Transcript
Speaker: I'm JC Stoner and this is the Swakuho Podcast.
Speaker: Have you ever attempted to quantify the actual cost of your resident assistant hiring process?
Speaker: I'm not talking about the cost of marketing and room rentals and pens and paper.
Speaker: I'm talking about the cost of your staff's time.
Speaker: What opportunities do we sacrifice to facilitate multi-day long hiring processes?
Speaker: On this episode, I'm joined by Apefa Cooper to discuss an article she published last year on the opportunity costs and personnel resources associated with hiring resident assistants.
Speaker: Given how far those personnel resources have been stretched and tested the last two years moonlighting as healthcare professionals, I can't imagine a more appropriate time than now to take a critical look at how your human capital is being spent.
Speaker: Trust me, after listening to this episode, you are going to have a whole new perspective on the value of your time.
Speaker: Our guest today is Apefa Cooper, who recently began serving as the Director of Housing at Texas A&M San Antonio.
Speaker: Apefa recently transitioned out as the SWACUHO Programming Committee Chair after serving for two years.
Speaker: She is originally from Ghana, but currently calls Texas home.
Speaker: She has a huge heart for people and making them feel like they have a place in the world.
Speaker: Only because she enjoys hearing others share their Enneagram numbers, Apefa reports she is a 3-2, which some experts deem as the charmer.
Speaker: Apefa, welcome back to the show.
Speaker: Thank you, JC.
Speaker: I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker: Apefa, first things first, you are actually the first repeat guest on this show.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: That's exciting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Maybe this is like on Real Housewives or wherever.
Speaker: Maybe this means you're the first official, quote, friend of the show.
Speaker: I need to start investing in the show, like monetary investment.
Speaker: Truth be told, it's because you're a special person.
Speaker: And as your bio said, very charming.
Speaker: And not because I've already exhausted my network.
Speaker: Thanks, Tracy.
Speaker: So, Apefa, your article is called The Price of Hiring Resident Assistants, an Analysis of Human Capital, Opportunity Costs, and Personnel Wages.
Speaker: This is an interesting topic to explore.
Speaker: What was the genesis of the article idea?
Speaker: Really, how it all started was really looking at if we really truly say time is money, then what do we mean by that even in our
Speaker: our lives, right?
Speaker: In our day-to-day work.
Speaker: And so, for example, some of the things that we do at the time that I wrote this, I was actually a residence director.
Speaker: And so I was looking at some of the things that we do on a day, on a daily basis and looking at whether or not things are worth our time.
Speaker: And so a big part of my role back then was RA recruitment and hiring.
Speaker: And so the idea came from really asking the questions of, OK, if time is money, then where are we putting our resources?
Speaker: And so I was really interested in this idea.
Speaker: And it was exciting to me at that time because it was nontraditional in the way that we wrote this article and even explored some of them.
Speaker: And so we'll talk more about it.
Speaker: Well, it was also originally a SWACUHO program, and that may have also prompted a little bit.
Speaker: And in Dustin's episode, episode eight, we talked about making programs and articles.
Speaker: So I think this is a good example of how you can transition that also.
Speaker: I love the idea because my first job at the age of 15 was making $4.05 an hour catering at the Kansas Union.
Speaker: I remember thinking that if I worked an hour, I almost had enough money to go watch a two hour movie at the theater.
Speaker: So it's really kind of fascinating to think about what you said, time is money.
Speaker: So why do you think this topic was important to research?
Speaker: it was important to research at that time and even now because I really wanted to know the realness behind what we were doing and so for example we were putting a lot of resources and being taken away from our desk and our regular duties and so I was that's why I really jumped at the idea because I was really interested in just wanting to learn more about okay
Speaker: At the end of the day, why are we really doing this?
Speaker: But I was hoping to learn more around that idea of what we do when it even comes down to hiring RAs.
Speaker: Because when you think about time, time is money.
Speaker: I'm thinking about RA process I've been involved in, where it's three full days of this and two full days of that, where if you have...
Speaker: A full day of anything is basically 16 30-minute conduct cases.
Speaker: And so when you're interviewing people, every 30-minute interview means you can't do a 30-minute conduct case or a 30-minute one-on-one with an RA.
Speaker: Yeah, and it takes you away from what you're doing.
Speaker: But then it also begs the question, and I know you wrote about this, about...
Speaker: If we're doing these comprehensive processes, but we still have other job duties to do, when do we do them if we're busy for days at a time interviewing people?
Speaker: I think something that I remember we were on there too was the idea that even as a young professional, because these are entry level positions that are the front lines of these interviews and the hiring processes.
Speaker: For us, we want to make sure that we do a good job at the end of the day, right?
Speaker: And so we're going in with work until the job is done, not until the day is over.
Speaker: And so you have these entry-level professionals going in and working eight hours straight for
Speaker: an interview, right?
Speaker: And then they still know that they have 100 emails to still catch up on, right?
Speaker: In their minds, they're thinking, well, I need to get it done because tomorrow morning I have that 30-minute interview.
Speaker: I have this hour-long meeting that I have to attend.
Speaker: I have a contact case.
Speaker: But don't forget, I also have that one-on-one.
Speaker: But, oh, wait, my RA has a program.
Speaker: I need to attend that at 8 o'clock that night.
Speaker: And so you're looking at all of these times and we go further into at the end of the day, what does that do to that person?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And the human capital, when you look at the stress level, the anxiety that comes with adding up all of these times.
Speaker: And what really, at the end of the day, is it really worth it?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And asking yourself that.
Speaker: And so I know we're starting this podcast with this downer of, OK, why are we doing all of these things?
Speaker: And hopefully you're not an entry level professional listening to me, listening to this and be like, yes, yes, tell them, you know, we want to really at the end of the day address.
Speaker: And really draw back to what is important.
Speaker: What is the purpose of this?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And have and we'll talk more about this, but have departments really think through their processes and what they do.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Well, and I can't imagine a more appropriate time, given the current state of affairs and.
Speaker: Departments of housing facing resignation levels, difficulty recruitment.
Speaker: And a lot of that goes to what you said is like, which is it?
Speaker: Is it work until the day is over or work until the job is done?
Speaker: And you just named a laundry list of things that still needed to be done.
