be due to the unambiguous nature of reasons such as moving or pregnancy. In addition, the extra-organizational nature of such turnover poses little threat when revealed to a management representative during an exit interview (Lefkowitz, 1969). Exit interviews tend to overemphasize the importance of personal reasons and dissatisfaction with work as reasons for terminations, and to underrepresent the desire for freedom of action and autonomy in career planning as well as the attraction of the job market. With the critical importance of the skills of the interviewer, exit interviews have been consistently criticized for the reliability and valid- ity of the procedure. Furthermore, there is limited data on the extent to which information obtained in interviews has been useful in reducing turnover. In one study, Garretson & Teel (1982) sought to determine whether exit interviews are cost-effective; that is, do savings in turnover costs exceed the costs of the interviews? This investigation reached three major conclusions: for many organizations, the exit interview is a symbolic gesture because no use is made of the information obtained; many organizations are in fact securing information on a variety of factors affecting the quality of work life that could be used as a basis for turnover reduction programs; and little effort is being made to quantify NEAL/EMPLOYEE TURNOVER AND EXIT INTERVIEW 39 the costs of turnover thus making it impossible to determine whether exit interviews are cost-effective. The importance of turnover management to organizational effec- tiveness and success led to a call several years ago for implementation of an action and research agenda on the part of individual libraries and professional organizations (Neal, 1982). These points are still valid. Library managers should begin to collect and analyze data on turnover for their employees and advocate organizationwide turnover monitor- ing programs. Procedures should be organized preferably well- designed exit interviews to identify those factors which are contributing to turnover problems in the library and remedial programs should be implemented which address these problems. Professional organizations must take a leadership position in the promotion of turnover management in libraries. The formulation of guidelines for the collection, measurement, and reporting of turnover data would enable and encourage the computation of benchmark statistics for groups of employees in libraries, for different size institutions, and for geographic regions. The profession must also promote substantive research on turnover-related topics including analysis of turnover trends in individual or groups of libraries and testing of the assorted variables related to turnover in library settings. The exit interview is thus a central component of effective turnover management. By allowing an employee to obtain closure of employ- ment with an organization, the exit interview provides for the establish- ment of good working relations with former employees, and furnishes useful management data. It must be based upon a standardized format, assure employee confidentiality, employ talented interviewing staff, involve periodic assessment of effectiveness, and provide for routine feedback to management. REFERENCES Flamholtz, E. G. (1973). Human resources accounting: Measuring positional replacement costs. Human Resource Management, 72(Spring), 8-16. Indiana University. Exit Interview University checklist from Indiana University Li- braries. Garretson, P., & Teel, K. S. (1982). The exit interview: Effective tool or meaningless ges- ture? Personnel, 59(July/August), 70-77. Lefkowitz, J., & Katz, M. L. (1969). Validity of exit interviews. Personnel Psychology, 22(Winter), 445-455. Neal, J. G. (1984). The turnover process and the academic library. In G. B. McCabe & B. Kreissman (Eds.), Advances in Library Administration and Organization (Vol. 3). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Neal, J. G. (1982). Staff turnover and the academic library. In G. B. McCabe & B. Kreissman (Eds.), Foundations in library and information science. (Options for the 80s: Proceedings of the second national conference of the Association of College and Research Libraries) (Vol. 17, Part A) (pp. 99-106). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Price, J. L. (1977). The study of turnover. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press. University of Michigan. Exit interview form from University of Michigan Libraries. Yourman, J. (1965). Following up on terminations: An alternative to the exit interview. Personnel, -/2(July/August), 51-55. LUCY R. COHEN Manager Personnel and Payroll Services University of Michigan Library Ann Arbor, Michigan Conducting Performance Evaluations ABSTRACT In order for any performance evaluation system to be effective, it should provide believable information about a staff member's job performance. A performance evaluation system based on performance goals and measures is an effective system which satisfies those conditions. This article provides a summary of the discussions and materials covered during the performance evaluation workshop conducted at the 29th Allerton Institute. It reviews the reasons for conducting performance evaluations, the concerns and potential pitfalls to performance evalua- tions, and provides an in-depth description of a goals-based perfor- mance evaluation system. INTRODUCTION Any effective performance evaluation system should provide believable information about a staff member's job performance. A staff member's performance evaluation should not be based on personal traits nor should it be subject to the rater's bias. It should be based on reliable, valid, and comparative data on job performance ( Winstansley, 1980). A performance evaluation system based on performance goals and measures is an effective system which satisfies those conditions. In addition, this type of system also provides ample opportunities for developing staff members, communicating expectations, and coaching them in areas of performance deficiency. The performance evaluation workshop this author conducted at this Allerton Institute on Critical Issues in Library Personnel Manage- ment, provided an opportunity to discuss reasons why supervisors and 40 COHEN/CONDUCTING PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS 41 managers should conduct performance evaluations as well as concerns or problems associated with performance evaluations. It also provided an opportunity to be introduced to the goals-based performance evalua- tion system and to practice writing performance goals. The following provides a summary of the discussions and the materials covered during the workshop. REASONS FOR CONDUCTING PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS Participants agreed that performance evaluations were necessary to provide documentation for personnel actions including merit increases, promotions, and disciplinary action. In addition, it was generally agreed that the evaluations afforded an opportunity for the supervisor to provide a written record of a staff member's overall job performance. The participants also agreed that performance evaluations were devel- opmental in nature since they provided supervisors an opportunity to note performance deficiencies and other areas of concern. Participants noted that supervisors could use performance evaluation information as a planning tool for determining what additional staff training is needed. An additional important aspect of performance evaluation identi- fied was better communication between the supervisor and the staff member. CONCERNS ABOUT PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS Some participants stated that they wanted the performance evalua- tion to be a positive experience for both the supervisor and the staff member. Some were concerned about the time it takes to do performance evaluations, others about getting a commitment from supervisors not only to do them, but also to do them honestly and in a timely manner. Merits of pay for performance were discussed by participants with some concerned that there was no monetary incentive for union employees, others were concerned about how to implement bonus plans linked to goals, yet others wanted to separate developmental perfor- mance evaluations from ones linked to pay increases. Participants agreed that an additional concern was obtaining objective data on which to base performance evaluations and to ensure consistency in rating staff members' performance. POTENTIAL PITFALLS TO PERFORMANCE EVALUATION Before introducing the goals-based system, the following potential pitfalls to performance evaluation were reviewed and adapted from "8 Ways to Ruin Performance Review" (Lowe, 1986). 1. Halo Effect the supervisor gives a favorable rating to all position responsibilities based on impressive performance in one job function. 2. Pitchfork Effect the opposite of the "halo effect," the supervisor 42 gives a poor rating to all position responsibilities based on poor performance in one job function. 3. Central Tendency the supervisor rates everyone as average, thereby avoiding making judgments. 4. Loose Rater the supervisor rates everyone highly (this type of rater can also be called spineless or lenient). The supervisor thus avoids conflict by not pointing out weaknesses. 5. Tight Rater the supervisor rates everyone poorly because he feels no one can live up to his standards. 6. Recency Error the supervisor relies on recent events to determine a staff member's performance rating rather than the full period under review. 7. Length of Service Bias the supervisor assumes that a tenured staff member is performing well because of his experience. 8. Competitive Rater the supervisor determines a staff member's rat- ing based on how he has been evaluated by his own supervisor. THE GOALS-BASED PERFORMANCE EVALUATION SYSTEM Participants were introduced to the goals-based system (Creth, 1984) by reviewing the 10 step process. The flow chart (see Fig. 1) illustrates the goals-based performance evaluation process i.e., perfor- mance planning, monitoring, and evaluation. The activities shown above the shaded areas are those designated for the supervisor; activities within the shaded area are for the employee. The activities in the center are shared jointly by the supervisor and the employee. The main objective of this performance evaluation system is to establish communication between the supervisor and employee in areas of responsibility, desired results and outcomes, priorities, development, and evaluation of work performed. PERFORMANCE PLANNING Major Areas of Responsibilities Agreement The first step in the process of performance planning is to update the job description. This provides an opportunity to define the respon- sibilities of a staff member. The areas of responsibilities agreement should also include new directions and projects which are inherent in organizational change (i.e., how the unit and divisional goals and plans will affect the employee). Performance Plan and Developing Performance Goals There are several methods to develop a performance plan. One way is to delegate the responsibility to the employee and then have the plan validated by the supervisor. Another way is to have the supervisor and employee work out a plan individually and then meet to review and jointly agree on the goals. The latter is suggested in order to allow the COHEN/CONDUCTING PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS 43 4 COLLECT SUPPORT. INFORM- ATION 6 PREPARE FOR 8 REVIEW BY SUPERS SUPER. 