2024
Ashley Thomas – Arts & Sciences
In Arts and Sciences, Ashley serves as a College Academic Records Manager, and regularly seeks ways to help the College continuously improve. She takes pride in helping to provide quality support services to academic departments, staff, students, and partnering with individuals in various units across campus.
When time permits, she participates in professional development opportunities to invest in herself and to better her work environment. When the Agility Training Series launched in 2022, Ashley immediately gravitated toward these onsite learning opportunities to fine tune existing skills and adapt new ones.
The Psychological Safety training course has been her favorite course in the Agility Training Series. “I have learned that psychological safety means speaking up and voicing concerns without fear or negative repercussions when discussing change or reevaluating best practices. We have over 7,100 University employees. Regardless of your position, everyone has a responsibility for creating a psychologically safe workplace. We have so many people and too much to do to not invest in developing our professional development skills— especially utilizing effective communication skills.”
Ashley has been able to take what she has learned from the Agility courses and share best practices with her team in the Arts and Sciences Student Services Center. She also recently co-presented at the Southern Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers Conference on the importance of investing in professional development skills and the workplace benefits that accompany this investment. Some of the benefits highlighted in the presentation include improvements in communication, problem-solving, process streamlining, and job performance.
The continuous improvement department was invited to present the importance of Continuous Improvement and Professional Development, and Psychological Safety during the Arts and Sciences Student Services Center Retreat Day in July 2024.
2023
Laura Thomas – Division of Student Life
Laura Thomas, Director of Professional Development at the Division of Student Life, is the Team Leader of the Student Life Agility Team and a great partner and active supporter of Agility Concepts. Laura believes that Agility at UA is important because the work of continuous improvement is everyone’s business. More efficient processes make customers happier, staff more satisfied in their roles, boosts morale, and creates more positive relationships through the process.
In Student Life, some innovative teams that have been working with the Agility concepts include University Recreation, Business Services and Student Engagement. The Student Life Agility Team permanently encourage the staff to attend the Agility trainings offered through HR LMS.
“Overall, I think one of the most impactful Agility concepts that we have used is to get everyone at the table when we talk process improvement. That means staff at all levels, student employees, student participants, etc. All people involved in the process can have a voice and a different perspective to ensure any continuous improvement outcome is mutually beneficial and enhances efficiency.”
The Process Improvement Department has been invited to present to the Student Life Division wide monthly meetings and we have the opportunity to share some of the Agility Concepts such as Psychological Safety, Change Management and Liberating Structures. Regarding the sessions Laura mentions: “The presentations have been well received and inspirational for staff of all types. Whether a staff member has worked for twenty years or is in their first year at UA, these principles can be helpful to everyone!”.
2022
OTIDE (Office of Teaching Innovation & Digital Education ) Agility Team
Members: Tim Salazar (Team Lead), Keslie Fendley, Erica Gambrell, Ashley Chambers & Jessica Ezell.
The OTIDE (formerly the College of Continuing Studies) Agility team met every two weeks and focused on two areas. The first was to promote the knowledge of Agility including how to increase awareness and adoption throughout OTIDE. Second, they were developing new projects to automate processes to increase efficiency at the staff level.
The team faced numerous challenges. There were technical challenges where they tried to do things no one had ever done before, political challenges as they navigated the examination of processes that go beyond OTIDE’ control, and human challenges as they sought to navigate behaviors that are entrenched in status quo.
To work through the challenges, they brought in perspectives from individuals with different areas of expertise and spoke with staff members who had never been engaged with this type of process to use their ability to look at the process differently. They engaged with the campus partner and presented compiled information showing the impact of their process on the OTIDE staff along with a demonstration of a proposed replacement that OTIDE designed.
Congratulations to the OTIDE Agility Team for engaging stakeholders and staff and collaborating with teams outside of your college!
Their next effort was the “Agility Team Efficiency Project,” where they invite OTIDE colleagues who have ideas on better ways to accomplish daily tasks to share with those who use similar resources.