Speaker: And we have to interview people for multiple days on end.
Speaker: So I think it's...
Speaker: The value of the article, in my opinion, has only increased throughout the pandemic and facing the current climate that we see existing now.
Speaker: I think the other fascinating thing about the article is it really, there really has never been anything looked at in an academic sense about like human capital, personnel wages.
Speaker: And I think it was how you all drew on economic principles or organizational management concept is a good example of how professionals can draw on research from outside student affairs and housing to make points and build proposals off of.
Speaker: I completely agree.
Speaker: And I think this article and some of the findings that we found out from this can be applied into different organizations and different departments is at the end of the day, you have to ask this question, was this the best use of my time or my staff's time?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so the goal of this is not to pinpoint or
Speaker: pick at each process, but to really evaluate and understand what are some of the things that we do in our organizations and our departments that are worth it.
Speaker: And I think we've been put on there, even when you look at meetings, right?
Speaker: And when people say, oh, that meeting should have been in an email, right?
Speaker: And we'd laugh about it and really be look at it.
Speaker: There are several meetings that could have been in an email.
Speaker: And so when you sit in a meeting for two hours, I'm talking about another meeting and planning that meeting.
Speaker: You know, is it worth that time?
Speaker: And the big part of this article and something that's very different and ones that we don't really see a lot in other articles is
Speaker: The idea that when you draw on converting staff time into wage potential, right?
Speaker: And you look at, okay, if I'm sitting in this meeting for two hours and I'm getting paid 10 hours an hour, you know, or whatever, $15 an hour, right?
Speaker: And so then I'm sitting here for $30 and then you have 10 people in that meeting, right?
Speaker: Doing that math and seeing, okay, this is really worth it.
Speaker: I was actually listening to one of the, this is a side note that, listening to the Previews podcast with Adonis.
Speaker: And you actually talked about this idea.
Speaker: He talked about how he sat in a meeting to plan a meeting.
Speaker: I actually had to laugh about that because this is really the same concept, you know?
Speaker: No, I love that.
Speaker: And this whole time I was thinking like, we just talked about this with Adonis.
Speaker: This is perfect because it's one thing to sit around and complain about wasting time.
Speaker: But then as your article shows, it's a whole nother, there's a whole nother level when you start talking about the value and the monetary cost.
Speaker: And it's no longer just like anecdotal complaining around the water cooler or making jokes about wasting people's time.
Speaker: It's like there was actually like, there's more to it than that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes, that's true.
Speaker: But on the last episode with Maggie and Monique, we also talked about emails and meetings that should be emails and then also emails that sometimes should be meetings.
Speaker: So it's all coming full circle here.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It may need to just do an episode just for this.
Speaker: I'd like to say it plans out how strategic I was in scheduling these interviews sequentially, but I don't think it quite happened that way.
Speaker: So your article wasn't a traditional like pre-test, post-test research study.
Speaker: So how did you go about setting up this study?
Speaker: So we to do this, we actually have to create a baseline and for our baseline.
Speaker: And what we meant by that was we took certain variables and certain variables.
Speaker: components of the RA hiring process.
Speaker: And so the baseline RA hiring process evaluated about 125 candidates.
Speaker: And in that included eight one-hour interest sessions, which was one component facilitated by two entry-level staff and four RAs.
Speaker: And on the other side, we also had one 30-minute interview with one entry-level staff in one RA, and then three 30-minute group process activities with six candidates per group facilitated by one entry-level staff in three RAs.
Speaker: Now, I say all this because what we did is by setting that baseline, we were able to actually move things around and adjust them so that we could make some of the arguments we made in the article.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so, for example, there were times where we we took away the group process completely.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And then also got rid of all everything else but the structured interviews.
Speaker: And so with doing that, we were able to really calculate more of the time and the wages per the full-time professionals, but then also the RAs.
Speaker: However, we go more in depth with our full-time entry-level professionals.
Speaker: And I think that also, it was probably beneficial to kind of set a baseline because
Speaker: There's about as many different ways to hire RAs as there are schools that exist and departments that hire them.
Speaker: So having a baseline probably made that a little bit more consistent from a standardized perspective, I imagine.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And we took ones that components that were more common.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so we know that there's definitely that interview.
Speaker: We actually found out that there were some of the schools that I think we said that they even asked three questions or something as part of their interview.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We know that that's different when it comes to that.
Speaker: But we also know some people enjoy group process and talk a lot about that.
Speaker: That's a sensitive topic.
Speaker: And so some common components were included in this baseline so that it was more applicable to other departments and other institutions.
Speaker: So I'm looking at the table in your article.
Speaker: And just to give a kind of a tangible for listeners, you talked about having eight...
Speaker: interest sessions with two full-time professionals.
Speaker: And you figured out what like an average hourly salary is.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And so that'd be 16 hours for all the interest sessions, which basically converts to $277 of full-time staff time.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then that breaks down per candidate to $5.74 per time.
Speaker: But structured interviews would come up to $1,082 in staff time.
Speaker: group process was $545 in staff time.
Speaker: And so when you start looking at that, that's how it quantifies things.
Speaker: So let's talk about some of the alterations you've made to those.
Speaker: I encourage all the listeners to look at this table because it talks about the RAs, the paraprofessional staff time, the money, the wages,
Speaker: But basically your baseline process, according to this table, cost in salary and wages $4,500 to interview 125 candidates, which basically equates to $36 spent on every candidate you interviewed.
Speaker: With that in mind, what were some of the alterations you made and what did you learn?
Speaker: I will put it this way.
Speaker: So the highest proportion of the monetized human capital, I want to share this because then it will make more sense to kind of
Speaker: share a little bit more of the alterations for the listeners understanding.
Speaker: The highest proportion of monetized human capital in the baseline process is invested in the structured interviews.
Speaker: We knew that that was the biggest one, right?
Speaker: And so we were looking at about 1900.
Speaker: So $1,940 when it came to structured interview interviews.
Speaker: closely fold by group process, which is about 1,843, and then finally interest sessions.
Speaker: And so I want to share that a little bit because then it will make more sense as we're taking things away.
Speaker: And so one of the alterations that we made was
Speaker: And we'll go jump right into group process.
