This month’s success story features our work with the Mandel JCC. The J builds, connects and strengthens the Jewish community and the greater Cleveland community through exceptional life-long programs and services that reflect the richness of Jewish life and enhance physical, intellectual, and spiritual well-being. OA was approached based on our experience working with not-for-profit organizations to benchmark compensation and recommending approaches to enhance compensation program administration. Vice President of Human Resources Sara Hodgson said: OA was recommended to us by one of our trusted advisors to assist us with understanding how competitive our compensation was, and how we could be more effective at managing our programs. They worked with us to understand what our goals were and then developed a plan to address our needs. Throughout the project they spent time with us reviewing data, asking questions, and making sure they were providing the analysis we needed to make decisions about our program. They provided data from both general and also industry-specific sources and qualified them to make sure the data was valid and reliable. We needed a comprehensive review and OA provided analysis on our staff compensation and made recommendations regarding compensation philosophy, program administration, and pay structures. Additionally, they helped me present the findings to my leadership team in a way that was clear and meaningful to them. Not-for-profit organizations are one of our specialties. Whether you are large or small, we can help with your compensation planning needs. Contact us and check out our blog for more...
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As we shared back in July, we are excited to be working with Skidmark Garage and Motogo to bring shop class back to school. Imagine you’re a kid again. You walk into your grandfather’s garage to help him repair the broken lawnmower. Remember the way the air was filled with the smell of motor oil and possibilities? You felt, as he handed you the wrench, the two of you could fix anything. Back then, working with your hands taught patience, persistence, and problem solving. Through trial and error, these DIY projects built confidence. Motogo Mobile Shop Class is recreating these meaningful opportunities for students. On February 9 2019 we invite you to join us for the first annual benefit Bringin’ Back Shop Class to kick start and support Motogo Mobile Shop Class. Motogo is a mobile shop class providing hands-on introduction to real world problem solving and critical thinking through the tangible avenue of motorcycle maintenance. Not only will you get to meet the Motogo team and learn more about the program and our early successes, there will be food, open bar, interactive demonstrations, silent auction and raffles, and live entertainment. Ticket and event information can be found here. Do you want to show your support with your organization or company? Information on group and corporate support can be found here. Organizational Architecture is proud to help Skidmark CLE bring these skills to students in Northeast Ohio and beyond and will be involved with helping Brian and Molly bring this program to students in 2019. Want to learn more? Contact Brian or Molly by email or call 216.701.7073…or better yet, stop by the garage at 5401 Hamilton Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44114. You can find them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram...
Read MoreOrganizational Architecture is excited to be part of something cool that we wanted to share. We’ve made a lot of progress since our first note in July…here is an update. Motogo is a not-for-profit mobile shop class providing hands-on introduction to real world problem solving and critical thinking through the tangible avenue of motorcycle maintenance. Motogo is part of Skidmark Garage which is providing the framework for running Motogo. The concept is to bring these classes directly to schools in Northeast Ohio weekly over the course of the school year. Motogo is already working with students from the Cleveland Municipal School District and Magnificat High School. Furthermore, we have already secured assistance from the Cleveland Leadership Center / Bridgebuilders and Business Volunteers Unlimited to help with strategy, funding, and marketing. Additionally, we are receiving grant money or in-kind assistance from: Lincoln Electric Harley Davidson Brighton-Best SuperTrapp MetalRescue The Blaster Corp Eastwood And many others…stay tuned We could use help! We are seeking board members to help lead the organization. If this is something you want to learn more about, contact Mark Fiala at markfiala@oahumanresources.com. Thanks!...
