Personal Sustainability: Listening to Extension Staff and Observing Organizational Culture.
Extension staff are increasingly challenged to do excellent work and balance their lives. University of Maine Cooperative Extension committed to a 2 year participatory action research project to support staff and to an organizational climate that encourages personal sustainability. With tools from ethnography and appreciative inquiry, staff engaged with colleagues through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and informal conversations. This article describes the richness of the process, the methodology, and the findings. Actions began early, as awareness was raised and people felt empowered. Recommendations resulting from the project address ways to support work life balance, collegiality and connection, and staff connection to organizational vision. Introduction Involved in many roles and varied programs, Extension staff work hard to help clients improve their lives. As financial challenges continue, staff numbers shrink and program priorities change. Meanwhile, the presence of technologies provides constant and instant access to work. Staff strive for excellence and at the same time often struggle with work stress and issues of life balance (Bradley, Driscoll, Bardon, 2012; Hodous, Young, Borr, Vettern, 2014; Kutilek, Conklin, Gunderson, 2002) In the face of many challenges, Extension personnel want to stay motivated, optimistic, and inspired while doing the work they love (Ensle, 2005; Harder, Gouldthorpe, Goodwin, 2014; Kroth Peutz, 2011; Martin Kaufman, 2013; Tower, Bowen, Alkadry, 2011; Turkle, 2011; Young, Stone, Aliaga, Shuck, 2013) The leadership team of University of Maine Cooperative Extension (UMaine Extension) made a commitment to understanding how UMaine Extension staff were balancing their lives and underpinned that commitment by supporting a diverse team tasked with undertaking the Personal Sustainability Project. We, the authors of this article, were members of that team, with one author acting as the team leader. We defined personal sustainability as "working in a healthy, balanced Leslie Forstadt Assistant Extension Professor University of Maine Cooperative Extension Orono, Maine leslie.forstadt@maine. edu Aileen Fortune Extension Professor (Retired) University of Maine Cooperative Extension Springvale, Maine way today so that we can continue to do creative work well into the future." Our belief was that working sustainably contributes to a sustainable organization that better fulfills our mission and better serves the people of Maine. The two goals of the project were to understand and support a successful staff that does excellent work and an organizational climate that supports the pursuit of work life balance and personal sustainability. Methods Project Team Extension staff were selected and invited to join the project team by the team leader. Selected staff were chosen because they were philosophically or programmatically aligned with exploring personal and organizational sustainability, believed that their involvement would be meaningful, and had a desire to make a difference and contribute to the sustainability of colleagues and UMaine Extension. Consideration was given to gender, programming area, job classification, and geographical representation in selection of the project team. Potential members were personally invited to participate, and those with interest and availability committed to participate. The project team was made up of 11 members representing diverse aspects of Extension: faculty, professional, and aide and support staff roles; areas of programming; gender; and geography in the organization. Team members committed to investing 2 years of their time to the project, and the administration supported staff in participating and approved mileage reimbursement for in person meetings. The project team met for the first time in February 2012, with the director of Extension, to discuss the purpose of the project and to get to know each other. We learned together about participatory action research, ethnography, and appreciative inquiry, three methodologies explained in the Theoretical Basis section below. Organizational Context The project duration was a time of change, creating a dynamic backdrop for the research: Funding cuts resulted in significant layoffs in our Eat Well nutrition program with the loss of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds to UMaine Extension. UMaine Extension received an unprecedented 9.4% cut from the University of Maine. Forecasts predicted challenging fiscal years to come, creating a climate of increasing anxiety about future program and staff cuts. Theoretical Basis Research in Brief Personal Sustainability: Listening to Extension Staff and Observing Organizational Culture JOE 54(2) (c)2016 Extension Journal Inc. 1 The project team was committed to a process of discovery, using a number of qualitative research methodologies. We began without a firm hypothesis, instead using the stories of our colleagues to inform the findings and themes as the research unfolded. Through qualitative research and observational methods, we wanted to explore what was already successful in the organization and what needed to be changed and could be changed positively. We used a grounded theory approach that allowed for an exploratory design: Participatory action research was a methodology well suited to exploring our questions; encouraging reflection, self awareness, and dialogue; and supporting individual and collective empowerment and actions to effect organizational change (Havercamp, Christiansen, Mitchell, 2003; McIntyre, 2008; Tritz, 2014) We explored how our questions as members of the group could lead to conversations and whether those conversations would lead to action. Ethnography was incorporated by the process of the team's starting with observations from within the organization at each team meeting. Observations were regularly noted and recorded and used to inform the mixed methods (interviews and surveys) as the project evolved. The project team recognized that we were a part of the organization we were studying, and ethnography helped us observe our organizational culture and see things that were subtle or obvious but may have been otherwise unnoticed (Schwartzman, 1993) Appreciative inquiry supported our focus on our strengths and the positive core of the organization our collective values, spirit, and wisdom. It reminded us that conversations, dialogues, and interviews were the heart of our process (Whitney Trosten Bloom, 2010) These three methodologies guided our grounded theory development that emerged from the guiding purpose of the project: to examine and understand the sustainability of the organization at the individual and system levels. They helped us create a process whereby we could learn about how individuals were doing, what was working well, what was challenging, and how the organization might better support personal sustainability. The approaches provided methods for conversation and dialogue about topics not typically discussed and made visible some less visible parts of organizational culture, helping the project team gain insights and consider recommendations to strengthen UMaine Extension. Design and Instruments Online Survey An electronic survey contained closed and open ended items and took approximately 20 minutes to complete. Focus Group Protocols Focus group questions were designed for focus group participation by any interested staff member. In response to demand, four focus group sessions were offered during summer/fall 2012. Research in Brief Personal Sustainability: Listening to Extension Staff and Observing Organizational Culture JOE 54(2) (c)2016 Extension Journal Inc. 2 Interview Protocols In depth interviews were conducted with anyone interested in speaking at length about issues of personal and organizational sustainability during summer/fall 2012. Thirty two interviews were conducted by members of the project team. Participants In July 2012, all staff (N 216) were invited via email to participate in an optional online survey. Upon completion of the survey, respondents were invited to continue participation through an interview or a focus group. The online survey was completed by 108 staff members (a 50% return rate) It was completed by 16 men, 72 women, and 20 people who did not specify sex. Of the 83 participants who provided their job classifications, 30 (27.8% were faculty, 23 (21.0% were program aides, 4 were administrators (this number represents 3.7% of respondents but 100% of administrators) 15 (13.9% were support staff, and 11 (10.2% were professionals. Focus groups and interviews were anonymous with respect to job classification, years on the job, and gender. Ten focus group sessions were held with 55 people, and 32 interviews were conducted. Results Surveys were analyzed for descriptive data and open ended responses. The open ended survey responses were coded by themes, as were the focus group and interview responses. All qualitative responses were coded by at least two members of the project team. Ongoing conversations with staff formed the iterative process that led to new questions and insights, contributing to the data as part of the participatory action and ethnographic processes, as early actions led to changes in the organization during the project's duration. The theme of our March 2013 all organization meeting was "personal and organizational sustainability." At that meeting, preliminary findings were shared in a keynote presentation that generated small group and informal conversations that became part of the iterative process of data collection. The results were disseminated internally beginning July 2013 via a publication called Project Notes. This publication was sent out twice a month via email to all staff. Editions of the publication were short, informative pieces designed to give staff the opportunity to digest small bits of the research results over time.