Team Development | Part One: Building Your Team
The Spotlight’s fall focus turns to team development. Over the next three months, this series will explore the concepts of building a team, growing a team through traditional and/or novel methods, and restructuring a team to adapt to the changing workplace.
The Great Resignation has hit many institutions resulting in entities examining ways to retain, retrain, and rebuild their research administration teams. Rather than view it as the Great Resignation, institutions should instead approach this phase as a Great Exploration, a period to reframe the needs of both employer and employees. This series will focus on topics related to team development: building your team, growing your team, and restructuring your team.
FIRST STEP: BUILDING YOUR TEAM
Building your team is a scientific exercise. In creating your structure and adding personnel the scientific method becomes handy – ask your questions, perform a literature review, and outline your methods. Planning takes time. Analyzing what has worked for other institutions can help you bypass issues and focus on positive growth that others may have already experienced. Be sure to consider your institution’s strategic goals so that your team is designed to help advance this mission. You will need buy-in from leadership to secure additional funding, create new positions, and possibly adjust business processes for your new organizational structure.
Structure
When building your team structure, you should assess priorities and needs. First, what is the organizational structure? This construct determines how your team does its work, who reports to whom, and how authority is maintained. Was yours developed intentionally or organically? Are there ways in which you can improve your current team structure? Are you utilizing a centralized model when a departmental model might better serve your team members and your researchers? Have you grown so much that a cradle-to-grave approach is no longer feasible? Should you switch to a separate pre-award and post-award model? In assessing these wants and needs, you should explore what your peer and aspirational institutions are doing. Reach out to your counterparts in other organizations or similar-sized institutions and ask them what works in their model. Assessing the spectrum of models often provides clues to what may align with your department or institution’s needs. As an architect designs the frame of a structure, an overarching model is necessary to build upon.
Personnel
What is the capital needed to ensure the structure is well built? What personnel and roles are needed? Too often, we simply fill open positions without treating this as an opportunity to consider needs. Perhaps there are restructuring opportunities. Perhaps one can shuffle roles to manage existing staff to their fullest. Few leaders actually poll the staff to determine what their thoughts are, but obtaining feedback from your boots-on-the-ground people often provides telling insights into gaps and areas for process improvement. Handling this as an opportunity for the staff to feel part of the decision-making process creates intangible benefits and a greater sense of belonging.
What your authors have done and recommend is to interview the staff to garner their perspectives. Rather than view a vacancy as an opportunity to fill a seat, consider it a means to potentially purchase a new couch. Regard this as a mechanism to build professional development. Construct a specialized career path for your department so that entry-level personnel see their future. Build titles that allow for upward growth with a clear progression (e.g., sponsored program officer (SPO) I, II, III, or assistants, juniors, and seniors). Tailor training opportunities by person or role. Consider professional development opportunities (conferences, professional certification, etc.). The goal here is for retention and to build a motivated staff.
Once all data points have been collated, speak with a supervisor, human resources, consultant, or other leader(s) to help decipher the data and guide you in best practices for your structure for the coming years. Do not consider what may work today only; think about where you want your unit to be in five years. You want to ensure there is room to build for future capacity, growth, and the changing needs of the profession. You also want to ensure that you have formative measures and feedback mechanisms built in to help improve retention strategies. For example, consider periodic culture or satisfaction surveys for your staff, 360 assessments for leadership, exit interviews for those departing, and routine assessments of the research administration’s professional requirements.
The Fun Part
Once your structure is mapped out, you can apply this guide to build your prospective team. Move the key players into places to maximize their potential. Strategically hire new staff to fill team needs – both now and in the future. You may identify a rock star but ask if the rock star aligns with your structure. Consider how this puzzle piece fits into the greater whole. Think of it like a jigsaw puzzle – a square peg does not ideally match a round hole. But, once the pieces fit, you will see a much bigger and better picture.
Building a team is not a one-size-fits-all exercise. It is also not a one-and-done. However, when well structured, this skill can greatly benefit the organization, the employer, and the staff, both for current and future optimization.
Next month: Growing your Team!
Kimberly Read, PhD, MBA, CRA, Director, Business Research & Administration
University of South Florida
SRAI Distinguished Faculty
Meaghan Ventura, CRA, Senior Sponsored Projects Officer, Research Institute
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Mark Lucas, CRA, Chief Administrative Officer, Department of Neurobiology
University of California Los Angeles