1 PERF. APPRAIS. \ 1 2 3 \j s 7 9 10 MAJOR DEVELOP AGREE-. O(> GOING PERFORM- WRITTEN MAJOR AREAS OF PERFORM- MENTON Rl VIEW ANCE EVAL. AREAS OF RESPON. ANCE PLAN IS OF GOALS . APPRAIS. AND RKSPON. AGREE- GOALS ' REACHED PROGRESS VIEWS AGREE- MENT MENT ON REACHED . PERF. (JOB PLAN DESC.) / REACHED \ ^ \ ^^__/^^^ 7\ Ml aE&KtfS&S MB t.>iriAJir.f! \i 2 \ 4 6 / PERFORM- \ COLLECT , PREPARE / ANCE SUPPORT. ^ FOR PLAN INFORM- PERF. ATION APPRAIS. 1,2.43 PERFORMANCE PLANNING 4, 3, &6 PERFORMANCE MONITORING 1.S.&9 PERFORMANCE EVALUATION Adapted from the University of Michigan Hospital Performance Evaluation Program Prepared by Lucy R. Cohen, University Library, University of Michigan, 1987 Figure 1. Flow chart of an evaluation system based on performance goals* supervisor an opportunity to participate fully and use this process as a tool for planning unit work and priorities. In addition, this process provides the supervisor the opportunity to assist in developing action plans for areas of problem performance. Supervisors should: review broader unit/divisional goals and how the employee can contribute; review the past performance of an employee in order to identify and consider areas of strength and weakness; provide assistance in articulating goals for improving areas of weakness. Employees should: outline major continuing responsibilities and desired results; write goals for projects, new programs, improvements, and profes- sional development; review goals to ensure that they are: measurable; support unit/ divisional goals and activities, realistic, and under the employee's control and within the employee's own areas of responsibility. Agreement on a Plan is Reached It is important to arrive at a mutual understanding on all areas of responsibility, performance goals, and methods for measuring results. If differences in opinions, priorities, or perspectives exist, these must be resolved prior to agreement on the goals. PERFORMANCE MONITORING Collect Supportive Information Data collection should occur throughout the period under review. 44 Supportive information which directly relates to the performance objec- tives and the measurement criteria (indicators and standards) for each performance goal should be collected by both the supervisor and the employee. Supervisors and employees should: review personal notes and observations and feedback received from others; review external factors or obstacles which prohibit achievement of desired outcomes; and review any alterations in unit/divisional priorities and any other changes that have occurred over the period under review. Ongoing Review of Goals and Progress Another major objective of a goals-based performance evaluation system is to provide timely feedback to the employee. To make this system work, it is imperative that these opportunities occur frequently, no fewer than quarterly for an annual goals-setting cycle. Supervisors and employees should: review progress on goals; adjust, modify, add, or drop goals; adjust priorities due to changes in organizational directions; and review expectations and responsibilities. Supervisors should: provide assistance in identifying areas that need improvement; provide recognition of accomplishments ^nd contributions; focus on job performance; assist in articulating action plans for problem areas of performance; provide a coaching framework. Note that the previous steps regarding the collection of supportive information and the ongoing review of goals and progress should be repeated regularly throughout the performance evaluation cycle. Prepare for Performance Appraisal Prior to the formal performance appraisal interview and the writ- ten evaluation which occurs at the end of an agreed upon time period (usually on an annual basis), the supervisor and employee need to prepare by reviewing the collective supportive information and the employee's performance in relation to agreed upon goals and stands. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION Performance Appraisal Interview This interview is mutual working session. A date and time for the interview should be set in advance and held in a private location. Sufficient time should be allocated to conduct the interview without interruption or rushing. Supervisors and employees should: discuss employee's activities in order to arrive at an understanding of achievements and problems; COHEN/CONDUCTING PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS 45 review each performance goal, the desired outcome of the goal (results), and assess what did or did not occur; discuss accomplishments on specific goals; discuss problems and what prevented the employee from producing the required results; what obstacles were impeding progress and job satisfaction; discuss ways the supervisor can be more helpful in the coming year; and discuss performance goals for the next year and a time frame for pre- paring the performance plan. Review by Supervisor's Superior An opportunity to discuss the appraisal with the supervisor's superior (manager) is important for several reasons: the manager can often provide additional information on the employee's performance as well as provide the broader view of the organization for future planning; the manager can provide additional information on the possibilities for training and advancement for the employee; and the supervisor's work with the employee is reviewed as part of his own performance plan with the manager. Written Evaluation and Response The written evaluation provides the opportunity to document the employee's performanc nng the past year. This evaluation becomes a part of the employee's permanent file. Supervisors should: provide a balanced and clear statement that reflects accurately the per- formance appraisal interview; provide data and cite specific results achieved in addressing perform- ance goals; summarize strengths and performance areas which need improve- ment or development, and provide examples to support appraisal; describe areas for which new goals need to be written or previous goals revised. Employees should: respond formally to the evaluation, commenting on their own per- ceptions. Sign the evaluation, thereby validating they have read the review. Areas of Responsibilities /Performance Plan Agreement The cycle begins again with an agreement on areas of responsibility and a new performance plan. Performance goals and criteria for meas- uring these goals are agreed upon once more. After discussing the process of formulating performance goals, the rest of the workshop consisted of defining the four types of performance goals (see Appendix A), reviewing sample goals (see Appendix B), and practicing the writing of performance goals. 46 Before participants had an opportunity to practice writing perfor- mance goals, it was important to review that it is the process of writing goals that is more important than the goal itself. The process of writing goals forces the staff member or the supervisor to identify the expected outcome and the desired results. It allows for a staff member or supervi- sor to begin formulating performance standards, performance mea- sures, and action plans. When attempting to formulate performance goals, the staff member or supervisor should try to answer the following questions: What needs to get done? (What are the expected outcomes and the anticipated results?) What is good enough? (What is the stan- dard?) How will we know? (What are the performance indicators and what is going to be measured?) At the end of the workshop the participants attempted to formulate personal performance goals or performance goals for their staff. These first attempts were shared in small and large groups. The additional references to the article provide an opportunity to further investigate this topic. COHEN/CONDUCTING PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS 47 APPENDIX A Definitions PERFORMANCE GOALS Performance goals are written definitions of what you expect to accomplish within a given time period. Goals may relate to continuous job responsibilities, to specific one-time projects, to implementation of new services or operations, to plans for improvement of service or production, to learning a new job or developing a new skill. Some types of goals will be applicable every year; some will not. For each planning year, however, goals should encompass all major job responsibilities, all significant investments of time and energy, and all plans that require special allocation of time, funds, or personnel. Most goal state- ments will include desired result, performance indicators, and standards. Some goal statements will be accompanied by an action plan. PERFORMANCE INDICATORS AND STANDARDS Indicators describe what is to be used as a measure of performance. Stan- dards define the expected level of achievement. Measures of performance may be difficult to establish. They are often easier to define for jobs that are production oriented and for tasks where results can be described in terms of quantity, elapsed time, or accuracy. It is more difficult to set standards for providing services when the product is information or advice, the value of which varies according to the recipient such as reference service, staff counseling, or con- sulting. You may not be satisfied with your first attempt at identifying indica- tors and standards, but you should describe as well as you can how the accomplishment of each goal can be measured or evaluated. ACTION PLAN An action plan outlines the steps to be taken to accomplish a goal, sets time limits for accomplishing each step, and establishes an expected completion date. It describes a series of activities that will result in the achievement of a performance goal. Action plans should accompany all problem-solving goals, innovative goals, and development goals any goal that involves a limited time frame and a final result. Goals relating to routine ongoing job responsibilities will not necessarily be accompanied by an action plan. At the time you are preparing your annual performance goals, you may know that you intend to carry out a particular project, but at that point may have only an indefinite idea of the steps required to accomplish it. In this case, you can simply indicate that a more complete action plan will be prepared by a certain date. The details can be written later. TYPES OF GOALS Although not all goals will fall neatly into a category, most can be identi- fied as belonging to one of the following general types: maintenance, problem- solving, innovative, or developmental. Maintenance Goals Maintenance goals are the major substance of your work and are the goals by which performance is most heavily judged. They should cover all primary ongoing job responsibilities and should, therefore, be related to your job de- scription. These goals are likely to remain stable every year. The level of detail 48 APPENDIX A (Cont.) Definitions described by goal statements may differ according to job complexity and per- sonal preference in stating them, but each primary responsibility should stand as a separate goal. Whenever possible, goals should be stated in terms of the desired result, not as an activity. Problem-Solving Goals Problem-solving goals often relate to continuing responsibilities. They may solve a specific problem or address a need to bring productivity or quality of service up to an established standard. You may have a goal to raise previously set standards or even to establish a