When the Workforce Clarity Initiative began, many of us approached it with caution.
The truth is, this was not the first attempt to address job descriptions, classification concerns, or workforce clarity at our institution. From the LOSA perspective, we had been through several efforts over the years. Each began with good intentions. Meetings were held. Ideas were discussed. Employees were asked for input. And eventually, momentum faded. The work either stalled, lost focus, or failed to produce meaningful results that employees could see.
After experiencing that cycle more than once, employees had understandable doubts. Some wondered whether this effort would be any different. Others questioned whether the time they invested would ultimately lead to anything tangible. As union leadership, I heard those concerns from our members, and I shared many of them myself.
I also saw the initiative from a second seat. Alongside Stephanie Harner, I helped facilitate the paired sessions, so I watched this work unfold from both sides of the table.
That history shaped my expectations going into the Workforce Clarity Initiative. I expected another well-intentioned project that might struggle to move beyond the planning stage. I expected employees to participate cautiously. Most of all, I knew trust would be difficult to earn because trust had already been tested by previous experiences.
What I did not expect was how much this process would change my thinking about organisational change itself.
There Is a Difference Between Informing Employees and Involving Them
One of the most important lessons I took away from the Workforce Clarity Initiative is that there is a significant difference between informing employees about change and involving them in creating it.
Too often, employees are introduced to change after many of the important decisions have already been made. They are told what is changing, why it is changing, and what the expected outcome will be. What is far less common is asking employees to help define the problem before a solution is developed.
That was one of the most meaningful differences I experienced during the WCI. Employees were given the opportunity to explain what they actually do, identify responsibilities that were missing from existing job descriptions, and raise concerns that might never have surfaced through a survey or organisational chart alone.
“Their expertise was not based on their title or position level. Their expertise came from performing the work every day. That matters.”
Trust Is Built Through Evidence
I’ve thought a lot about what would make someone who has lived through a badly led change effort willing to believe in the next one. I don’t think it is promises of transformation. It isn’t a presentation telling employees why the change will be good for them. And it isn’t success stories alone. Most employees have heard those things before.
What Trust Actually Requires
Trust is not created by a presentation or a memo. It develops when people begin to see evidence that their participation matters. Before that evidence can do its work, people have to feel safe enough to say what they actually think.
Over time, I watched employees become more willing to speak candidly once they saw it was safe to do so, and that their input wasn’t just being collected and forgotten. For me, the strongest signals came after someone raised a concern. Did we listen? Did anything change? Did they feel comfortable coming back the next time?
Employees notice those small things much more than leaders sometimes realise.
“The WCI did not eliminate skepticism, nor should anyone have expected it to. Skepticism built over years does not disappear because a new initiative has begun. What changed was that employees could begin to see their contributions influencing the process.”
Accountability Made This Effort Different
Another major difference was accountability. Nick Anderson brought an independent perspective to the initiative. He had no history with our institution or the organisational relationships that naturally exist within any workplace. That outside perspective helped keep the work focused on what employees actually do rather than simply accepting what existing job descriptions said they did.
But independence alone would not have been enough. He also held all of us accountable.
The Workforce Clarity Initiative did not allow us to simply talk about the need for better job descriptions. It required us to do the work. Employees had to describe what they actually did. Supervisors had to engage in meaningful conversations about that work. Human Resources had to listen and document. Leadership had responsibilities as well. Everyone had a role, and everyone was expected to participate.
On Participation and Agreement
Employee participation should never be confused with employee agreement. Healthy participation gives people permission to ask difficult questions, challenge assumptions, and raise concerns. Sometimes disagreement is actually evidence that people are invested enough to participate honestly.
People do not need to agree with every decision to have confidence in a process. But they do need to believe they were heard, their concerns were considered, and the process was fair.
Clarity and Fairness Are Closely Connected
The initiative also reinforced for me how closely workforce clarity and employees’ perceptions of fairness are connected. Many workplace frustrations are not caused by an unwillingness to work hard. They are caused by uncertainty.
Employees want to understand what is expected of them. They want to know how positions differ from one another, how responsibilities are recognised, how opportunities for advancement occur, and whether the work they actually perform is accurately represented. When those things are unclear, people naturally begin filling in the gaps with assumptions.
“Clarity does not mean everyone will always like the answer. But it gives employees something much more useful than assumptions: understanding.”
“Was It Worth It?”
At one point, one of our union members asked me a simple question: “Was hiring Nick worth it?”
My response was immediate. Absolutely. One hundred percent.
Not because he told us what we wanted to hear. He didn’t. There were times when he challenged our assumptions, asked difficult questions, and required us to think differently about both our work and our job descriptions. But that was part of the value.
Stephanie and I tried to mix each session deliberately, pairing employees we expected to be positive with employees we expected to be sceptical. Some of them surprised us. People we expected to push back became some of the most engaged voices in the room, and some we expected to be positive turned out to be the most guarded.
That taught me not to decide in advance who would engage.
Employees who had approached the initiative sceptically began engaging differently. Conversations that might once have centred primarily on resistance began shifting toward improvement. Members started asking questions about the final product, discussing how their work was represented, and wanting to see what the completed job descriptions would look like.
What Drove the Shift
That change in attitude didn’t happen because someone told employees they needed to support the initiative. It happened because they were invited into the process and began seeing evidence that their participation mattered.
What I Would Tell Another Union President
Acknowledge the history
If previous change efforts have failed, employees will remember. Pretending those experiences did not happen will not erase scepticism. It will reinforce it.
Insist on meaningful employee participation
Workforce clarity cannot be created for employees. It has to be created with them. The people performing the work every day possess knowledge that cannot be captured completely through an organisational chart, an old job description, or a position title.
Create accountability at every level
Employees cannot be the only people expected to participate in change. Leadership, Human Resources, supervisors, and employees all have responsibilities, and everyone needs to follow through on those commitments.
The Real Value of Workforce Clarity
Looking back, I don’t believe the greatest value of the Workforce Clarity Initiative was simply the creation of updated job descriptions. It was the opportunity for employees, supervisors, Human Resources, union representatives, and leadership to sit at the same table and develop a clearer understanding of the work being done across the institution.
That shared understanding creates a stronger foundation for whatever comes next.
Employees do not necessarily resist change because they dislike change. Sometimes they resist because they don’t understand why it is happening, because they have been excluded from the process, or because previous experiences have taught them that their input will not make a difference.
The answer isn’t asking employees to trust the process.
The answer is creating a process that gives them a reason to trust it.
It wasn’t our first attempt at workforce clarity. It was the first one that convinced many of us that this time might actually be different.
Editor’s Note
Tracie Zoller is President of LOSA (the Local 604 union) at John A. Logan College, Carterville, Illinois. Week 21 of this series featured Stephanie Harner, who co-facilitated the Workforce Clarity Initiative alongside Tracie. Together, their contributions describe the same process from both sides of the table — a rare and deliberate pairing.