Case Studies
The following case studies provide examples of project work by N.J. Hess Associates. Check back for updates.
ORGANIZATION CULTURE IN A COUNTY GOVERNMENT
Traditionally government has been considered as the more stable employment environment when compared to the private sector, and as such, typically boasts lower turnover and longer tenures of employment. Reasons for this include benefit packages that surpass private sector, family friendly work environments that typically allow employees to flex work schedules to attend to family, and low amounts of overtime. However, in the past decade or more, the trend has shifted due to a number of variables, as in the case of this county government which was experiencing a drain of employees, most often in the first three years of employment. The human resource team showed a chart that showed an inverse relationship between years of service and turnover, i.e., the greater the years of service, the lower the rate of turnover. Read more ...
PROCESS CONSULTATION IN A TRAINING DIVISION
The executive leader of an organization with an emerging training division called in the consultant to help him understand why a seemingly talented group of staff had tremendous difficulties coordinating and executing delivery of services. The consultant spent time observing group meetings and met individually with each staff person to gain insights into the relational aspects of the group and the design of the work. Although group dynamics were fraught with conflict and caused interference of smooth functioning, these dynamics shifted as the group began to engage in re-engineering their own work processes to bring about improvements. Read more ...
EXIT INTERVIEWS AND ORGANIZATION CLIMATE SURVEY
Periods of change in leadership are often stressful in organizations and result in people leaving the organization. Many organizations fail to use this opportunity to learn what employee’s value and think about when they decide whether to stay or leave the organization. One governing board decided too many top level managers had left the organization and they wanted to know why. The consultant had a long relationship with the organization and this foundational relationship allowed her to directly contact departed employee and interview them using a structured and open-ended interview format. In addition, the board agreed to conduct an internal climate survey (using a written questionnaire) to provide a picture of current levels of satisfaction among employees on various areas of organization life, such as leadership, capacity building and work culture. Read more ...