Needs Assessment Project: Reviving Recruitment

Background

SkyView Talent Development - Idaho (SVTD-ID) Chapter, a pseudonym, is a non-profit organization comprised of talent development professionals with 43 current members. The chapter focuses on organizational training, development, performance improvement, and leadership development. This community comes together monthly to inspire, grow, and energize individual and community competence with a vision to be a “Worldwide leader in workplace learning and performance” (2021 Operating Plan).

These monthly events are typically delivered by an industry expert or a fellow member with expertise in a subject matter related to talent development. SVTD-ID is led by a 12 member Board of Directors. These directors are elected by their peers and serve for varying terms based on their positions. These are volunteer roles. The Board of Directors plays a critical role in establishing the chapter’s annual strategy and facilitating the achievement of its mission in their assigned positions. The SVTD-ID mission is: Fostering an environment where learning professionals thrive and develop.

Opportunity

The President of the SVTD-ID Board of Directors has been a member of the chapter since October 2019. During this period, she has observed a recurring inability to recruit new members. Data indicates this problem has been persistent for several years. This problem has been exacerbated by the global health crisis of COVID-19. The current state of the organization’s membership numbers are in the mid-forties (43). SVTD-ID would like to double membership (86) by the end of the current operating year (31 December 2021). Considering this, our student team believes SVTD-ID should create a monthly goal to make it manageable and to ensure a balance of workload through the year. This monthly goal should also serve as a performance measure to evaluate the effectiveness of selected interventions. With monthly goals established, based on the larger performance goal, SVTD-ID’s performance gap statement is: SVTD-ID wants to recruit new members at a rate of six per month, when currently SVTD-ID is recruiting at a rate of zero per month. See Figure 1.

The needs assessment’s purpose is to offer interventions to:

  • Revive stagnant membership numbers

  • Involve new perspectives, expertise, and experiences

  • Increase in resources (human capital and revenue generation)

  • Succession planning for board leadership

Analysis

The student team conducted a series of interviews with the acting board members, as well as with current and past members of the organization. We also crafted anonymous surveys that were sent to current members, non-members who had expressed interest in the chapter, and past members who did not renew their membership.

The needs assessment team used Chevalier's Updated Behavior Engineering Model (BEM) and the visual tool of Ishakawa’s Fishbone Diagram to determine the cause analysis. See Figure 2 for information on the Fishbone Diagram.

This allowed our team to determine what areas of the organization (environment, individual) contributed to the performance gap. Some of the findings include:

  • Undefined and unclear roles, responsibilities, and goals related to recruitment

  • Limited resources

  • No incentives for recruitment efforts

  • Board members not having the skills required for recruitment activities

  • COVID-19 causing lackluster membership rates/meeting attendance

To recommend an intervention that best addresses the performance gap’s core cause, our student team completed a root cause analysis. The team selected the Five Whys tool because of its value in problem-solving by promoting a systematic approach to determining the root cause. Figure 3 presents two iterations of the Five Whys that the team conducted.

Intervention Selection

After gathering and analyzing the chapter data and gaining a systemic understanding of the causes leading to membership deficiencies, our student team concluded with a plan of interventions. These potential interventions were designed to address and eliminate the causes leading to the performance gap while identifying the level of impact and invasiveness of each intervention.

There are five interventions identified and each intervention carries its own weight towards making a positive impact as well as a certain level of invasiveness for the chapter to implement. The five interventions identified are:

  • Clarify Chapter Objectives

  • Define/Formalize Board of Director Roles

  • Create a New Role, Director of Recruiting

  • Incentivize Members to Recruit

  • Further Develop Chapter to “Sell”

The needs assessment team recommends SVTD-ID define roles and responsibilities, as it is low on invasiveness but will make a lasting yet consistent impact by establishing documentation that current and future board members can refer to when filling vacancies and guiding themselves throughout their term. The team also recommends implementing a higher impact intervention (yet higher also on the level of invasiveness) to create a new board position specifically for the role of Director of Recruitment. This position will tackle projects directly related to membership recruitment activities that enable positive chapter growth. See Figure 4 for a break down of the Intervention Ranking Tables and Quadrant.

Reflection

During my time with this client, I gained valuable insights into teamwork, ethical considerations, and the process of conducting needs assessments. A significant takeaway was the ability to propose practical interventions that could add value to the chapter. In this particular instance, our client was a non-profit with limited financial resources and time constraints, prompting us to carefully align our intervention recommendations with the organization's limitations. This Needs Assessment team became one of my highlights in my OPWL experience, providing me with substantial knowledge in collaborating with both exceptional teams and clients.

To see the complete report, refer to: Needs Assessment

References

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