Speaker: So, yeah, completely eliminating group process.
Speaker: And what it did, it lowered the time required to facilitate the entire group and process.
Speaker: And so the total hours of our entry level and RA staff time decreased by 42%, which will be about 299 hours.
Speaker: I mean, that alone is amazing.
Speaker: Like 290 hours.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You could do a whole lot with that time as a department.
Speaker: And that also converted to about 1,843 in total wages by just removing our group process.
Speaker: Now, mind you, we still have the structured interviews and we also still had intercessions right at that time.
Speaker: Another thing that we did, too, was we...
Speaker: you know, in altering the number of group process stations.
Speaker: Altering the number of group process activities in which candidates participate change the entry level and RA time by 10.5 hours and 31 hours per station.
Speaker: And so this accounted for approximately $182 and $433 in both staff wages per added or removed station.
Speaker: And so just to kind of simply put, you know, adding a third station increases the total hiring process cost of necessary personnel wages by 13.7%.
Speaker: And so in altering the number of group process stations, we're able to see some
Speaker: some changes, whether or not we saved by reducing the number of stations and how much we added or we needed to spend by adding more stations.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so overall, we were looking at close to 4,500.
Speaker: And I know there's a lot of math in.
Speaker: And so hopefully the article is in the show notes and you can get to look at more of what we're saying.
Speaker: But that was another thing that we did in altering that.
Speaker: Well, and I'll just add that if anyone's takeaway at this point so far is to be adding group process stations, you've got another thing coming.
Speaker: Because it's like, how many other ways, how many more times do we need to blindfold people and have them build marshmallow toothpick towers to get better information?
Speaker: There are two camps, though.
Speaker: You know, there are people that are gung-ho with group process and
Speaker: And really the hope is that maybe as you read this, you're like, okay, I'm for the group process.
Speaker: So what can I do with my structured interviews?
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Where if you want to do
Speaker: do the blindfold and do stuck on an Island.
Speaker: What would you take with you versus, you know, doing two 30 minute interviews and maybe looking at that time and, and, and saying, okay, is it, is, will I get more information from my, from the candidates if I do 500 hours of group process, you know, versus 200 hours of structured interview?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Don't, don't dog on the group process, JC.
Speaker: I will dog on group process until my last breath.
Speaker: And so your last friend.
Speaker: Well, another thing, and this one was also one of my favorite too, with our structured interviews.
Speaker: I think that one is where a lot of people find a lot more benefit from with a structured interview.
Speaker: And so we...
Speaker: altered that a little bit to where we only conduct a structured interview.
Speaker: So we took away intercessions, we took away the group process and the other things that played a role in this.
Speaker: And then with our baseline of 125 candidates, the total cost was $1,940 with 62 hours.
Speaker: for one full-time and one RA.
Speaker: So we saved 126.5 hours and $2,500 from just doing structured interviews, right?
Speaker: And so again, if you're looking at if time is money and you're looking at the time of your full-time professionals, entry-level professionals and what they're investing in,
Speaker: is maybe just doing group structured interview the best way to go for your department at that time, right?
Speaker: And so that was another alteration there.
Speaker: And then finally, another alteration that we did, and maybe some of you might find this more common, right?
Speaker: And that it happens more naturally is altering the number of your candidate pool, right?
Speaker: And so we started with 125, but
Speaker: And we realized that, you know, for instance, we reduced the presented baseline.
Speaker: We reduced the candidate pool by five candidates or even 4% of the existing pool.
Speaker: And we realized that we were some cost savings with that.
Speaker: And we want you to dig a little bit deeper.
Speaker: But we know that some of this will become more naturally, right, as people.
Speaker: as people use group process as a reading tool, right?
Speaker: Or vice versa, they use structured interviews and then take all of them to group process.
Speaker: You see that your time and your wages change as you alter those two groups.
Speaker: And just to be clear, you did all these alterations independent of each other, right?
Speaker: It was like you remove group process, then you reset.
Speaker: Then you only did structured interviews, reset.
Speaker: Adjusted candidate pool size, reset, right?
Speaker: Yes, that is correct.
Speaker: And so we always went back to the baseline before we made any other alterations.
Speaker: So I think that brings up a good point about how a department might determine that they value group process, but are still concerned about staff time.
Speaker: So you can then compensate a little bit by either expanding here and reducing here or vice versa.
Speaker: That, you know, these things don't have to operate in a vacuum or one way or the other is like you can also balance them against each other.
Speaker: Are there any main takeaways that jumped out of you from your analysis or that you discussed in the article?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And so one of the things, the biggest one was really going back to what is the purpose of what we do when it comes to these processes, right?
Speaker: What is the purpose?
Speaker: What do you want to get out of it?
Speaker: One thing that we really wanted to send home is...
Speaker: The fact that sometimes departments and organizations can really get stuck on the idea to over-design hiring practices or processes as a substitute for subsequent training and supervision at the expense of their staff's time.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so I love that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thinking that, OK, well, if I do this group process, then I don't have to train them on this or I don't write.
Speaker: I'm looking for this particular person because, you know, then I don't have to worry about this part of training when realizing that.
Speaker: At the end of the day, something I even tell my staff today is, and maybe some people will go against this, but one thing I'm looking at, are they teachable?
Speaker: Are they trainable?
Speaker: Do they have the passion to do the job?
Speaker: For most of the RAs and the candidates that we see, most of them, this is their first time job, right?
Speaker: Or their first time in a position like this, right?
Speaker: And so to the idea that, okay, you're going to create these
Speaker: grandiose processes so that you don't have to worry about some other things when it comes to training or supervision allows you to fail.
Speaker: And so hopefully by doing this, we're putting back on your list to think about, okay, when it comes to time and the energy and even time as when it comes to your staff's resources, right?
Speaker: Is this all worth it?
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: And so that was, I think that was,
Speaker: One thing that if I could pull that quote out and write it on a wall somewhere for every practitioner to follow, I would do that.
Speaker: Well, and I think you're right when, you know, as your article shows in this baseline, you spent 300 hours hiring all these RAs in this convoluted and comprehensive process.
Speaker: And I think sometimes people feel like we invested all this time and then it sets up for additional disappointment when people fizzle out or they don't come with the promise that they anticipated being the number one draft pick.
