OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Human Resource Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the human resource frame
2. Apply the human resource 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.

The situation that I introduced in Module 1 was how I had been trying to move up in my
organization and had no luck. I felt that I was being held back in my design role while others
had been given opportunities. It wasn’t until I was approached by a different organization
that offered me the opportunities and I had decided to take them. That is when my current
organization asked to negotiate my stay and decided to put the pieces in motion to provide
me with the opportunities I had been seeking. We came to an agreement and I decided to
stay. I am currently in a transition period from my current position as a designer and once I
finish school in about a month, I will be moving into my new role in the Project Management
department.

2) Describe how the human resources of the organization influenced the situation.

The human resources of the organization are scarce. The work that my organization is
involved in is a niche segment of the construction industry with a limited amount of people.
My organization as well as others that do the same type of work typically train their people to
our specialty. The other choice they have is to recruit knowledgeable people from other
companies by providing a better incentive package. The choice that my organization has
taken is to train their designers, this takes time and effort, but the employees are trained to
the specific methods of my organization.

When I asked for an opportunity in project management, the organization could not find
or make the change happen. This was due to the fact that they would not find a replacement
for my current position that would give them the production that I was providing for them.
They have been in need of a project manager as well, but the timing was never right to pull
me from design. When they were faced with being out a designer and a project manager,
they made the choice to deal with the designer shortage and fill the project management

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position. I they had let me leave they would have been dealing with filling two positions
instead of just my current position as designer.

3) Recommend how you would use the human resources for an alternative course of
action regarding your case.

My organization has a philosophy in place to training your replacement. This is aimed at

not only on encouraging training but to eliminate gaps in the structure when someone is
promoted. If a person wants to move up, they need to make sure that they have mentored
someone well enough that they can take over when they move up. The problem with this
approach that is specific to my organization is that we have a lack of mid-level designers, its
either senior designers or beginners. For the last few years, the organization has been hiring
college graduates that are being trained by senior designers that for the most part do not have
a higher education. The educational gap combined with the age difference has led to new
designers leaving the organization within their first two years of employment, when they start
to get productive.

After training new designers, the organization needs to understand that they need to make
the effort both in a good working environment and the benefits the now proficient designer to
want to stay and not seek the benefits from other organizations. The organization needs to
find ways to find common interests between the different cliques formed due to generational
differences. The organization can organize activities outside of work where employees can
get to know others outside of the work environment and form personal bond that will
improve the work relationships.

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

I would suggest not focusing on bringing new designers into our workforce. At the
moment I believe that we would be better served by reinforcing our department with mid-
level designer. This will allow us to bridge the gap between the current cliques that have
been formed due to age and knowledge differences. This will also help the new designers
identify the level of knowledge they should be expected to have at different levels of their
career. I also believe that having mid-level designers would allow the new designers to have
a role model to follow that they can identify with, instead of much older coworkers. Older
mature knowledgeable people are great examples to follow but harder for younger people to
identify with.

Another thing that I would do differently knowing what I now know about the human
resource frame and the current stage that my organization is at. I would find ways to take
advantage of the shortage of labor and the current difficult state of finding people to add to
the work force. I should have utilize realized that the organization is in need of capable
people and I should had pushed for my transfer instead of letting it keep me stuck in a

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position I no longer wanted to be in. I should have made sure that upper management, not
only my direct manager, know about my desires and my intent to look for opportunities
elsewhere if they were not met at my current organization. This could have force sooner
action by my current manager and a plan would have been set in motion much sooner for my
transfer into project management.

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 Reference or References

Bolman, L. G. & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership
(6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass