1. Organizational Leadership and Reframing of an EEO Office
Dr. Brenda C. Williams and Dr. Michelle T. Scott
Rockville, Maryland
Logo
Conclusions
Introduction
Re-visiting the
Past, Transforming the Future…
Future
Within contemporary organizations, reframing an EEO office and its functions within the Office of Human Resources and Strategic Talent Management (HRSTM). Employee & Labor Relations portfolio creates a paradigm shift. Such a shift interdependently aligns and couples the functions and offers an efficient single-point-of entry for employees and students to access critical legal and compliance related support and services.
In 1999, as a strategic response, Montgomery College redefined, reframed, renamed and established a new identity for the former office of affirmative action by renaming it the office of equity and diversity (OED). Historically, the office’s operational foundation and mandates have been to ensure affirmative action, equal employment opportunity, and non-discrimination in the workplace. Notwithstanding the historical and operational foundation for establishing the office, several of the office’s tasks and functions have changed. These changes are partially due to the genesis of diversity and inclusion as higher education priorities, the evolution of regulatory language and changes in related compliance nuances and expectations.
Over the past 30 years, the office’s functions and mandates have continually expanded to ensure the college’s compliance with a plethora of equal opportunity and non-discrimination regulations that not only protect employees, but protect students and their academic and non- academic experiences. Also the office has functioned as an independent unit.
In 2014, the opportunity to reframe the EEO function with a new team emerged in the office of Human Resources and Strategic Talent Management. The new office is called Employee Relations Diversity & Inclusion.
An immediate opportunity for the College is to appropriately characterize and define the office’s contemporary role and responsibilities. In doing so, the office’s current role and responsibilities should be revisited and restructured to align with the operational, organizational and functional contexts of the College’s current diversity vision and commitment, as well as national access, diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice benchmarks and models. Essentially this would mean change and a new operational, organizational, functional paradigm and context for the office. The change has implications for the office’s current and future portfolio, protocols, processes, programs, and personnel. The following is a brief redesign proposal for the current office of equity and diversity. (Scott, 2013). 
The conceptual framework reframes the functions of the past and provides an overview of the future coupling of functions. The ERDI unit embraces the vision on HRSTM which values employees and is “people-focused.” Leveraging the talents of the members of the ERDI team is a major focus. There are obvious over lapping of talents and expertise in the new framework. Therefore, the framework suggests that employees with particularized talents will work with other members collaboratively on smaller affinity groups and committees. This intersection creates a single point of entry for employees and students to provide an opportunity for critical integration of the following areas:
Services
Programs
Policies
Processes
Procedures
Professional Development
Case Management System
Development of s for Single-Point-of-Entry
This new approach of providing quality services to the College community provides the future of providing services that focus on the development of case management systems to augment current best practices. These systems will provide the opportunity for better communication between services and allow for comprehensive planning. The intersections of many of the aforementioned services will again create a single-point-of entry for employees and students and provide an opportunity for critical integration. This new concept will become the hallmark of new strategic ways to serve the College community.
Contact Information:
Past EEO Model…
Future Proposed Access, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice Model…
Visual Model of past EEO office and functions
Present Employee Relations, Diversity, & Inclusion Model
Bibliography
1 Shaw, K. M., Valadez, J. R., & Rhoads, R. A. (Ed.). (1999). Community college as cultural texts: Qualitative explorations of organizational a student culture. Ithaca, NY: State University of New York Press.
2 Bourdieu, Pierre. (1973). Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction. Pp in Knowledge, Education, and Social Change: Papers in the Sociology of Education. Edited by Richard Brown. London, Tavistock.
Scott. T. (2013). Organizational and Operational Re-design: Narrative and Visual Conceptual Framework. Montgomery College, Maryland
Visual Redesign for future EEO functions
Present Visual Model Employee Relations, Diversity and Inclusion office and functions