standard for the first time. What was a mainte- nance goal last year may this year become a problem-solving goal. If the desired result is achieved, this same goal will revert to a maintenance goal again next year. Problem-solving goals should be accompanied by an action plan. Innovative Goals Innovative goals are new plans, innovations, onetime efforts that require special planning. They may be undertaken for various reasons to respond to changed users' needs, to take advantage of new technology, or to expand services. They often provide opportunities to be creative. Innovative goals should be challenging, should stretch the individual, and should produce a significant result for the library. They should have a purpose, which should be included in the goal statement. Innovative goals especially need careful plan- ning. Attention must be given to what resources will be required, what the costs will be, how long it will take, who will be involved, and what checkpoints along the way will be used to measure progress. Performance on innovative goals is measured by the degree of success in completing on schedule the steps of an organized action plan and in achieving the desired result. However, the nature of the goals you set for yourself may be as important in the evaluation of performance as whether or not an individual goal is achieved. For example, the accomplishment of a plan to make a minor procedural change in unit operations may not be viewed as being of equal importance as a major innovation in the organization of the unit, even if unavoidable circumstances prevented completion of the latter by the projected date. Developmental Goals Developmental goals apply to an individual learning a new job or develop- ing a new skill that will improve job performance. These goals, like problem- solving and innovative goals, should include action plans describing the steps to be taken, target dates, and levels of performance to be achieved. Professional Contributions You should also include goal statements covering major committee or other university library assignments that require a significant commitment of time. Appointments to university committees, task forces, or other bodies that make demands on time or resources should be included as well. A brief descrip- tive statement should be adequate. Unless you are the chairperson, you will rarely have sufficient information to include an action plan. Professional com- COHEN/CONDUCTING PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS 49 mitments outside the university should, with rare exception, only be reported at the end of the year as documentation in support of promotion. By permission, condensed from: Creth, S. (1984). Performance evaluation: A goals-based approach. Association of College and Research Libraries. Continu- ing Education Program #106. 50 APPENDIX B Sample Performance Goals Maintenance Goals Goal: Smooth workflow in section resulting in no backlog of work in one area causing insufficient or uneven workload in another area and maintenance of an average processing time of one week for all rush materials. Goal: Trash is removed daily, and furniture is damp wiped. Carpeted floor vacuumed weekly, other areas wet mopped. Bathrooms are cleaned and mate- rials are replaced daily. Unusual cleaning needs are noted and completed. Performance Indicators: 10 percent error rate for routine duties (trash removal, vacuuming and dusting and error rate in priority areas such as bathrooms). (Job description: clean designated areas of 6 west) Problem-Solving Goals Goal: Achieve an approval plan profile that results in a return of 10 percent or less materials received and acquisition of 90 percent or more of appropriate titles in order to increase the efficiency of the approval program. Action Plan: 1. Meet with vendor representative to discuss current profile December 1985. 2. Review books received for the following four months for relevance. 3. Revise profile as needed April 1986. 4. Review receipts against comprehensive checklists for coverage by approval plan. 5. Modify profile as needed to achieve maximum return rate of 10 percent and minimum acquisition rate of 90 percent July 1986. Goal: New staff are able to work independently at established performance levels within six weeks of hire. Action Plan: 1. Review job requirements and determine areas for which training must be provided on the job. 2. Identify objectives for training for specific tasks for a specific estimated time. 3. Identify staff with whom new employees must meet to review department activities or to receive specific instruction. 4. Identify materials and resources needed for the training process. 5. Review basic training plan in relation to new employee's skills and experience. 6. Develop written training plan and schedule before a person's first day of work. Innovative Goal Goal: Have an online acquisition system with fund account capability in place by May 1986 in order to consolidate the ordering and payment processes for monographs and serials and to provide adequate audit trails for university auditors and fund management reports for selectors and library administrators. Action Plan: 1. Establish objectives September 1985 2. Review needs of selectors, administrators, auditor and acquisitions staff September 1985 3. Identify viable systems and schedule site visits or vendor visits working with AD for Technical Services and Head, Serials Division October 1985 COHEN/CONDUCTING PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS 51 4. Review the systems' capabilities and gather any further information neces- sary from vendors November 1985 5. Present a report to library administration identifying preferred system and justifying its selection over other systems December 1985 6. Assist administration in preparing contracts and other documents necessary for purchase December '857 January '86 1. Begin to plan implementation March 1986, etc.... 52 REFERENCES Creth, S. D. (1984). Performance evaluation: A goals-based approach. Chicago, IL: The Association for College & Research Libraries (Continuing Education Program #106). Lowe, T. R. (1986). Eight ways to ruin performance review. Personnel Journal, 65(1986), 60-62. Winstansley, N. B. (1980). Legal and ethical issues in performance appraisals. Harvard Business Review, 55(6), 186-188, 192. ADDITIONAL REFERENCES Allan, A., & Reynolds, K. J. (1983). Performance problems: A model for analysis and re- solution. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 9(May), 83-88. Diffie-Couch, P. (1983). How to give feedback. Supervisory Management, 2#(August), 27-31. Evans, E. G., 8c Rugass, B. (1983). Another look at performance appraisal in libraries. Journal of Library Administration, ^(Summer), 61-69. Graves, P. J. (1982). Let's Put Appraisal Back in Performance Appraisal: Part I. Personnel Journal, 61(11), 844-849. Graves, P. J. (1982). Let's Put Appraisal Back in Performance Appraisal: Part II. Person- nel Journal, 61(12), 918-923. Hodge, S. P. (1983). Performance appraisals: Developing a sound legal and managerial system. College and Research Libraries, 44(]u\y), 235-244. Kroll, H. R. (1983). Beyond evaluation: Performance appraisal as a planning and motiva- tional tool in libraries. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 9(March), 27-32. SHARON L. BAKER Assistant Professor School of Library and Information Science University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa Managing Resistance to Change ABSTRACT While some resistance to change is inevitable, this article suggests that inept management strategies can often cause the normal unease asso- ciated with a change to accelerate into more severe problems. Reasons for negative reactions to change are explored and practical solutions, based on findings of research studies, are offered. INTRODUCTION One of the best recent articles on the subject of change was pub- lished in 1986 by Sara Fine. One of Fine's most relevant points is that resistance to change is inevitable, and management must be prepared to respond to it (Fine, 1986). Fine's research shows that "human beings tend to resist change, even when change represents growth and development. ..[and will lead to] greater efficiency and productivity. [Since] changes in an organiza- tion affect the individuals within that organization, and individ- uals... have the power to facilitate or thwart the implementation of an innovation (Fine, 1986, p. 84). Why do employees resist change? Primarily because they fear the unknown. That is, they feel anxiety about how the change will affect them, their job performance, their relationship with other employees, and other job related factors. In fact, psychologists say that fear of the unknown is a rational, rather than an irrational, response to change. A small amount of uneasiness is to be expected from most people when the status quo shifts, simply because people need time to adjust their 53 54 thinking, their job performance, and their social relationships to any changes made. Thus, resistance to change is inevitable, and managers must allow for some resistance when they are planning to implement change. Indeed, some resistance to change may even be positive because it slows down the speed with which innovation might otherwise proceed and allows time for people to adjust to it (Fine, 1986, pp. 88-89). Unfortunately, resistance to change sometimes goes beyond a healthy unease for the unknown, as some researchers have discovered. Nancy Feldman (1972) studied a series of changes in the Tulsa Public Library system and found the following types of employee resistance: task avoidance or postponement, hostility (stated or unstated), resigna- tion, and underproduction (meeting only the minimum expectations of one's work). A few years later, other library researchers found several more indicators of employee resistance to change: increased absentee- ism, increased employee impatience, frustration, and sabotage (Plate & Stone, 1974; Veaner, 1974). To manage change effectively, administrators must understand why an employee's initial reaction to a new proposal, that is, uneasiness and fear of the unknown, sometimes accelerates into more negative behavior like decreased job performance or sabotage. WHAT CAUSES NEGATIVE BEHAVIOR IN EMPLOYEES Fine (1986) implies that a major cause of this acceleration is inept management (pp. 91-92). This article will, therefore, explore two ques- tions: Can managers actually increase employee levels of resistance to change through poor planning, lack of support, or ignorance of employee needs? And, if so, how can managers avoid doing this in the future? General Uncertainty about the Effects of Change Let us scrutinize the general uncertainty which people experience when a major change is announced by a hypothetical example. Upper managers in an academic library are concerned because employees do not have enough time to evaluate the library's collection. These manag- ers are quite altruistic; they want to try to make their employees' jobs easier by bringing in a consultant to conduct the evaluation for them. Sherry, the head of collection development, is asked to make this a top priority. Since she has not worked out all the details of who the consultant will be and what he will do, she makes a simple bald statement at the end of her next staff meeting. The statement is this: a consultant will be brought in to evaluate the library's collection, review collection development policies, and make suggestions for improving collection development efforts. Sherry does not encourage discussion about the matter because the meeting has already run over in time. When staff try to briefly question the need, she says upper management BAKER/MANAGING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE 55 has asked her to implement this change and that she will try to answer people's questions later. George is one of sixteen employees responsible for collection devel- opment at this library. He has" a number of immediate reactions to the suggested change that is, to the consultant's presence. He wants to know who the consultant will be and what is the consultant's level of expertise. He wants to know why management feels a consultant is necessary (e.g., does management feel the current collection develop- ment staff is doing a bad job?). He also wants to know whether the consultant will discuss matters fully with current staff before making decisions which will affect them and how any changes suggested will affect patron service in the long run. George's boss, Sherry, is too busy with her normal work and with making arrangements for the consultant's visit to answer his questions. George's initial reaction to the announcement is uneasiness, but as Sherry continues to ignore his needs for more complete information on the topic, he begins to feel that she is hiding something from him. His anxiety about the consultant's presence grows. By the time the consul- tant arrives, George's stress about the situation has grown so much that he is unwilling to listen to any of the consultant's suggestions. Instead he tries to undermine the consultant's advice by disagreeing with everything. In this case, Sherry has handled the introduction of the new change poorly. She has failed to see the extent of George's uneasiness about this change and to provide him and other employees with appropriate information to ease these fears. The literature of librarianship, of management, and of personnel psychology shows that employees respond better to change when man- agement consciously tries to ease employee fears in a number of ways (Werbel, 1983; Weinbach, 1986; Malinconico, 1983). First, management should provide as much advance information about the actual change as possible. Sherry did not. She hadn't worked out all the details herself and may have been afraid of looking inept in front of her staff if she said this. But she should have provided as much information as possible and not worried about the details at this point. Second, management should fully inform affected employees of the reasons behind the change. In the case mentioned, management is trying to help employees by providing a person to perform a task which they have not had time to do. Since this rationale is not made clear, George assumes management is criticizing the ability of the staff to evaluate the collection and reacts accordingly. Third, management should do everything possible to clarify employees' questions about the changes. Sherry did not realize how serious George's uneasiness about the change was. Thus she did not take the time to answer his questions, unwittingly making the situation worse. 56 Fourth, management should give employees time to reflect on how the proposed change will affect them, the organization as a whole, and their clientele. Sherry, told by upper management that bringing in the consultant is a top priority, rushes to do this rather than discussing matters fully with her staff and trying to give them time to adjust to the change. In other words, workers who receive clear information about how a change will directly affect the organization and their role within it will accept change significantly better than those who do not receive this information. A second example might make this even clearer. A 1985 article by two communications researchers described the results of a study of a government agency which was anticipating a move to a new office building (Miller, 1985). The employees had always worked in tradi- tional offices, but management was asking them to move to a new building which used open landscaping. The move represented an envir- onmental shift which could radically alter processes for accomplishing work (Miller, 1985, p. 371). Six weeks before the move, management had provided little information to the employees about the change even though it had been planned for some time. The researchers asked senior management at this agency if they could experiment with the levels of information employees got about the move. In effect, the researchers wanted to verify the fact that giving employees clear information in advance would help them adapt better to the change. But the researchers had a second purpose too. They wanted to see whether employees would respond differently if they were given positive information about the move than if they were given negative information. They did this by emphasizing for one set of departments positive aspects of the move (e.g., more up-to-date furniture and equipment). For another set, they emphasized negative aspects (e.g., the lack of privacy in the open environment). They gave no information to a third set. The researchers expected to find that employees would adapt to change better when they received positive information about the change and they did. However, employees who had received negative informa- tion about the move responded more positively than employees who had received no clarifying information at all. That is, workers who received clarifying information about a change accepted it significantly better than those who did not even when they viewed the change as a negative one. These findings clearly reinforce the idea that managers should share as much information about a proposed change as they can, even if there are negative aspects. That is, when the director of a small medical library is told his budget will be cut by 15 percent next year, he should not try to keep the information under cover. Rather, he should share the BAKER/MANAGING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE 57 news with the staff and then work to keep them informed of and involved about what changs will have to be made to stay within the budget and how these changes will affect them individually. Uncertainty about Job Performance Another reason for employee fear of change is uncertainty about new work-related expectations associated with job performance. Specif- ically, the employee fears that he may not have enough skill to perform the changed task. A recent study supports this by showing that individuals with experience performing a specific task one way will resist change more than individuals with less experience (Sagie et al., 1985). This was discovered in an experiment where two groups of high school students were asked to complete a series of simple manual tasks where they were rewarded for correct performance. One group was given more expe- rience than the other, and developed more skill at the tasks. They were then asked to adopt automated procedures for these tasks. The students with more experience resisted automation significantly more than those with less experience. This was because the experienced group of workers had a higher degree of confidence in their ability to do the job in the old (i.e., manual) way; when they were asked to automate, their initial anxiety was higher. The levels of uncertainty about performance for students with little experience in their jobs did not change when they were asked to automate. This was because they were still a bit unsure about their performance in the manual task and were thus more recep- tive to trying new work methods. This research implies that managers need to follow two strategies when introducing new tasks. First, they need to provide employees with exact information about what the changed tasks will be because knowl- edge reduces fear. Second, managers need to reassure their employees that they will develop the skills to do these tasks. The latter can be accomplished if workers receive adequate and complete training and receive reassurance that they will not be punished if their performance levels drop initially while relearning the changed tasks. Employee Participation in Change Management can also lessen resistance to change by increasing employee involvement in the change process. Henry Lucas lists some of the strengths of encouraging employee participation in change. First, participation increases employee knowledge about the innovation thus lessening fear. Second, participation can be ego enhancing, intrinsi- cally satisfying, and challenging, thus making workers feel needed and appreciated. Finally, participation encourages employees to believe that they have some control over a system that will affect them (Lucas, 1974, pp. 49). This last point is particularly important since psycholo- gists have shown that even small amounts of individual control over 58 adverse stimuli will reduce a person's opposition to these stimuli (Gratchel & Proctor, 1976). A recent article by Debra Shaw (1986) also supports the idea that participation can reduce resistance to change. In 1983 the Indiana State Library surveyed employees to determine their initial feelings about installing an automated catalog and circulation system. Management then attempted to involve as many staff as possible in planning for the automated system. Participation was encouraged through a library automation plan- ning committee and through a committee which concentrated on staff development for automation. Each committee was comprised of senior management and volunteers. Both committees shared information about their tasks with various library departments and invited sugges- tions from the departments for consideration. Several other techniques were also used to keep staff involved and informed, ranging from a regular news memo to programs which acquainted staff with automa- tion terminology and with various automated systems. One year after the study began, staff attitudes were significantly more positive about the proposed new system. Two cautions need to be offered about participative management. Token participation for employees is not enough. Participative man- agement will only ease resistance to innovation when employees truly believe they can influence the change. In fact, Wilson Luquire (1976) found that attitudes relating to innovation (which in this case was the introduction of OCLC in academic libraries) were directly related to the real level of participative management in the libraries (p. 48). Real level refers to the level to which employees were actually allowed to influence decisions rather than the level to which managers said employees were allowed to influence decisions. A second caution is also in order. Not all staff members are inter- ested in participatory management. The Indiana State Library appro- priately encouraged involvement by volunteers. This approach may be the wisest if a number of people are not interested in participating in the decision-making process. Fear of Change Due to Social Consequence One other major type of employee fear is caused when the potential social consequences of the change are not anticipated and allowed for. Perhaps this is best illustrated when looking at the effects of hiring a new director in a fairly small public library. Let's say that the old director had been at the library for twenty years and is retiring. The ten employees have been trained by, and have worked well with, the old director. In this situation each of the employees is not only nervous