OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Structural Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the structural frame
2. Apply the structural frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1. Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

I work for a Native American government in the Department of Education. I run several
programs, and assist with the Higher Education Assistance Program (HEAP). The situation
I plan to use for the case study is the transformation from the Higher Education Scholarship
program to the Higher Education Assistance Program. Prior to the currently established
policies and workflow processes, communication and organization of that program were
non-existent and policies were not followed. Citizens were unable to get the “project
champion” (employee #1) of higher education to answer phones or respond to email. At the
time, I was the Administrative Assistant and fielded questions & complaints. When asking
the project champion questions for the citizens, I was met with annoyed eye rolling and
reluctance to look into the answers. The second person involved with higher education was
good with communication, but was annoyed at fielding calls that should have gone to the
other person, she also did not get along with him and only did what she felt like and pushed
things off she was supposed to do onto others, and had been heard saying that she was
above some of the tasks she was responsible for.
The implementation of HEAP created more accountability with the addition of me to make
a 3-person HEAP team. This was supposed to help streamline the workflow. HEAP
applications were to go directly to me and I would verify completeness and pass on to the
next person for the next step in the process. I logged the date it came in, as well as anything
else notable about the application. Each person was supposed to log when their part was
done and what was done. A month later, we got an office manager for the first time, and he
helped make the program even more efficient, and easier on my workload. The new
Administrative Assistant (employee #4) was added to streamline all processes and
communication. This worked for a year, with some growing pains of course, then the office
manager left for another department and immediately the first 2 people in the program went
back to their old ways, but due to COVID-19, their positions have since been eliminated. I
still continue to work on this program, with the 4th addition, and our 2 other remaining
team members, however, only 3 of us are actively involved in the program. We split tasks,
communicate well, and we assist where needed. We have shown that if the process is
followed, it works.

Describe how the structure of the organization influenced the situation.

The structure of the organization greatly influenced the situation, as we did not have a
middle manager who was more equipped to handle blatant disregard of directives or
policies. Our department director was spread very thin with a lot of tasks, projects,
initiatives that he was trying to see through. Managing people was not his strong suit. Once
his tasks officially became more than one person could handle, he hired an office manager.
Finally, the office manager began reviewing and enforcing policies, monitoring employee
activity, and putting an end to ridiculous behavior by a few coworkers, notably the two
stated above. After witnessing how HEAP applications were submitted by adult college
students in the Fall 2018 semester, he quickly put an end to students piecing in
applications, now requiring them to submit a full application with documentation at one
time, or it will not be accepted/held onto until the application is completed. We had way
too many students to process to be holding onto partial applications. In the Fall 2018
semester, at one point, there were 3 large stacks of partial applications on 2 different desks.
It made it nearly impossible to find applications.
Our office manager asked IT to make us a shared inbox for HEAP applications. All
students were now required to email applications into that one email address, and no more
emailing applications to one individual, and this also created accountability, as each
individual was to log what was done for each student application, and when, on Microsoft
CRM. Roles were clearly defined, and regular meetings were held. #1 and #2 continued to
argue in each meeting over their roles. Our Administrative Assistant was asked to be our #4
in the team. She was to ensure all tasks were completed properly by all team members. She
tracked how long it stayed with each team member, as well as the dates.

Recommend how you would use structure for an alternative course of action
regarding your case.

I agreed with part of our manager’s initial plan, which was to terminate employee #2 in the
scenario above. He believed that she was the source of the drama in that program, and the
entire department (it was true). I believed that both #1 and #2 could have been let go. He
believed that #1 could be coached into improving; I believed that the technology outgrew
his abilities. However, our director did not agree with either of us. He chose not to
terminate either employee, although #2 was creating a hostile work environment for the
entire team, not just the Higher Education team. She talked poorly about people behind
their backs and was sneaky. She took calls for other people, did their tasks, and didn’t say a
word to anyone about it. Her focus area was higher education, but a K-12 focus area
employee found out that she had been going to their students’ advocacy meetings, and not
informing the K-12 staff there was a meeting scheduled. The K-12 team found out when
attending a meeting that someone else from our department had been in the meetings. She
had also gone behind my back and processed applications and payments for programs that
are my responsibility.

Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

If I were in my boss’ (the director) position, I would have listened more carefully to the
complaints of the team instead of downplaying the severity of the situation. When he hired
our office manager, he hired a new set of eyes, with a unique perspective of what attributes
were contributing to the breakdown of relationships in the department. When the office
manager suggested a course of action, like my boss had hired him to do, he should have
trusted his judgment on the recommendations.