October 7, 2004
PSO creates plan for its future
The Professional Staff Organization is at a crossroads. At least, its leaders think so. That’s why they’ve spent the summer assessing where the organization is now and plotting where it should go in the future.
The PSO, as it is known on campus, is made up of all the members of the University’s professional staff, including those who work in Bothell and Tacoma and at Harborview. Merely being hired as professional staff makes you a PSO member whether you know it or not. And plenty of people don’t know it, say Carrie Perrin and Alicia Palacio, the group’s chair and vice-chair. Which is part of the reason they decided it was a good time to create a strategic plan.
“As a volunteer organization we have a board that changes population on a fairly regular basis,” said Perrin, who is director of academic services in psychology. “So, I’ve felt that there hasn’t been a vision we were striving toward. In a typical year there’s a lot of reinventing of the wheel and getting up to speed on who everyone is and what we might want to do. Then, the year’s over and there go the officers.”
The PSO has existed since 1990. Its activities include advocating for professional staff in Olympia and providing small scholarships for staff who want to take advantage of professional development opportunities. The organization has a board and a number of committees, and holds two meetings a year for the full membership.
A lot of this activity is not immediately apparent to many staff members. So, Perrin said, she “thought that it would be a good idea to clarify who we are and what our mission is and to lay out a five-year plan of things we want to do.”
To create the plan, the group recruited a committee of staff members and hired an outside consultant, Laura Pierce, who helped them design a survey to send to the membership and analyzed the results. The group also held brown bags and invited comments from professional staff.
“There were some areas of interest and concern that we anticipated, such as salary and benefits,” Perrin said. “People are worried about the cost of benefits rising while salaries are not. They’re concerned that there be good training for supervisors — both staff and faculty. I think in general the professional staff feel vulnerable within the larger university system. So that came through in a lot of ways — feeling like there isn’t anyone in their corner.”
More surprising to Perrin and Palacio were comments about the organization itself. Staffers asked whether those active in PSO were given release time to do it. They wondered if the organization should form itself as a non-profit, whether it should hire a director and secure office space.
The committee, along with PSO officers and board members, took all the feedback into a retreat facilitated by Pierce. Out of that has come a mission statement and four goal areas that were officially adopted by the board recently. The mission statement is: “The Professional Staff Organization builds community, promotes communication, and represents and advocates for its membership throughout the University of Washington system.”
The four goal areas are:
- Organizational Development
- Outreach and Membership Building
- Communication and Coordination Regarding Human Resource Issues
- Advocacy and Representation
The organizational development goal is in part a reaction to the comments received in the brown bags about the PSO’s structure. Perrin said the group wants to explore setting up an infrastructure so that there is more continuity from year to year as board members change. Meanwhile, Palacio has been doing some research about staff organizations on other campuses to see how they are structured.
Of course, in order to even consider such things as hiring a director, the group needs to build its financial base, which is part of the reason for the outreach goal. (Although all professional staff belong to PSO, monetary contribution is voluntary.)
The communication goal came out of the many HR concerns that staff expressed in the survey and at the brown bags. Palacio said she and Perrin have been meeting with HR representatives every two months “just to keep the channels of communication open,” adding that HR has been very open to working with PSO.
In fact, the PSO currently has a separate committee that is looking at the official University policy on professional staff and expects to make recommendations for changes to HR by the beginning of winter quarter.
The advocacy goal is a continuation of PSO’s efforts to lobby for professional staff in Olympia, but it also involves advocating within the University, with the president and Board of Regents.
“We were pleased to be able to meet with President Emmert,” Perrin said. “We look forward to working with him and his administration.”
Emmert will be speaking at the PSO’s fall membership meeting, scheduled for 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 2, in the HUB West Ballroom.
The PSO plans to have an updated Web site reflecting their new plan by the end of the quarter.
“As we begin to put the plan into place and restructure committees, we’ll be soliciting members of those committees,” Perrin said. “That’s a great way for staff who don’t want to put time into the board to still be involved.”
“It’s always good for us to hear from membership, whether we send out an invite or not,” Palacio added. “People should feel free to contact us with any ideas or concerns that they have.”
The board can be reached at psoboard@u.washington.edu.