about whether the new director will be satisfied with their individual performance, but also they are nervous about how the new director will relate to them both as a person and as an employee. In other words, they BAKER/MANAGING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE 59 are nervous that the change might have unanticipated (and negative) social consequences. In fact, the levels of employee stress just after the hiring of a new director tend to be very high. One main way the new director can reduce stress levels is to be very careful during his first few months on the job to treat employees as if he likes each and every one of them and as if he recognizes the unique contributions that each is offering the library. Resistance because of Failure to Prove Change is Needed Resistance to change also occurs when managers fail to convince employees that the change is needed. In one public library in Ohio, library staff resisted efforts to reintegrate the genre fiction collection into the general fiction collection. Management wanted to do this because they felt one interfiled system would make it easier for the technical services staff to inventory the collection since they wouldn't have to look in three or four possible places for a particular book. However, the staff noted that patrons liked having mysteries and other genre areas separated out from the regular collection and that inventor- ies were conducted only once every ten years. In this case, the employees perceived that the proposed change was not a valid one. Ultimately management agreed to let the collection remain separate by genre. Change should only be implemented when a performance gap exists that is, when people become highly dissatisfied with some aspect of a task or process. Remember the study of high school students performing the simple manual tasks. The experienced group was finally persuaded to change by an astute manager who made them consider the performance gap, showing them that automation would enable them to complete the work in a fraction of the time (Sagie et al., 1985, p. 160). The implication here is that management must do a good job identifying and publicizing areas where true performance gaps exist if they expect employees to feel that they have valid reasons for changing. It also implies that if a performance gap does not really exist, manage- ment should reconsider the change. Failure to Commit Sufficient Resources to the Change Increased resistance to change can also result when managers do not follow through by committing sufficient resources to the change. In one public library, initial employee reactions to the introduction of an automated circulation system and online catalog were generally posi- tive. However, upper management failed to hire an expert to introduce automation, skimped on system specifications, purchased an inferior automated system, and overworked existing personnel to get the system started. Several years later, the automated circulation system was down as much as it was up, required an average twenty second response time when it was up, and had increased both employee and patron dissatis- faction with the library. In addition, machine-readable information on 60 the library's collection had to be input twice since system failures caused much of the data to be erroneously erased from the computer's memory banks. The staff who were initially supportive of the system developed higher and higher levels of frustration and eventually turned against the system. This is clearly a case where administrators failed to commit sufficient resources to planning and implementing a large change and directly increased employee resistance. Actually, Fine (1986, p. 92) suggests that it is not uncommon for resources (particularly personnel resources) to be overextended or with- drawn just when staff is experiencing the greatest stress of change. Moreover, she adds that administrators often skimp on really necessary items, e.g., complete training by experts may be viewed as an extrava- gance rather than as a necessary expenditure associated with change. Thus, it is important for managers to be particularly sensitive to this issue, and to critically examine if they have supported the innovation by providing all necessary resources be it money, time, increased atten- tion to detail by management, added personnel, or whatever. Resistance Due to Failure to Tie Library Values to the Change Another reason that employees resist change is that management often forgets to emphasize the positive aspects of the change on profes- sional and library values e.g., improved service to patrons. Unfortu- nately, some managers fail both to keep employees informed of the library's values (which should be revealed through the library's state- ments of its mission and goals), and then to tie the positive effects of the change to these values. Remember George, the worker who resisted efforts to hire a consultant to evaluate the collection. He might have responded more appropriately if management had tied the positive effects of the change to a goal which he supported i.e., matching collections to patron needs. In other words, if managers insist on hiring a collection evaluation consultant, they need to explain that they are doing this to make sure that collection development efforts are really meeting user needs. Resistance Due to Failure to Create a Climate Conducive to Change General resistance to change may also result when managers fail to create a positive climate where change can flourish. The best illustra- tion of this might be a library where management allows employees little participation and in fact does not encourage new ideas in any way. Research has shown that employees resist change less when they are given opportunities to participate in continuing education activities, in professional organization activities, and in professional training e.g., the MLS degree (Maag, 1975). Each of these activities encourages employees to think and to act for themselves. The activities both expose workers to new ideas and give them confidence in their abilities to respond to new situations. Therefore, workers become more receptive to BAKER/MANAGING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE 61 changes which are proposed and shown to be valid. This implies that managers need to both encourage and reward employee efforts to learn and grow as this will reinforce receptivity to change. SUMMARY Fine (1986) originally implied that inept management strategies can cause resistance to change to accelerate. Both logic and research support this statement and show us the need for corrective management action. Corrective action can include providing adequate information about change and being generally sensitive to employee fears about change. Other positive steps include convincing employees that a real reason exists for the change and committing sufficient resources to the change to ease the transition process and alleviate employee frustration. Managers should also tie the change to improved patron service and should constantly work to create a climate where employees are encour- aged to explore new ideas and try them out. REFERENCES Feldman, N. G. (1972). Pride in heritage or resentment?: A sociologist analyzes library staff reaction. Wilson Library Bulletin, -/6(January), 436-40. Fine, S. F. (1986). Technological innovation, diffusion and resistance: A historical per- spective. Journal of Library Administration, 7(Spring), 83-108. Gratchel, R. J., & Proctor, J. D. (1976). Physiological correlates of learned helplessness in man. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, #5(February), 27-34. Lucas, H. C., Jr. (1974). Toward creative system design. New York: Columbia University Press. Luquire, W. (1976). Selected factors affecting library staff perceptions of an innovative system: A study of ARL libraries on OCLC. Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University. Maag, A. F. (1975). Some correlates of program change in large academic libraries. Ph.D. dissertation. Ohio State University. Malinconico, S. M. (1983). Listening to the resistance. Library Journal, 7 0#( February 15), 353-55. Miller, K. I., & Monge, P. R. (1985). Social information and employee anxiety about organizational change. Human Communication Research, 7/(Spring), 365-386. Plate, K. H., & Stone, E. W. (1974). Factors affecting librarians job satisfaction: A report of two studies. Library Quarterly, ^/(April), 97-110. Sagie, A., et al. (1985). Job experience, persuasion strategy and resistance to change: An experimental study. Journal of Occupational Behavior, <5(ApriI), 157-162. Shaw, D. (1986). Staff opinions in library automation planning. Special Libraries, 77(Summer), 140-151. Veaner, A. B. (1974). Institutional political and fiscal factors in the development of library automation, 1967-71. Journal of Library Automation, 7(March), 5-26. Weinbach, R. W. (1984). Implementing change: Insights and strategies for the supervisor. Social Work, 29(May/June), 282-286. Werbel, J. D. (1983). Job change: A study of an acute job stressor. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 23(October), 242-250. ANNE GRODZINS LIPOW Director for Library Instructional Services University of California Berkeley Why Training Doesn't Stick: Who is to Blame? ABSTRACT This article, "Why Training Doesn't Stick," presupposes that it does not, and that, as a matter of course, it is a waste of precious dollars to send someone to a workshop or a seminar for training. Soon after training goes the assumption that the trainee will be doing things the old way. While acknowledging that at least sometimes that training does stick, the author has come to understand that the conditions under which training is successful are so specific and so rarely met that when it happens it is the exception rather than the rule. "Who is to blame?" The author answers that question by explaining how we can turn the tables and make "training that sticks" the rule rather than the exception. TRAINING AND CHANGE For over two years now, this author has been trying to understand change what causes it, who causes it, why it is resisted, and what can be done to help assist with moving with change and aiding to help shape it. These are the questions that come with the territory as a developer of in-service training programs that keep the staff up to date with the fast-changing times. In her book, Effective On-the-Job Training, Sheila Creth (1986), director of the University of Iowa Libraries, explicitly draws the link between training and change: "First and foremost, train- ing should be seen as a change agent" (p. 5). That is, most of the programs developed or arranged for should ask people to change their ways, to do things differently or think differently from the way they are accustomed, in order to be effective in today's library and in order that the library be effective in today's world. One 62 LIPOW/WHY TRAINING DOESN'T STICK 63 observation is that the majority will leave a workshop or seminar feeling good about it and wanting perhaps eager to apply what was learned. But, those very same people are comfortably back to their old ways a month or two later nothing has changed. This cannot be attributed to laziness, less intelligence, lack of desire, or fear. The phenomenon is too widespread. Though the picture is slowly beginning to change, the professional literature has not paid much attention to the problem to date, but it is a most interesting topic to examine. However, other