Speaker: And we've talked on this podcast with a number of people about the best training and recruitment happen in tandem.
Speaker: And so is staff accountability really a training issue or is it a recruitment issue in some ways?
Speaker: But I just think that's so important that sometimes we might set ourselves up for success because we over-design these, as you said, for compensating to be like, we're going to find the perfect candidates with our super complicated 300-hour long process.
Speaker: Yeah, two-week process.
Speaker: Yeah, that never ends.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: And another thing that we also wanted to do was it was allow departments and practitioners to define their own goals.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: What is the goal?
Speaker: And I think I've said this a lot.
Speaker: What is your why and what is the what?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And the purpose of what we do.
Speaker: Do you want interest sessions to be a way to do to do that as part of the interview process?
Speaker: Or do you just want that as an informational tool?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then if you do that, can you put that on a website or can you record that where it takes only one R.D.
Speaker: or one entry level professional and one hour and it's out there for 24, 24, seven.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Can you do that?
Speaker: And so allowing practitioners and departments to really think through what is my goal here?
Speaker: What is the purpose?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think I know people would say it's important to educate people about the position.
Speaker: And I couldn't agree more, but I think you're right.
Speaker: Like there's probably better ways to do it, especially now that departments have at least for two years learned how to use virtual modalities better, even though it seems we're all gung-ho to go back to the way things used to be without consideration for the benefits that we might be able to move forward with.
Speaker: But you're right.
Speaker: The point about is an intercession –
Speaker: If the goal of hiring processes is to identify strong candidates, how is an interest session doing that if you're not evaluating it?
Speaker: Like if there's no evaluation metrics, nothing feeding to a score that's being considered, it is absolutely a waste of staff time for the purpose of identifying candidates.
Speaker: Now, again, it may be the purpose of educating them, which is important, but that needs to be very clear to everyone involved.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And one of the statements that comes out that stuck with me is like, I'm quoting here, although it may appear the analysis focused on time efficiency, it really should be viewed as focused on being purposeful and intentional with staff time.
Speaker: And I think that goes to your point.
Speaker: And then maybe there may be some departments and practitioners thinking, well, like, I already have this.
Speaker: Like, we've been doing this for the last 20 years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's no way I can go back and tell my team, okay, let's revisit.
Speaker: And maybe some people are brave enough to do that.
Speaker: And one thing that we, you know, even listed in the article is perhaps instead of building out a comprehensive hiring process and maybe working backwards and looking at the staff workloads, right?
Speaker: We know that 20 years ago, the recruitment process, yes, maybe doing the same thing, but things have changed right now.
Speaker: We're in a post pandemic world, right?
Speaker: Where,
Speaker: where some of the questions and the things that we do may not be the same thing.
Speaker: And the workload is different, right?
Speaker: And things outside of the hiring process is different, right?
Speaker: Now you're not only doing, you know, bi-weekly one-on-ones, but in between those one-on-ones, you're also doing resident check-ins, right?
Speaker: Your entry-level professionals are doing that, right?
Speaker: And then outside of that, they're sitting on committees for mental health and how to, you know, give back to our students, right?
Speaker: On a broad scale.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: There are other things involved now in that play that are outside of some of the processes that we do, right?
Speaker: Forget recruitment process, right?
Speaker: If you look at some other things, right?
Speaker: Even if it's training or other process that you do in your department, thinking through when you look at your staff workload and look at the time, how can you work backwards so that you make sure that your employees bring the best version to themselves, right?
Speaker: Or of themselves, right?
Speaker: And so, yeah, that's something that I would say, work backwards and try and figure that out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that brings up a great point about, I know there's a very important emphasis and necessary critique that processes need to be equitable and fair and how are people being treated the same?
Speaker: And I think about even an entry-level staff with a master's degree who's been sitting for eight hours interviewing people.
Speaker: asking the same eight questions 16 times in a day, is the person at the end of the day getting treated the same as the person at the first slot of the day?
Speaker: Because I know from TPE, it's like the end of the day is just like, can it get here fast enough?
Speaker: And you've got to wonder about that.
Speaker: And so how is that being reflected in scores and how is that working?
Speaker: And we even talked about that too.
Speaker: Maybe some departments are thinking, well, if I do, if I break it up into half days, right?
Speaker: Well, one thing we want to challenge is look at the cost and benefit of that.
Speaker: And if you do half days and you do that for a whole month,
Speaker: Is it worth it, you know?
Speaker: Or do you power through it, right?
Speaker: And provide the necessary resources and the necessary time and energy, right?
Speaker: To be able to invest in that.
Speaker: And so that 8 a.m.
Speaker: interview versus that 7 p.m.
Speaker: interview, are those the same thing?
Speaker: And it's also funny, I remember those times where like right before lunch, the right before lunch interviews are hard.
Speaker: Because you know, it's like, okay, this is my last one.
Speaker: If they say one more thing about X, Y, and Z, you know, and then you start skipping the, do you have any questions for us?
Speaker: You don't have any questions for us.
Speaker: Or if I hear one more person say, I just want to build community.
Speaker: I'm going to scream.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, I will say this, though, it's funny, it's a side thing, but more and more, they're honest about why they're applying.
Speaker: Like, we've had some people that say, I just want to, like, I have to, I can live here for free.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, okay, good.
Speaker: I'm so glad.
Speaker: Be honest.
Speaker: Like, we put that on the job description for a reason.
Speaker: Seriously, I can't describe how many people would immediately downvote somebody for that.
Speaker: It's like we were brainwashed in grad school to think like, no, you got to have a passion for the job.
Speaker: And that's what it's all about, which then – and now I'm getting on my soapbox –
Speaker: unrelated to your article, but that is what's feeding like the epidemic of people with job dissatisfaction is because we brainwashed everyone into thinking that your entire identity of passion is wrapped up in your job.
Speaker: And when, guess what?
Speaker: Jobs suck from time to time.
Speaker: Then it's like, I don't have an identity anymore.
Speaker: My identity is terrible.
Speaker: And that's the problem.
Speaker: And so now my entire life is dissatisfied.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: That was my soapbox.
Speaker: No, it's really, no, I like that.
