Improving workplace writing: A collaborative project with Michigan Works!
This project was part of a campaign developed for the Oakland Literacy Project, a non-profit literacy organization in Metro Detroit. Our objective was to help local businesses and organizations address some of the literacy and writing issues that were affecting productivity in the workplace.
Category: consulting; professional writing
Attributes: primary research; workshop design; assessment and evaluation
Target Audiences: staff and employees
Client: Michigan Works!
Year: 2019-2020
Context
In collaboration with businesses and organizations in the Metro Detroit area, the Oakland Literacy Council was looking to create an ongoing, multi-session workplace literacy program, similar to an academic curriculum. Each program would focus on teaching specific writing and communication skills, based on research gathered through surveys and interviews with the partnering organization's staff.
Therefore, rather than teaching a generalized form of workplace literacy, this approach ensured that the content covered in the program was relevant and directly applicable to the skills required for that particular organization.
The following section details a pilot program that I spearheaded and facilitated for Michigan Works!, an organization dedicated to job placement across Michigan State.
Analyze and Design
Workplace_summary report.docxI began by holding a one-hour meeting with three managing staff members to get a clearer picture of Michigan Works!'s writing and communicative needs. After this initial meeting, we realized that one area of focus was the writing and categorization of case notes (CN), the brief summary report that career advisors used to document interactions with Michigan Works! clientele and other job seekers.
After the initial meeting, I held a focus group with more staff members in the Michigan Works! organization that wrote and read CNs, in order to better understand the contexts in which they were typically used. After the focus group, I created a summary report (seen here) that articulated what I had learned and my suggestions for subsequent workshops. The summary report was sent to the original three managing staff members for review.
One of the major issues identified during the focus group was the incorrect labeling and organization of CNs via their subject titles. Staff members complained that there was not a system in place that ensured writers were categorizing their CNs with the most appropriate and accurate subject titles, which made searching for and archiving past CNs difficult. Therefore, the development of a comprehensive list of CN subject titles was the focus of the first workshop.
Development and Implementation
The workshop was held on December 6, 2019. Overall, there were about 24 participants from six Michigan Works! branches: Troy, Novi, Waterford, Pontiac, Oak Park, and Southfield.
To begin the workshop, I asked the participants to organize themselves into four groups. Specifically, I asked them to work with members of other branches in order to encourage more cross-pollination of ideas.
First, we began with individual reflective writing. Participants were asked to spend 5 minutes thinking about the most common subject titles they used to label and categorize CNs.
Afterward, participants were asked to share their answers with just their groupmates. The goal was to determine what were some similar subject titles used, and whether or not they were used to describe the same type of CNs.
After sharing out, I asked each group to look across all of the subject titles created by their groupmates and combine them into a single comprehensive list of subject titles. I made sure to emphasize that the biggest challenge was to find a middle ground where the subject titles are distinguishable and specific but also cover a wide range of possible topics; if the list was too individualized and specific, then it would be long, unruly, and hard to manage. But if the list was too short, then they risked over-generalizing certain case notes, grouping them together when they shouldn’t be. Each group then wrote their list on a posterboard-sized post-it note (examples seen here).
Once each group completed their list, I placed all four side by side on a wall so that all participants could see what the other groups came up with. I then asked each group to either add, remove, or integrate any important subject titles to their own list based on what they noticed on the other ones.
Each group was asked to test the effectiveness of their list by applying them to a worksheet that I created. The worksheet contained a list of actual CNs that a managing staff member had sent to me, anonymized and without their subject titles. It was up to the participants to determine what they thought the most appropriate subject title would be for each CN, given its content. Afterwards, I revealed each CN's actual subject title and we compared them to the ones the participants came up with.
Evaluation and Takeaways
All staff members were engaged throughout the workshop and seemed to enjoy the activities. However, when it came time to apply their lists to the worksheet, a number of participants spoke up, saying that the provided case notes were not really applicable to the subject titles their group came up with. Another participant also criticized the case notes themselves, stating that they were "not good." What these points of criticism revealed to me was that the process to develop a truly comprehensive list of appropriate subject titles would require multiple workshops, during which Michigan Works! staff members continuously refined and revised their list of relevant subject titles.
Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 and the quarantine, this project has been halted for the time being.