occupations have given it some thought. They call it "transfer of training"; or sometimes "transfer failure." On the one hand, there are some interesting theoretical speculations and studies by learning theorists that shed some light. A little of that litera- ture will be reviewed here. And on the other hand, there are practition- ers, mostly personnel and management specialists, who write about how to make training stick they don't worry about the whys of it; they just tell us what to do about it, and some of their insights will also be shared with the hope that more librarians will be encouraged to work on the problem. CHANGE VERSUS HABITS Change is inevitable. Throughout the history of this planet and the history of the inhabitants of this planet, there is nothing that has not changed. This is not a new revelation. How many times have you heard that "the only thing that doesn't change is change" or "the more things change the more things remain the same"; but when you think about it, that is pretty amazing. Even an art museum decent was heard to say that art changes. I hadn't thought about it till then, but, when I did, my first thought was: "You'd think that to paint a face is to paint a face: two eyes, a nose, a mouth. How can that change? But in fact there's an Etruscan face, a Renaissance face, a Cubist face, an Impressionist face and all are different and represent a different period in time. If change is inevitable, then why aren't we built to adapt to it? Why does there seem to be the inevitable resistance to it? One way of seeing that we indeed are built to resist change is to think about the function that habits serve. Habits free us from having to make choices about everything in life i.e., from having to notice or concentrate on all of life's stimuli. Habits take time to develop. It might be said that a habit is formed when learning is complete, so one can appreciate the fact that when someone is asked to do things differently, it will take time to change from the old habit. For example, it is possible to drive to and from work everyday remembering nothing about the ride because of the familiarity. Move to another place and you will find that it is some time before you do not have to think about where you are going or, going home, you will, from habit, head for your old neighbor- hood. Courtesy is another habit e.g., please, thank you. Those aren't 64 natural; we weren't born saying those words. Those aren't even com- monsense things to say. We had to work at them. How often did our parents say: "Say thank you to the nice lady?" There are, of course, bad habits e.g., drug addiction, smoking, poor diet. From those we have some clue about how hard it is to break a habit. We know we are doing wrong, and yet it is so hard to change. The time it takes to change is related to whether or not unlearning is required. That is, as we go through life, we are constantly learning new things and creating new habits. And that generally goes well when we haven't had to break old habits. Automatically fastening a seatbelt might be one example of this: a new driver will take to seatbelts much faster than an old driver because the new driver has not developed the habit of entering and starting a car without first going through the motions of fastening a seatbelt. But when it comes to breaking old habits to attain the same goal in a new way or to abandon one behavior and substitute another, the problem becomes more complex. It is not a matter of just new learning. It requires disconnecting from old learning. The longer it took to gain the old learning, the longer it will take to disconnect from it to unlearn it. An example would demonstrate that axiom vividly: you are given a task to perform that you had never done before, and you are timed as to how long it takes you to do it. You repeat the task several times, and with each repetition you perform the task in less time and thereby develop a kind of habit. Then you are asked to do the task in a new way. It will take longer to perform the task in a new way than it took to perform it the first time when there were no preconceived impressions to dispel. CHANGE TAKES TIME So unlearning is a contributor to resistance. Unless you are very motivated, the odds are that you will give up. Rationality doesn't necessarily enhance motivation. Some know well the benefits of seat- belts, but it takes a law to make us wear them. Let us now examine how unlearning contributes to resistance. Learning theorists divide learning into four stages: Stage 1 : Unconscious Incompetent (UI). You are not even aware there is something to be learned (e.g., skill, theory, and its applications). Stage 2: Conscious Incompetent (CI). You are aware there is something to be learned. Stage 3: Conscious Competent (CC). You learn the skill, concepts, and procedures and can apply what you learned with mistakes and omissions. Stage 4: Unconscious Competent (UC). You can perform well without thinking about it. How to get from the CC stage to the UC stage is the trick. Most retreat before they get to the UC stage. The reason is that the route from LIPOW/WHY TRAINING DOESN'T STICK 65 CC to UC is unpleasant: we must become incompetent for a time and must do so in the eyes of people who regarded us as competent; we must abandon attitudes and practices that worked rather well and were effi- cient in favor of attitudes and practices which are uncomfortable and which make us temporarily inefficient. We must disconnect the neuro- logical ruts we once created so as not to have to think before we act in other words, we must unlearn so as to be able to begin the long process of forming new neurological ruts. When in a slump in learning development, we are usually unaware of learning theory that would explain that the slump is natural and expected and that the big payoff is just around the corner. Perhaps we are simply on the "forgetting" side of a normal learning curve, and by sticking with it we enter the very rewarding "relearning" phase. For example, a competent typist is sent to be trained in word processing. The first day back from training it takes her six hours to type a one-page letter that could have been completed in five minutes on a trusty electric typewriter. In this CC stage, the typist has taken a giant step backward. You can understand why it is likely she will abandon the effort, even though she may be aware that if she became a UC, she would perform at a higher level than when she was an UI. So change that is, learning to do something a new way takes time and more time than we realize. It takes more time than a training session and more time than a week of training sessions. It requires time to unlearn and time to be incompetent. Once these facts are accepted, half the battle is won. Progress is made toward preventing transfer failure. Or, the other way around, we are moving toward ensuring training transfer. In addition to time, two other factors need to be in place for change or training transfer to be successful: (1) the trainee's commitment to change, and (2) the supervisor's (or institution's) com- mitment to change. Trainee's Commitment to Change The trainee needs to have a strong commitment to change. A. J. Anderson (1985/86) in an interesting article in Journal of Library Administration in which he examines change in managers from a psychoanalytic standpoint, describes the views of M. Scott Myers (1970) in Every Employee a Manager. Discussing why it is so difficult for managers to change, Myers claims that knowledge of management theories rarely leads to changed behavior. Deliberate and intensive efforts must be made to apply the theories. Using a slightly different learning stages model from the UI to UC model, Myers says: "the application of theory generally requires a four-step process: Step 1. Awareness Step 2. Understanding Step 3. Commitment to change Step 4. New habits The first step, awareness, may result from reading a book or article, attending a 66 workshop, listening to a convincing speech. The person gains superficial insight into a new theory and the implied deficiency in his or her present way of doing things. Step two, understanding, may result when the person recog- nizes a possible need to change. This is the "intellectual condition" stage. The person might read [more] and attend seminars and training programs, even to the point of becoming an articulate spokesperson on behalf of the theory, but his or her management style continues to follow old habit patterns [ the 'do as I say, not as I do* type]. The next step, commitment to change, is a most important one in the process. It occurs when the person becomes aware of the discrepancy between his newly adopted theory and his everyday behavior, and believes he will benefit personally through changing his behavior. (Anderson, 1985/86) Anderson (1985/86) says that: "Myers points out that initial attempts to change are often discouraging, and if not reinforced by some type of rewarding feedback, may be abandoned." Finally, step four, the new habits step. "New habits are established when sustained deliberate application of the new theory finally results in attitude changes and automatic and natural expressions of the desired changes in style of management." For change in management style, getting through stage 4 can take five to ten years. Most people, according to Myers, never progress beyond step 2. What Myers and Anderson are describing is not limited to manag- ers trying to change their style. For any significant change in behavior, going beyond step 2 requires "sustained deliberate application" of new learning. Anderson sums up the problem well: "students or workshop participants must assume responsibility for their own learning." (You can lead a horse to water but you can't make itdrink.) Anderson's words are "nothing will happen to those who do not persevere." And if you read enough into "nothing," you might decide that he is giving out a death sentence. To be taught is not necessarily to learn. As Anderson (1985/86) puts it: "The laws of habit formation hold true in the mind as they do in the body. ...Why is it that so many people you know seem to remain the same regardless of the number of courses they have taken? Why do they present one style to the world and never deviate from it. ...[Can] people remake themselves as a result of taking courses and attending work- shops]?]. ...These questions raise the issue of what education can and cannot accomplish." Anderson (1985/86) concludes that it is not easy to change: "some people can change certain aspects of themselves and their behavior IF they want to badly enough, and if they are willing to work hard enough at it. The key words here are some, can, certain, want, willing, and work." On the grounds that we are made up of a combina- tion of traits some inborn and related to physical makeup, some relating to intellect; and other traits derived from our surroundings, experiences, and other external influences Anderson looks to physio- logists Ernst Kretschmer and W. H. Sheldon, psychologists Freud and Jung, and philosopher Edouard Spranger for enlightenment. They all categorize human beings into personality types. And in LIPOW/WHY TRAINING DOESN'T STICK 67 one way or another, they all conclude that modifications must lie within the boundaries of one's original type-nature. For Anderson, that is why the emphasis on certain people can change if they want to badly enough. There is no question that attitude and motivation have a great deal to do with whether one is capable of changing their behavior and practices. "That proverb 'You can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink' applies here.. ..You can take a student to the classroom, but you cannot ensure that the things you wish to impart will be assimilated. For this to happen a person must want to change. ...