Speaker: I like that because I don't know if we talked about this after, you know, after this article came out of, okay, after this one, what is the next article?
Speaker: And I think one thing that I walked away with from this was, okay, then at the end of the day, what are we doing?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I want to really study that satisfaction piece and,
Speaker: If we can go back and say, okay, the work is not done, but I can walk away from this.
Speaker: And I know this is a side thing, but that's something that I'll be interested in doing.
Speaker: And at the end of the day, that first year entry-level professional who was super excited for their first RA recruitment process, in their third year, will they still have the same excitement?
Speaker: And what could they do to get back to that?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I was talking to my wife, Andrea, just a couple of nights ago, and I've shared this with staff over the last couple of years.
Speaker: It's like, do you just love your job?
Speaker: And I'm like, no, I happen to enjoy it more often than I don't, but it's not like I'm in love with my job where it's the only thing that is like, makes me, me.
Speaker: It's like, we're, we're people and do things like, but when we wrapped up so much in our job and then we feed that to the RAs where they're like,
Speaker: Oh, what's going on here?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then you see the RA who's begging the candidate not to apply because it's not what they thought it was.
Speaker: And you're like, you're helping me with this interview.
Speaker: Why are you telling me no?
Speaker: Whatever it is.
Speaker: So that's a different topic, a different article.
Speaker: Come back next year.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: A whole other podcast episode.
Speaker: But the other thing I'll say, going back to the point earlier about...
Speaker: over engineering the process.
Speaker: And like, I also think about all the times where somebody, an entry level professional has like cried during draft because they didn't get a pick or something happened.
Speaker: And it's like, do you not trust yourself to be a good supervisor?
Speaker: And I know people in our collective past would say, I'll take middle of the road people all day long.
Speaker: And I think it was the Craig Seeger podcast episode where it's like, like we were all alternates and here we are like, you know, like I seriously had to step in once in a recruitment process because an RD left like right before.
Speaker: And I had read no files.
Speaker: I had interviewed no candidates and I just went based on the numbers from the process and
Speaker: down the list and it was a great staff.
Speaker: They were all kind of middle of the road and it was just fantastic.
Speaker: So there's some props to over, I mean, I guess some support in over engineering processes because it worked for me.
Speaker: What do you think the smallest actionable takeaway that any listener could do with this information just to put research into practice?
Speaker: Like what's something an entry level professional could do in their own practice?
Speaker: That's a good question.
Speaker: Not cry during draft.
Speaker: That's the first step.
Speaker: Not cry.
Speaker: I think just evaluate your time, you know, and maybe for you, and I'll talk to two groups here, right?
Speaker: For the entry level professional.
Speaker: Maybe this is your first semester and you're about to go through or you just got done, whatever, wherever this period is, right?
Speaker: You're about to go through your interview process, thinking through, okay, how do I manage my time?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But then also advocate, advocate for yourself.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And saying, OK, sharing with your supervisor.
Speaker: OK, I have five conduct cases.
Speaker: I have 30 minute conduct cases I have to do tomorrow.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Can I step away?
Speaker: And do that and then come back for a half day interview.
Speaker: Or can I work with my team?
Speaker: We take turns.
Speaker: Two RDs will do the first two days and the other two do the second two days.
Speaker: The other two days.
Speaker: And so really evaluating your time, assessing that, and then also advocating.
Speaker: And then for the other group in the room, which are more of the practitioners, and one thing we did intentionally was leave out the mid-level and upper-level professionals because usually they're the ones that oversee it on the back end, right?
Speaker: They set it all up and then they just check it.
Speaker: And then nothing wrong with that, you know, what I will say.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nothing wrong with just checking in, you know, but typically, you know, the director is usually the one saying, hey, how's it going?
Speaker: How are things going?
Speaker: Did we get a good group?
Speaker: You know, would we maybe looking at your staff time and not being afraid to to invent the wheel?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And to assess, like we talked about, looking at some of the goals and the purpose of what we're doing and things that have been done that we were doing 20 years ago, maybe is not a good fit right now.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And maybe you don't need five activities for the group process or you don't need five 30 minute interviews.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: For one candidate, you know, assessing that and really breaking down.
Speaker: What do I want to get out of out of this interview process?
Speaker: What kind of candidates do we want to get?
Speaker: How are we going to supplement the trainings and do the trainings?
Speaker: And and what do we need to make sure that they are successful in the role after I have hired them?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so I'm looking at those things and assessing them.
Speaker: The one thing I would recommend is, and I love this, that you actually cited a comic strip in this article where Dilbert is asking his boss on which categories of priorities he should stop working, essential, critical, or must-haves.
Speaker: And so my recommendation for an entry-level professional is just to print that comic strip out and put it on your bulletin board.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: I think it's a perfect illustration of the larger issue.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I think you're right.
Speaker: Advocating is probably a good piece and doing a little bit of analysis at, you know, in home campuses where if you are a.
Speaker: entry-level professional on a recruitment committee, it's like, take a look at like, what would it mean and how much time would be saved?
Speaker: Or what does that convert to dollars?
Speaker: Because unfortunately, often the people at the top don't quite comprehend the downstream effects of time.
Speaker: But when you start putting dollars behind it, then it becomes a budget issue.
Speaker: And how does that then change the tone and delivery of the message that's trying to be communicated?
Speaker: I have to ask, when you were done with this article, did you have a higher appreciation for the value of your time?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So I kept thinking about it the whole time.
Speaker: There were times where I was like,
Speaker: okay, well, how much money am I getting paid?
Speaker: And not in a really bad way.
Speaker: I think it was just more of a joke to me.
Speaker: But yes, I did.
Speaker: And I also set boundaries, right?
Speaker: And it allowed me to really think through some of the boundaries I hadn't set before and really caused me to think about those things.
Speaker: But yes, 100%.
Speaker: I think there's a lot of application to this article, like in other areas besides recruitment.
Speaker: Like you mentioned training earlier, but I just want to provide one little example of like downstream effects of like being mindful of time.
Speaker: And this is an operations example because that's where I work now.
Speaker: But like I have students under my supervisory umbrella.
Speaker: And basically in the summer, one of their main responsibilities is to go walk units that have been made ready just to confirm that nothing got missed.
