Alignment Org Charts for Member Services

All-

I sent an email to the Member Services staff a few minutes ago, letting them know that we've released the org charts for each library.  The charts provide a visual of who will be filling which positions at which libraries across the system.  I'm sharing the rationale for the decisions below and you can see all of the org charts attached to this post. 

I have also attached copies of the documents we shared with the Library Managers, Assistant Managers, and other library reps.  Please feel free to review them and post questions to the forum. 

We will be sharing the Non-Member Services org charts next week, and as I have repeatedly said, there will be few changes to jobs or titles or reporting.

Rationale

To give you a better understanding of how the decisions were made and what went into each, I wanted to share the process we used.  We didn’t just make a list and quickly sort the names into positions by alphabetical order.  While this would have been easy and fast, it would not have met our principle requirements and would likely have been a disaster.  The requirements we used were: 

• stability within work teams and across the system
• respect for individual preferences
• respect for managerial preferences
• best fit for the organization

As we have talked about before, we’re trying to make more decisions using data to shape and inform the outcomes.  This is not to make the decisions less personal or less person-centric, but to make the best decisions for all concerned.  In the case of mapping our Member Services staff (formerly Public Services or Library Operations), this data included preference surveys for staff with position choices.  We asked them for a ranked order of their preferred positions, and later, followed up, asking them if they had to pick one, which would they want to rank higher – their position of choice or their location of choice.  Additionally, we knew that the managers would want and need input to the decisions, so we asked them which of the new positions they needed and in what quantity to best serve their members.  All of this information was placed into a decision matrix, and we went through it line-by-line in an attempt to provide every person with his or her highest preference.  We will provide a full review of that data on the intranet, but I will share that of the 371 staff mapped, all but 16 went into their first choice.  Of those 16, all but one were mapped to their second choice, and the one identified that she’d rather change jobs than locations, so that was respected.    This process took about five weeks and we spent a lot of time and effort building it.  In the end, fewer than 10 people changed location, and each of them requested position of choice over location of choice.

With more than 540 positions or vacancies in play, we want to be sure that we got it right, so it’s important for you to review the org chart and the other documents.  If you see any problems, questions or concerns, please let your supervisor know or post them to the forum or the Q&A next week.

Ultimately, the Alignment will enable our staff to be more successful and our library to achieve its strategic priorities and the 20-Year Goal of everyone in the county using a library service.  Thank you for your support commitment to Library Unbound, the Library, and the members we serve.

--Tim