[The students'] cooperation with the teacher in the learning process is essenti- al. ...Given our basic natures, where thinking tends to harden into habit and where behavior takes on a relatively fixed form, progress from the old to the new can be accomplished only in the face of much mental and emotional resistance. Old mind sets have to be resolved into a hospitable flexibility in order that new attitudes and expectancies may be formed. This takes time [emphasis added]." When library training programs are measured against time stan- dards such as these, it doesn't give a person much time. Ruth Clark (1986), California Edison training manager, says that "even after an excellent class, training frequently fails to pay off in behavioral changes on the job" (p. 83). She says that people go back to work and do it the way they have always done it instead of the way they were taught in the class. This phenomenon is called "transfer failure." "It happens," says Clark (1986), "because skills do not transfer automatically into job performance. In other words, the fact that you have learned how to do something a certain way doesn't necessarily mean you'll do it that way. Since the point of job-related training is to improve performance on the job, transfer failure obviously defeats the whole purpose" (p. 83). Supervisor's or Institution's Commitment to Change Dana Robinson and James Robinson (1985) put the responsibility for transfer of training on more than the trainee: "Skills are transferred when both the learning experience and the work environment work together to achieve the same results. The following formula captures this concept: LE x WE = Results" (pp. 82-83). LE refers to learning experience and describes the learning activity in which the learner participated. The trainer is responsible for this part of the equation. WE represents the work environment of the learner; the day-to-day environ- ment in which the learner works following the program. "Line man- agement must ensure that the environment supports, reinforces and rewards the learner for using the new skills and knowledge. A zero on either side of the multiplication sign yields a zero in sustained results from training" (p. 82). Most libraries score zero on the WE side. Becky Schreiber (1985), independent consultant in Maryland, gets more specific about this follow-up back in the work environment. She argues for ensuring on the job coaching to help a trainee who has 68 returned from a workshop to practice the skills learned (pp. 123-24). Much like an athletic coach, she wants someone there to encourage, provide reinforcement, and offer constructive corrective advice as one goes about their work. "The likelihood of transferring skills without coaching is low." Until performance reflects new skills, it cannot be said that the skills have been learned (p. 133). "To set up a coaching experience, there needs to be teamwork among three key individuals the seminar participant, her/his supervisor, and the seminar leader.... [Participants] must be willing to shed their professional roles and their need to be seen as fully competent so that they can become students again" (Schreiber, 1985, p. 123). (Consider again the stages of learning: becoming a student again the CC stage means showing yourself as less than competent. You can see why the prospect of becoming a CC would be a big part of the reason why there is resistance. Also, "if participants are.. .clear on which skills they intend to learn, they will demonstrate a high level of personal initiative about learning these skills and be better focused on how they can use them on the job" (Schreiber, 1985, p. 123). Skills transfer is given its best chance, according to Schreiber (1985), when coaching opportunities during and after the workshop are built into the design of the training workshop; there is a clear understanding and agreement between workshop leader and participants about content and methods of the seminar; before leaving the workshop, participants do specific strategy plan- ning with action steps and time lines. This is an opportunity for par- ticipants to anticipate the barriers that may prevent them from using their new skills; back-on-the-job coaching begins as soon as they return from the workshop and continues till learning is completed and new behavior is formed. A key consideration here should be the comfort of the staff member. There needs to be a high level of trust between the trainee and coach so that risk-taking occurs and genuine constructive feed- back is provided and self-confidence develops. The immediate super- visor may serve as coach if the relationship reflects that kind of trust. Sometimes, however, the dual responsibility of coaching and evaluat- ing is difficult for the supervisor. Supervisors should be encouraged to examine this dilemma with a bias toward seeing both roles as a staff development function of their jobs. If they are unable to resolve the issue, it would be difficult for the supervisor to be a good coach; feedback is recognized as a primary tool of the coaching experience feedback about both successes and failures (pp. 123-24). Michael Kruger and Gregory May (1985), in their article "Two Techniques to Ensure that Training Programs Remain Effective," express the problem of training transfer in terms of investment and return. They look at the amount of money organizations spend in training e.g., $40.6 million is spent each year in the federal govern- LIPOW/WHY TRAINING DOESN'T STICK 69 ment alone just in training managers and conclude that "these invest- ments indicate that organizational decision makers place a high priority on this type of training. Yet that investment often represents an expres- sion of faith since the link between what is learned in the classroom and what is applied on the job is usually tenuous" (p. 70). Two conditions must be met, they claim, to increase the likelihood that the training investment actually results in a return at the workplace: relevance to needs and reinforcement mechanisms (p. 70). Relevance that is, train- ing that meets the needs of participants "boosts motivation to learn. Thus the level of readiness to learn, the so-called 'teachable moment' is heightened" (Kruger & May, 1985, p. 70). But training programs must also be reinforced: "They must also include strategies that enhance the application of learning in the workplace" (p. 70). Though organiza- tions regard training as critical, as demonstrated by the amount of time and money invested in it, paradoxically, Kruger and May (1985) main- tain that, "it is the exception rather than the rule for organizations to expend the effort needed to ensure that a reinforcement of learning will occur at the workplace following the training" (p. 70). Change, Or Else... You might ask why this is so important now. It seems that more noticeably than ever, the library, just like every thing else, is changing big changes and fast-happening changes and it's happening with or without us. All the thinkers of the profession tell us that. Pat Battin (1984) has said that: "Far from being extinct in the electronic university, librarians will be in greater demand than in the more serene and organized world of the book" (pp. 12-17). Richard De Gennaro (1984) said that: "The emphasis in libraries is shifting from collections to access. Providing access to information will be the principal goal and activity, and coping with technology and change will be the principal driving forces of the emerging information age library" (p. 1205). Kevin Hegarty (1985) (director, Tacoma Public) has said that: "The entire organizational structure of a library will be affected by the automated system, and the method of doing business will be drastically changed" (p. 43). Marilyn Mason ( 1985) (from the public library sector) stated that: "Within ten years over half of the service provided to library users will be to individuals who never come into the library" (p. 137). Richard Rowe (1987), president and CEO of Faxon, in an "On My Mind" column in American Libraries was more provocative in his predictions about change. He bluntly states that librarians today aren't ready to manage in this fast-changing world of information. Frankly, he says, librarians "do not have much of an edge in qualifying for that CIO [chief information officer]...." We can't just sit back and see the future happen and think that we are going to have an important role in the future simply because of the importance of information, or because of the past importance of libraries. That won't be enough. ..librarians must change. We're going to have to be open to new ideas. 70 We are going to have to stretch ourselves and take some risks.. ..[We can't assume that] since we've been in the business for 20 years we know what our users want.... We've got to let go of current assumptions about our roles. We've got to keep our eye on the long term value of why we are here. (Rowe, 1987, p. 297) Rowe (1987) ends with: "Change is inevitable. Change is an oppor- tunity for things to go better or worse. It's up to us to make those decisions and to do it now." Of course, even if all these important people never said a word, we know the statements are accurate; we can see it before our eyes. Who has die same job they had five years ago? If your present job existed five years ago, did the previous person do things in the same way as they are done now? Probably not. If you've been in the current job for a while, are newly-hired coworkers required to have skills or approaches different from yours? If asked to guess what differences there would be in your job five years from now, you might not be able to come up with a crystal ball answer, but it would probably be difficult to say "I doubt there'll beany changes." What do you think those changes will be and how do you plan to prepare for them? What about people who don't want to change? There is much concern about that. At an ALA/LAMA/PAS program on "Training Issues in Changing Technology," Ruth Person, associate dean at Catholic University of America, talked about "human factors in adopt- ing library technology." She said, "change itself is problematic for many individuals. ...[While there are] several categories of individuals who embrace change in the adoption of innovation (innovators, pace- setters), [there are] far more individuals who approach the change process with everything from hesitancy to real fear.... Individuals may fear being displaced, disconnected from old patterns, dehumanized by machinery" (Person, 1986). A leading head reference librarian in a large academic library and known for her forward thinking, competence, and innovation, confided that she will retire next year at age 55, much earlier than she would have thought. She hates what is happening in reference i.e., sitting at a keyboard and having a database regurgitate is boring to her. The excite- ment of discovery, moving from place to place and back again, is what brought her into the profession, and she sees that as becoming passe, not just for librarians but for researchers. She worries that new researchers will become passive and understand research to be whatever is findable at their fingertips and deliverable to their door through a document delivery service. She thinks the online medium encourages new and terrible habits based on implied assumptions they lead you to come to. PRACTICAL STEPS TOWARD ACHIEVING TRAINING TRANSFER Now that it is understood why training does not stick and what the solutions to the problem are, what would an effective training program look like in a library setting? The following are ten conditions that an LIPOW/WHY TRAINING DOESN'T STICK 71 effective library training program should meet in order to ensure train- ing transfer: 1. The training program should be relevant to the needs of the trainee and should be perceived as relevant by the trainee. 