In Part III of this series on PROPEL, I shared how I developed the PROPEL initiative including gaining approval from my College president and executive team as well as solidifying employee engagement and support. Today, I would like to share more about implementing PROPEL, including recruiting team members, developing team training, and creating an Idea Bank.
A few months prior to launching the first PROPEL team, I began recruiting team members through what I called my PROPEL Roadshow. I presented at regular department meetings for all teams across the College, held a virtual Coffee Chat, and sent email announcements. I shared the purpose of PROPEL and how it connected to the feedback they provided earlier in the year. My goal was to ensure every employee had the information they needed to decide if they wanted to join a PROPEL team. Then, I asked interested employees to complete an online interest form. By completing the form, employees had to indicate their interest, when they preferred to participate, and acknowledge the participation requirements. The form was automatically routed to the individual’s supervisor to approve participation, and all completed forms and approvals were routed to me via email. This approval process helped me stay organized while giving each of our more than 250 employees the opportunity to join.
I also began working with the College training and development department to build an online, self-paced training in Canvas for all PROPEL team members. This was an amazing experience and my first time building an online training. I wrote the content and worked closely with a designer who added the videos, audio, and other bells and whistles. The training gives team members the tools they needed to understand how to complete their work (e.g., resource locations, strategic goals) while building knowledge and awareness of how to plan and lead change. The content aligns with Kotter’s 8 steps for leading change (Kotter, 1996). This alignment generates energy within the team while demonstrating application of each step. The training then concluded with a walk through of the 8 steps and how they relate to being a PROPEL team member. Team members complete various activities during the training including discussion posts about their motivations for joining PROPEL, knowledge assessments such as matching “quizzes,” and a final assessment. All team members also complete a Pre-Participation Survey before the training begins.
In addition to the training, we had to set up an Idea Bank that would house all employee ideas for innovation. Employee feedback in 2018 indicated the desire for employees to share innovative ideas and to better understand the types of innovations in progress in other departments. Of all PROPEL components, the Idea Bank has experienced the greatest variation over the past year, and I will devote an entire post to the continued evolution of the Idea Bank at some point. For now, I’ll just say that we established a common place, accessible online to all employees, where anyone could share their ideas and learn about exciting projects in development around the College.
Implementation of PROPEL was supported by numerous colleagues. I simply didn’t have the time or expertise to do everything necessary to support this initiative. I couldn’t even figure out how to set up automatic routing from the team member interest form to secure supervisor approval. I cannot underscore enough the importance of collaboration and shared ownership that brough this dream to life. For that, I owe a debt of gratitude to my colleagues and College leadership.
In January 2019, the first PROPEL team launched. Since that time, 18 employees on four PROPEL teams have participated and new teams are developing now for 2020. Now that I’ve shared the journey to get the PROPEL initiative off the ground, I can finally get to the most exciting part – the innovations developed by these teams and what they mean for students! More on that coming soon!
Reference
Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading change. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
