OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Human Resource Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the human resource frame
2. Apply the human resource frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other course
materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and format for your
Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

Aperture Software is an accounts payable automation software company with two offices in
Portland, OR and Brea, CA. The software is intended for mid to large level enterprises and
boasts a customer base of about 50 customers across a broad range of subscription thresholds.

I was a full-time individual contributor serving as a Customer Success Manager on a team of 2.

The only other teammate was my manager, Tracy, that worked as the Manager of Customer
Success. My book of business consisted of 28 accounts. I frequently collaborated with other
adjacent teams such as sales, customer support, and product management.

I managed some of the highest spend and strategic accounts at Aperture Software but I was
unhappy at the organization due to both the internal culture and the isolation brought on by
COVID-19. I ultimately chose to make a horizontal move for the same role to another
organization where I am significantly happier and very grateful that I decided to pivot to another
industry and job.

2) Describe how the human resources of the organization influenced the situation.

Aperature Software struggled to establish a culture that encouraged connection or job satisfaction.
Part of this was due to the physical arrangement of our small sublet office in a shared working
space which included our CEO sitting in the corner spot with all other team members in close
enough proximity to hear all our calls and observe what was on our screens. I am not certain if
any thought was put into what this might achieve, but for myself and others, this bred a sense of
distrust and served as an incentive to work from home as much as possible.

We did not have anyone that served in a role that catered exclusively to human resources or
culture, and in many employee engagement surveys, I noted this as a crucial resource that the
company was lacking. With that being said, it felt like there really wasn’t a strategy other than to
hire more people which was done by each of the respective department heads. This process was
exhausting, including five rounds of interviews and all administrative work performed by the
department head. Not only this, but when I joined the company, we had no established values

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 which was a red flag to me right away. We ultimately documented them as a team later in the
year, but not in any way that they were incorporated into business decisions or day-to-day events.

Aperature almost never promoted from within and rarely attempted to save exiting workers.
Their job boards were always full of positions that could be excellent growth opportunities for
existing team members for roles that those team members wanted. Development programs to
make these candidates more suited to these types of roles did not exist. There existed no reward
or recognition system other than a slack channel to announce kudos which was used perhaps once
every two weeks. Most existing employees were seeking out a growth opportunity or higher pay
after remaining with the company for multiple years with no pay off.

Autonomy was nearly unheard of at Aperature. There were two realities that employees
experienced: (1) was a complete lack of manager left by an exiting employee that resulted in a
shaky chain of command and a non-existent escalation path while (2) involved a manager that
practiced intense micromanagement due to the micromanagement they received from leadership.
My direct manager, the head of Customer Success, once arranged a meeting to present her
proposal for conducting renewals and was not only completely shut down but told how they
would execute them moving forward without discussion.

Finally, diversity was one of our weakest areas. The leadership team was composed of nearly
entirely white middle-aged heterosexual men that had never worked in our industry before. There
were also two female directors that were also white and heterosexual. When the team posted
open roles on job boards, standards were impossibly high to isolate for the top candidates
possible. My direct manager once warned that if we want to attract diverse talent, we needed to
look for qualifications that weren’t a college-educated and industry-experienced white suburban
man. Ultimately, our team of approximately fifty people had two people of color and less than
fifteen percent women. We had no diversity philosophy other than to exclaim that we needed
more of it during all hands meetings.

3) Recommend how you would use the human resources for an alternative course of action
regarding your case.

I often made noise about an HR manager and in my exit interview, I stated this as my primary
reason for leaving. As we pivoted to working from home in March 2020, the already poorly
developed culture became even more of a problem. I would have liked to have seen a more
concerted effort to drive events for employees to collaborate and talk together. The closest that
we ever saw of this was a monthly happy hour on Fridays which saw dwindling female
attendance after it was monopolized by a clique of male engineers and product managers. Very
few ideas were followed through to the original goal so even when they announced they were
attempting to fix this, attendance did not increase.

Hiring an HR manager would also take a massive burden off the department heads as they tried to
find quality talent while balancing their regular workload. Being able to be selective in those
early stages before bringing in the hiring managers can help prevent fatigue from having to prune
the applicant pool at the early stages. Hire people to do what they specialize in and an HR
Manager is very comfortable in this space. It is also important to define the job decription

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 accurately and allow the people that are hired to do the job they are hired to do. If
micromanagement is necessary, then the company has not found the right candidate.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned about this
frame.

I think that a few positive additions to their human resource strategy, even at a high level, could
have massively improved the quality of life for employees here. Recognition of a job well done
as well as catching people doing the right thing are small gestures that can make a huge
difference. I would also generally encourage more open and informal communication. At
Aperture, we were told that as the customer-facing team, we were absolutely forbidden to reach
out to engineers directly and we had to funnel all requests through the engineering project
manager. This created massive bottlenecks that could have been resolved by establishing a
shared channel for communication or requests.

I also think encouraging an environment of trust and autonomy would have greatly increased
productivity and job satisfaction. When people were worried that their jobs were on the line due
to an overbearing and micromanaging manager, they would double and triple check every bit of
their work. This translated into late night working and high levels of anxiety that led to lower
confidence.

It would not have taken much work to pivot our organization to be more welcoming of diverse
people. Rather than requiring college degrees, ask for a presentation to show the skill and wit of
the people applying. Rather than only posting on LinkedIn, post on Indeed and other more
visible areas. Hold this as a priority.