2. There should be a three-way agreement about the objectives of the training program among the trainee, the trainer, and the trainee's boss. 3. There should be a three-way agreement about the expectations of the trainee among the trainee, the trainer, and the trainee's boss. 4. Supervisors or higher-level managers ideally should attend a session of any training program they are planning for those who report to them. 5. Supervisors and trainees should plan the program follow-up. 6. A supervisor or a higher level manager should agree that there will be no blame for a trainee's slip-ups during follow-up practice. 7. The trainee should leave the training session with a plan specifying how specific learned skills, attitudes, theories, etc. will be practiced and applied. 8. After the workshop, the trainee should practice with a coach and preferably another workshop trainee so that they can agree to coach each other. Notes: Ideally, practice should begin in a nonfamiliar environment; the new surroundings should bolster the formation of new behavior and thought patterns before it becomes necessary to break old patterns. Coaching requires no-blame feedback and should include both criticism and praise. If the trainee is the sole person from a unit to be trained, the trainee should be expected to give a report about the training program to the home unit tel ling coworkers what behaviors to expect, look for, listen for, ask about when missing, etc. No activity worth training for should be exempt from coaching (though for some activities it will be more difficult to implement than others). Managerial training, the reference interview, telephone skills, dealing with problem patrons, and competence in computer systems are all areas for follow-up coaching. 9. The trainee should be scheduled to give a progress report two weeks, two months, and six months after the workshop describing specific applications of what was learned. 10. The institution should strive for achieving a critical mass of staff or managers competent in the desired skill. The critical mass will have been reached when those who possess the skill set the dominant standard. (Those who do not possess the skill are then self-motivated to change and can be expected to take responsibility to close the apparent gap between them and those who possess the skill.) The sooner that critical mass is reached, the earlier the desired change will be effective and the library's desired goals will be reached. 72 This discussion has not covered all of the issues related to change and resistance to it, but perhaps a dimension has been added that rounds out the picture and adds to the usual explanations of resistance i.e., fear of the unknown, a need to cling to the past, a lack of motivation a more positive and possibly more prevalent reason the lack of a contin- uing learning environment. If change is inevitable, and if library change is happening now with or without us, it seems that anyone who can help us move with change and shape it for the better is a friend. We need all the friends we can get so that we don't become irrelevant, so that we don't leave change to "new blood" or "the youth" or to someone else, so that we can remain a part of the future. REFERENCES Anderson, A. J. (1985/86). Do people change their management styles and practices as a result of taking courses and attending workshops? Journal of Library Administration, 6(4), 1-14. Battin, P. (1984). The electronic library a vision for the future. EDUCOM Bulletin, (Summer), 12-17. Clark, R. C. (1986). Nine ways to make training pay off on the job. Training, 23(November), 83-87. Creth, S. (1986). Effective on-the-job training: Developing library human resources. Chicago and London: ALA. De Gennaro, R. (1984). Shifting gears: Information technology and the academic library. Library Journal, 709(June 15), 1204-1209. Hegarty, K. (1985). Myths of library automation. Library Journal, 770(October 1), 43-49. Kruger, M. J. (1985). Two techniques to ensure that training programs remain effective. Personnel Journal, ^(October), 70-75. Mason, M. G. (1985). The future of the public library. Library Journal, 770(September 1), 43-49. Myers, H. S. (1970). Every employee a manager: More meaningful work through job en- richment. New York: McGraw Hill. (As quoted by A. J. Anderson, op cit.). Person, R. (1984). Human factors in adopting library technology. Talk delivered at ALA/ LAMA/PAS program on "Training issues in changing technology." (June 26), (Unpublished). Robinson, D. G., 8c Robinson, J. C. (1985). Breaking barriers to skill transfer. Training and Development Journal, 39(January), 82-83. Rowe, R. (1987). You, the CIO. American Libraries, 18( April), 297. Schreiber, B. (1985). You can take it with you: Coaching for on-the-job application of learning. Public Libraries, 2-/(Fall), 123-124. CHARLES MARTELL Dean and University Librarian California State University Sacramento, California Achieving High Performance in Library Work ABSTRACT In this article, the concept of productivity is recast. This is necessary because the nature of work is undergoing a profound transformation. As a result, corporate and political leaders are seeking to build an institutional framework in which excellence and high performance are adopted as basic cultural norms. To be successful in this effort, leaders must create a new reality for the employee. This must include a high quality of work life. Discussion of a set of critical human resource issues may help to provide a platform from which to refocus personnel administration as it is currently practiced in our nation's libraries. These issues are: motiva- tion; job design; quality of work life; organizational culture; high performance; and excellence and renewal. INTRODUCTION In a particularly vivid scene from one of his classic C-rated movies, Victor Mature sits idly, chained to an oar. A new sound is heard, the slow beat of a drum. Each of the slaves picks up the beat with his oar and the warship moves forward. Suddenly an alarm is given. "Enemy ahead!" The drum beats faster and the slaves row faster. Some fall to the deck only to be whipped back into place. The individual beats of the drum blend together and the movements of the slaves become feverish, almost chaotic. The slaves have but one task, to row to the beat of the drum. The design of their jobs is elemental. They have no control. There is no place 73 74 for creativity or initiative. Their decision-making alternatives are two- fold: row or be whipped. In a purposefully exaggerated sense, these slaves are simply tools for production. Their value can be measured by the single criterion of speed. Unfortunately, the message of productivity i.e., as doing some- thing faster is not limited to old movies. Much of management thought since the Industrial Revolution has focused on the employee working faster. Within our profession we often find "productivity" rated first or second after quality on performance review forms. The primary ques- tion is, Does the individual produce an acceptable amount of work? One of the ironies of contemporary life in the United States is that the need for faster work is critical. Yet for America's workers the mean- ing of the word "productivity" has often been debased by a historical, single-minded pursuit that ignored and even rejected the needs of the worker for a reasonable quality of work life. Rights were generally reserved for management. The rights of workers were twofold: stay or leave. This certainly was a big advantage over the choices available to Victor Mature and his fellow slaves. In this article the concept of productivity is cast into a broader framework. This is necessary because the nature of work and its corre- sponding performance requisites are undergoing profound changes. As a result, corporate and political leaders are examining means to create a society that strives for excellence and high performance as basic cultural norms. To be successful in achieving these goals, leaders must likewise create a new reality for the employee. This must include a high quality of work life. A discussion of these critical human resource issues may help to provide a platform from which to refocus personnel administration as it is currently practiced in our nation's libraries. These issues are: motiva- tion; job design; quality of work life (QWL); organizational culture; high performance; and excellence and renewal. MOTIVATION In a recent survey of the terms most often entered by the users of InfoTrac, "employee motivation" placed thirty-fifth. No other personnel-related term appeared among the top fifty (Higgins, et al., 1987, p. 5). An analysis of the most requested Harvard Business Review reprints reveals that ten out of the top twelve are on the subject of motivation. These examples provide evidence of the considerable inter- est in motivation (Herzberg, 1987, pp. 109-17). Unfortunately, the concept of motivation, like that of productivity, is frequently misused. Many managers believe that motivation is an external force to be applied to the employee. This view is often expressed in terms such as, I motivate my staff to work hard. Most researchers, MARTELL/ ACHIEVING HIGH PERFORMANCE 75 however, view motivation as an internal force that "energizes, directs, or sustains behavior" (Steers et al., 1975, p. 6). Because the motivational state of the employee is probably the most critical element in achieving excellence, an understanding of some of the major theories of motivation should prove helpful to the reader (Hinrichs, 1976). These theories of motivation (see Figure 1) fall into three categories or a combination of these categories: ( 1 ) the individual, (2) the job, and (3) the work environment. Characteristics of the Individual Abraham Maslow (1954) found that before an individual strives for higher level psychological needs such as self-esteem or self-actualization (what a man can be, he must be), he/she must meet basic lower level physiological, safety, and belongingness needs. This means that the energizing forces of motivation would usually unfold in stages. Those with a high need for self-actualization often the best performers are motivated by an internal drive to use their capacities to the fullest. Maslow refers to "capacities clamoring to be used which cease their clamor only when they are used sufficiently" (Garfield, 1986, p. 60). Category 1 Characteristics of the Individual What employee brings to work situation Category 2 Characteristics of the Job What employee does at work Category 3 Characteristics of the Work Environment What happens to the employee at work Category 4 Interaction between Individual and the Work Environment Maslow Need Hierarchy Theory McClelland Achievement Motivation Theory Herzberg Motivation Hygiene Theory Working Conditions, Salary, & Interpersonal Relations Adams Equity Theory Steers