Speaker: They fill out a form that reports everything's good or any issues that needing attention.
Speaker: I was starting to notice that some of our students being very diligent, they would say everything's ready except for there's a dead bug on the counter.
Speaker: And so they would go out there and then they would come back and fill this report.
Speaker: And now I'm like, I got to correct this problem of a bug.
Speaker: And it's like, okay, okay.
Speaker: I now have to call housekeeping or send a coordinator or somebody out.
Speaker: It's going to take half an hour to like get out to the unit in, get keys, drive, get back, get a golf cart, all these things just to take care of this bug.
Speaker: So, or if only the student had just picked up the bug and thrown it away in a 60 seconds, we would have saved potentially an hour or more to resolve this problem.
Speaker: And so thinking critically about that, it's like, okay, I invested like $200 in these go bags and they have a little vacuum in it.
Speaker: So now it's like any little problem that takes less than two minutes to resolve, they have the equipment to do it.
Speaker: And it saves, it costs them a minute of time, but it saves like an hour of coordination and multiple staff time to like go resolve it in the sense.
Speaker: So there's a lot of application out there.
Speaker: If you like think about it, it's like, how do we solve problems upstream?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Or the opportunity costs of going down.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I think it was even in one of the podcasts and maybe maintenance, the preventative maintenance.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Something along those lines too.
Speaker: Why, why call somebody in when you're already there?
Speaker: You can, you can take care of it.
Speaker: I think it was like, maybe the RD on call was responding to something.
Speaker: And as you were saying that it reminded me of that example too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, and I think there's plenty of those examples.
Speaker: Like when you start seeing routine irritants in our jobs, whether it's like I have to type the same email over and over and over again.
Speaker: It's like, okay, well, it takes me five minutes to type the same email.
Speaker: Or if I just created like a little button on the email that's like auto-populates, I can't remember, quick step or something.
Speaker: It's like, boom, fill in, fill in.
Speaker: I've just now saved four minutes of time, times.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: a thousand over the next 10 years.
Speaker: Like it's really fun to think about.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: And I think it's also been fun to play around with these things, you know, as we laid it out, you know, eliminating, as we were eliminating certain components of it, just fun to play around with it in your role, right?
Speaker: Okay, this wouldn't take me more time.
Speaker: And sometimes I even do that with how I'm organizing my to-do list, right?
Speaker: Okay, if I knew that it's going to take me more time to do this versus this one, can I get it done first?
Speaker: Or, you know, and so even something as little as that,
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's how you can apply this.
Speaker: Because we know even, you know, we both still work in that housing realm in different areas.
Speaker: There was no, no day is the same.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I think Adonis is saying, how have I quoted Adonis like twice already?
Speaker: You're one of the fangirls that I was talking about.
Speaker: But no, I was saying that, you know, I think, I think he was even talking about, um,
Speaker: Oh, knowing that, you know, I think for Don, I think he mentioned this, but knowing that no day is the same.
Speaker: And so he talked a little bit about even like he wants his day to be boring, to stay boring, right?
Speaker: And it's not exciting, but also knowing that I have to drop whatever I'm doing, right?
Speaker: And so imagine doing an interview, doing the interview process, the fire alarm goes off, right?
Speaker: And everybody in the building has to evacuate.
Speaker: Like that's all time, right?
Speaker: That you're adding to it.
Speaker: And so
Speaker: Even as little as this of knowing that, okay, my week, I can plan the week in advance, but I can guarantee it is not going to go the way I planned it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And being able to move things around based on some time that I can do.
Speaker: And can I do this next week or is this worth it?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: At this time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's that old, that military saying of like battle plans are great until the first shot is fired.
Speaker: And it all that is just trying to figure it out as we go.
Speaker: But it's so fun to, I agree, it's really fun to think about because we do these things, hopefully to save time, but you can quantify them even more.
Speaker: And I think this article is a good illustration of that.
Speaker: Like these go bags I made, I was like, it cost me $200 to put this all together.
Speaker: I mean, maybe a little more, but it's like, how long is it going to take for this little effort to pay off?
Speaker: And so I added a question on the form they fill out is like, did you use the go bag to make this room move and ready?
Speaker: And if they did something, they would say yes.
Speaker: If they did no, then it was good as it was.
Speaker: And within like two weeks, I calculated like 30 minutes per visit because of like a housekeeper having to go out and clean something up or like a table that they would have to wipe out.
Speaker: I mean, it paid for itself within a week and a half or two weeks.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: In terms of like a housekeeper salary over that many times.
Speaker: And it was just amazing.
Speaker: It's like this is some of the most powerful things in our profession are not the most glamorous, but they're also the most effective in terms of like moving a department forward, at least in my opinion.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: No, I was going to talk a little bit about also just when it comes to, like you said, innovation and efficiency, right?
Speaker: It makes our lives easier, right?
Speaker: When it comes to some of the things that we do, as you were saying, that you can end up talking about.
Speaker: So, Epitha, I always like to close out these article review episodes with some thoughts surrounding the experience of publishing and being a practitioner scholar.
Speaker: This is to kind of help normalize and demystify the experience.
Speaker: This was the first article you published.
Speaker: What was the feeling like when you finally saw your name in print?
Speaker: I didn't believe it.
Speaker: I was like, really?
Speaker: This is, wow.
Speaker: No way.
Speaker: You know, I don't know if you remember it.
Speaker: I couldn't believe it, but it was really cool.
Speaker: It was really cool.
Speaker: I think there was a lot going on.
Speaker: I do remember at the time prior to when I made the decision to be a part of it and even after.
Speaker: There were so many things that were happening at that time.
Speaker: And so for a moment, I wanted to be very humble about it.
Speaker: I mean, I think I feel like I still am humble about it, but I don't think my mom knows.
Speaker: I don't think my mom knows.
Speaker: And so I think I was just like, what?
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: Okay, well, I just keep going about my day.
Speaker: I can't do anything crazy.
Speaker: I think that's really cool.
Speaker: It was really cool to see my name in print.
Speaker: And then I should probably tell my mom.
Speaker: Or maybe send her on this podcast.
Speaker: Yeah, send her the podcast.
Speaker: So what was the publishing process like then?
Speaker: Since that was my first experience, I honestly did not know completely what the start and the end process was.
Speaker: I think the fun part was, and I think maybe the most surprising at the same time was getting it back.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, that sounded way better than I thought, you know, with the editing process, right?
Speaker: I think that was the fun part of it.
Speaker: And I kept thinking, oh, they said it better.
Speaker: Or, and at the end, I was like,
Speaker: Hey, did I write this?
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: But it was really fun.
Speaker: It was really fun to go through that process.
Speaker: I think because I did a more non-traditional research article like this,
Speaker: For me, it was easy for me to understand.
Speaker: I don't have a lot of research background.
Speaker: And I did psychology when I was in undergrad and went straight to do college student personnel.
Speaker: And so, yeah, here and there.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: I always told myself, I'm not really the research type.
Speaker: And so for me, I had to challenge myself in this way, but it was really fun.
Speaker: And it was really exciting to go through the process of identifying it and then making, I wanted to sound good, right?
Speaker: I wanted to write well.
Speaker: At the same time, I also wanted people to relate.
Speaker: And so there were times where I just had to write it out, you know, and write out what I was thinking, because that's really what I was thinking
Speaker: And then, you know, when it came back, it was even better than what I imagined.
Speaker: And I know, J.C., you have more experience on the editing part.
Speaker: And so if you want to talk more about, like, really what that process looks like when they come back and it's edited and it's still your information and still the idea that you had, but it is worded in a way.
Speaker: better format and more intelligent format, I will say.
Speaker: I wouldn't say more intelligent, but I think that that part is, it's hard to see something like, and not necessarily the editing process, but like collaborating with somebody else.
Speaker: And especially somebody who may have more experience where like you write something.
Speaker: And I shared this with a number of people that I've helped edit papers with over the years where it's like, this isn't what I wrote.
Speaker: And I'm like, but it is.
Speaker: It's just it's your idea.
Speaker: And you communicated this.
Speaker: Somebody else just kind of polished it a little bit to like for the delivery.
Speaker: But everything you had, even if it doesn't look anything like it, it was your idea.
Speaker: It was your thought, your argument you made.
Speaker: It's just been polished up a little bit.
Speaker: And as you get more experience with that, it becomes a little bit easier and it helps in that way.
Speaker: And I think that's maybe one of the could be a very discouraging thing for a new author to have either in the editing process or a co-author come in and rewrite an entire section that that was my section and now it's your section.
Speaker: You're like, no, I just polished it up a little bit.
Speaker: Or, you know, made it a little bit more coherent or flowed a little differently.
Speaker: But it's still your idea.
Speaker: And that's the thing that I think is important.
Speaker: But you talk about how, like, you know, your feelings throughout.
Speaker: In what ways did you grow throughout this writing for publication process?
Speaker: Like as a professional or skills or feelings?
Speaker: I think my writing grew.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And some of the ways that I was thinking through how to articulate what the message was, right?
Speaker: And what the idea was.
Speaker: I think I look back at, and I know we say more with the editing, it comes back, but I think as it was going back and forth,
Speaker: I realized that my writing changed and it was exciting, right?
Speaker: And so I was thinking more outside of how I would write an email, right?
Speaker: And more of, okay, how do I want to get this across?
Speaker: And another thing too, knowing that it was going to go out to the world, right?
Speaker: And the idea that, and I know at what point where I understood this, but the idea that
Speaker: Yes, I'm the one in it.
Speaker: I'm the one doing the research.
Speaker: I'm looking at this every day or every week or however long, right?
Speaker: But for somebody who's going to read this, this will be their first time reading this.
Speaker: And so we need to tell the story where they're able to understand it and not have to feel like,
Speaker: Okay, let me go back again.
Speaker: Like, what did that mean?
Speaker: And yes, ours is full of numbers, right?
Speaker: But the idea is that at the end of the day or at the end of the page, right, you can understand what the concept was.
Speaker: And so I think I grew in that aspect.
Speaker: And I'm sure there are other areas I felt like I grew in the moment.
Speaker: By looking back, I think that's one area.
Speaker: What about like just general, any general confidence or command?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker: Sorry, I need to be so enthused.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That is so true.
Speaker: And I grew so much in my confidence.
Speaker: Even when my name, when I saw my name in print, I was like, yeah, this is cool.
Speaker: But I grew very much when it came to what I understood about the topic and my confidence and how I was articulating what we were finding.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so I will say that.
Speaker: And I think, you know, five years ago, if you had asked, told me that I was going to be publishing an article, I've said, no way.
Speaker: Absolutely not.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, and now I'm like, yeah, I'm excited to see if I get to write another one.
Speaker: And this might be in the topic area that I'm interested in or, you know, and so,
Speaker: Definitely I'm not scared of it now.
Speaker: Yes, there's a lot of work in it, but it's exciting to put in that work and to see the finished work.
Speaker: But you also, you and I did a program at the virtual Swakuho about writing for publication as a tool for professional development.
Speaker: And while the program wasn't necessarily a success due to some technology issues, I think there's a lot of good points in there about like crafting a narrative and building an argument, like skills that are important for like professionals to have because, you
Speaker: As you want to advance, you've got to build arguments to a director or a VP about budgets or proposals for programs or whatever.
Speaker: It's like having another tool in your toolkit is so important.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: But I also think that program is a good example going back to the very beginning.
Speaker: Like this article was somewhat inspired by a program that was done at Swakuho a couple, a few years ago.
Speaker: And then it was converted into an article that,
Speaker: And now it's been converted back into that virtual program on a different topic.
Speaker: And on Dustin Grobsch's episode, we talked about the value of like these different venues of like the people who go to a conference aren't always the people who read the journal and the people who read the journal aren't always people who read the talking stick.
Speaker: And how do you communicate your ideas out to different audiences in different ways?
Speaker: And I think that's a valuable skill also.
Speaker: Pefa, you talked about like, oh, you are joked maybe a little bit about like, oh, I'm going to look at this once a week or when I'm doing it every day.
Speaker: How did you actually balance it with your job responsibilities at the time?
Speaker: So at one point I knew this was important to me and I wanted to do well when it came to, you know, being a part of this experience in the process of publicizing or publishing an article.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I had to rearrange my schedule.
