Supporting The Staff Assembly

I am a member of the Staff Assembly at the university where I am employed. The organization was created to allow staff members to gather and discuss issues specifically concerning the staff member population. Recommendations of the Staff Assembly are considered by senior administrators of the university.

The organization became into existence 17 years ago, birthed from the university staff vocalizing their need to be heard separately and distinctively from the needs of other campus community members. This “way of thinking, feeling, and doing…provides a blueprint for employee action” (Avtgis, Rancer, Liberman, 2012, p. 50). The formation of the Staff Assembly, with approval by senior administrators, was indeed an acknowledgement that the

The senior administrators encourage participation in the Staff Assembly as there are elected members from every division throughout the campus. The senior administrators have a history of supporting the Staff Assembly, by establishing the organization and supporting it with words and actions. Furthermore, through the Staff Assembly, the senior administrators “truly provides employees with a way of doing, a way of thinking, and most importantly, a way of communicating” (as cited in Avtgis, Rancer, Liberman, 2012, p. 56).

The Staff Assembly meetings are held monthly, during work hours, to accomplish tasks associated with the committees and advocate for the staff members. By not only allowing this organization, but encouraging

To promote and encourage the desired participation in this organization, senior administration sends an email to all staff encouraging their participation in the election and in the organization. The elected staff serve a two-year term, with half of the members rotating off of their service. This recruitment pattern allows for a group of existing members to continue unfinished work and to bring new members up to date on the initiatives. New members enter Staff Assembly in the encounter stage, as they already know a great deal about the university, but will require a “breaking-in period” (Avtgis, Rancer, Liberman, 2012, p. 58). This breaking-in period frequently takes place as new members realize that the Staff Assembly is not a place to come and complain about problems, but rather to brain-storm about solutions that will benefit the entire staff population. This is where the interaction adaptation theory comes into play within the organization. In this type of situation, “perceivers will adapt their behavior to the target's actual (rather than expected) communication, reciprocating desired behavior as a way of reinforcing it and compensating undesired behavior as a way of modeling the preferred pattern” (Burgoon, LaPoire, & Rosenthal, 1995). No matter how long an employee has worked at the university, they will learn the norms of the Staff Assembly through the group meetings