Speaker: And there were times I came in early, early in the morning to do it before the day started, because I knew that, you know, although, you know,
Speaker: This was a professional development for me and something I thought, and I do think, and I still thought the time that my department would be part of.
Speaker: I knew that I had to really make that time outside of,
Speaker: what I was doing to do a good job at it.
Speaker: And so I came in early and stayed in a little bit later.
Speaker: And those were some boundaries that I set for myself to do that.
Speaker: And so that was the time.
Speaker: And I think it paid off, right?
Speaker: But, you know, I look back and there are times, and I don't think we even talked a lot about it.
Speaker: We may talk about it in a little bit, but there are times where I reflect on this when it comes specifically to
Speaker: the recruitment processes that I have been involved in after I wrote this article.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I know we've talked a lot about other things.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But then I remember doing we were running an interview process and I was like, OK, well, we need to look at our time, you know, and I remember saying that and even so casually.
Speaker: And I thought I was like, how's my article?
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: And so I look back at
Speaker: And I know your question was more, how did I balance my time?
Speaker: I think in the long run, it came full circle, right?
Speaker: Of now, right?
Speaker: I use that time I put in this work.
Speaker: I learned a lot and now I'm applying it to what I'm doing, right?
Speaker: I'm thinking about it.
Speaker: I'm making some changes in my own career and in my own field, you know?
Speaker: Knowing you for several years now, I can say with almost 100% certainty that pre-published scholar, Apefa, never would have said that so casually.
Speaker: three years ago.
Speaker: So I think that shows an amazing amount of growth and confidence in the topic matter.
Speaker: You mentioned your department.
Speaker: When it was published, did anyone in your division reach out?
Speaker: Did you feel any gain, like, did you gain any divisional capital because of this new title you had?
Speaker: Oh, you know.
Speaker: Yeah, I think
Speaker: I think it was sent out to our VP or Associate Vice President at the time that, you know, had said congratulations and was really proud of us.
Speaker: I think, yes, it did.
Speaker: There were some other people in our department that also had their articles published at the same time.
Speaker: And so it was nice to be recognized once by them.
Speaker: I will say this, you know, something
Speaker: I will give to any full-time professional, let your department know that this is something that you're working on.
Speaker: And I think for me, I wanted to make sure I was doing a good job.
Speaker: And so I didn't really share a lot, clearly.
Speaker: I've not even told my mom.
Speaker: But, you know, letting the department know so that they can support you throughout the process and not necessarily always at the very end.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: But I will say that the department was proud.
Speaker: And even beyond that, there are other people that did reach out.
Speaker: Did it ever come up in any of your job interviews since then?
Speaker: It definitely did.
Speaker: I had an interview and at the end, it was a very, very wonderful interview.
Speaker: should we be reading journal?
Speaker: And I looked at your name when I looked at your resume and I was like, surely those are the same, that's the same person.
Speaker: I was like, yeah.
Speaker: I was just like, oh my goodness, tell me more about your article.
Speaker: And at the end, she was like, can I get your autograph?
Speaker: Because I'm talking to a published author.
Speaker: I was like, of course.
Speaker: And do I get the job?
Speaker: No, it was fun.
Speaker: It was really fun.
Speaker: I blushed the whole time and I was like, no,
Speaker: you've read my article.
Speaker: I know somebody had a different, at a higher level, you know, um, he was doing the interview.
Speaker: And so, yeah, that was really fun.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Uh, the only, the only people who have ever gotten an autographed copy of any of article I've written is ones I've given away as a joke during presentations where people participate, here you go.
Speaker: You get an autographed copy.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: All right, Apefa, before we close out, any last minute thoughts or considerations you'd like to share?
Speaker: I think this was a really fun experience for me.
Speaker: Like we mentioned, I did it when I was an RD and full-time entry-level professional, and I learned a lot.
Speaker: And I would say for anybody who is hesitant about even dipping their toes in it, go for it.
Speaker: Go for it.
Speaker: Talk to your supervisor.
Speaker: Talk to your department.
Speaker: Work with somebody.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so especially if it's your first time, you know, I co-authored with another person.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it was, I learned a lot from them, but then also from that process as well.
Speaker: And so don't be afraid.
Speaker: I know, I think JC has the statistics with the numbers when it comes to how many professionals have published and published within SWOKUHO and even the breakdown within the region.
Speaker: Like it would be so cool to see that number grow.
Speaker: And so be encouraged.
Speaker: Know that if I can do it, if you know me and if I can do it, then you can do it, too.
Speaker: And so get on with it.
Speaker: Write your thoughts down.
Speaker: Write some things that you're thinking about.
Speaker: What are you passionate about?
Speaker: You know, write it all down.
Speaker: What are some caring things that you're already doing in your role?
Speaker: Write it down and start building on it.
Speaker: And reach out to JC so he can tell you when the next article is going to be, or calls for article will be coming out so he can jump on it.
Speaker: And that's a wrap for our third article review on the Swakuho podcast.
Speaker: I want to thank Apefa for coming on the show again and spending some of her valuable time with us today, sharing how to quantify and be intentional with the most valuable resource we have at our disposal, our staff personnel.
Speaker: Make sure to read the entire article linked in the show notes for even more examples and considerations.
Speaker: Please reach out and thank Apefa for joining us today via her preferred social media profile in the show notes.
Speaker: Next month is August, which means this podcast has been going on for a full year.
Speaker: To celebrate, I've got something special cooked up.
Speaker: On nearly every episode, I have solicited for people to send questions in or ask for advice.
Speaker: So next month, we are finally going to answer some of those questions.
Speaker: I've been asking various guests along the way to weigh in on your questions.
Speaker: To give you a little taste of what's to come, we have questions about weekly reports, how to move forward in your department after not getting a job you applied for as an internal candidate, how to respond when a boss very publicly takes responsibility for your obvious mistake, and being the only professional of color on an interview team that everyone defers to when answering departmental support questions about supporting professionals of color.
Speaker: And with that, I say to you, good day.
![027 - 60th Anniversary Reflections | Leanna Payton [Feature Topic]](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=320,quality=85/image-files/605db9539a00e40074826685/06c5aca9-3cbf-42bc-8be4-a2294e76736c.png)