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This month’s success story features our work with the Mental Health & Addiction Advocacy Coalition. MHAC fosters education and awareness of mental health and addiction issues while advocating for public policies and strategies that support effective, well-funded services, systems, and supports for those in need, resulting in stronger Ohio communities. The MHAC is a place where diverse interests come together, speak with a common voice, and work towards guaranteeing access to quality services and supports for individuals with mental health and addiction disorders. OA was approached based on our experience working with not-for-profit organizations and benchmarking compensation, and recommending approaches to enhance compensation program administration. Joan Englund is the Executive Director of the MHAC. She said: OA was recommended to us from a partner organization to assist us with understanding how competitive our compensation was. We are a unique organization so we needed to make sure we used appropriate benchmarks when analyzing our pay. They have a collaborative process and spent time with us reviewing data, asking questions, and making sure they were providing the analysis we needed to make decisions about our pay programs. They located both general compensation data as well as information specific to not-for-profits to give us an informed view of compensation in our world. Since we are spread out geographically they provided us data for the locations in which our people work. OA’s help was invaluable in providing us data about our own programs, and insights into what is competitive among our peers. We now have a process to revisit this periodically to ensure we stay on track. Most not-for-profits are constrained by resources, especially money. Our dialog with OA helped us refine our value proposition to employees and potential candidates, and leverage our meaningful mission and work along with other aspects of our total rewards program in our conversation with them. Not-for-profit organizations are one of our specialties. Whether you are large or small, we can help with your compensation planning needs. Contact us and check out our blog for more resources....
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In 2015, former high school history and math teacher, Brian Schaffran, finally took the leap and left a career as a teacher, both at Cleveland School of the Arts and Saint Martin de Porres High School, to open his dream business, a DIY Community Motorcycle Garage. More than three years later, Skidmark Garage is a staple not only in Cleveland but acts as a leader in this world-wide movement of do-it-yourself garages. With the support of Skidmark members, Brian and business partner Molly Vaughan are finally ready to dive back into education. This time however, the classroom is going to look a little different. In November, they gained non-profit status and started the launch of Skidmark CLE and their Mobile Shop Class Trailer. The Skidmark CLE Shop Class Trailer will wake up brains as students pick up tools. Skidmark CLE plans to bring shop class back to junior high and high school students and teach them how to disassemble and then rebuild a motorcycle within our mobile classroom. The trailer pulls up to students’ homeschools and introduces basic hand-tool skills through motorcycle building and engine maintenance. Students will learn leadership and stick-to-itiveness though hands-on problem solving in a non-traditional setting that exists as a partner to traditional classroom learning. Organizational Architecture is proud to help Skidmark CLE bring these skills to students in Northeast Ohio and beyond and will be involved with helping Brian and Molly bring this program to students in 2019. Want to learn more? Contact Brian or Molly by email or call 440.591.4822…or better yet, stop by the garage at 5401 Hamilton Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44114. You can find them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram...
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This month’s success story is an example of how Organizational Architecture assisted its client with the launch of a new business unit by providing HR best practices in a retail environment. The National Association of College Stores [NACS] is a not-for-profit trade association representing the $10 billion campus retailing industry. NACS represents more than 4,000 stores serving colleges, universities, and K-12 schools in the United States, Canada, and around the world; along with more than 1,000 companies supplying goods and services to campus stores. NACS members also include higher education professionals, organizations, associations, and others interested in the industry’s vitality. NACS is headquartered in Oberlin, Ohio, with branch offices in Westlake, Ohio; Washington, D.C.; and Irvine, California. NACS recently launched a new initiative through its indiCo subsidiary to provide operational and management solutions to independent campus stores at colleges and universities across North America. While they had provided consulting to college bookstores in the past, this new endeavor included services involving direct management of college stores. They were already connected with Organizational Architecture through their employee benefits advisor who was aware of the deep experience we had with retail HR systems. Frank Sulen, Chief Financial Officer, said: We were connected with Organizational Architecture through a trusted advisor who knew of their experience with retail and multi-unit organizations. Not only has OA provided consulting services to retailers, they have actually worked in management positions with several large retail organizations. We needed help modifying our current HR processes, which were developed to support an organization with a few locations and many people in each location, allowing our HR department to support them in a direct, face-to-face fashion. We needed help leveraging our current processes to a widely distributed model. OA started by conducting a review of all of our current HR practices, and made recommendations on how to modify them to serve retail organizations. Then, they developed an extensive collaboration checklist to assist us before, during, and after the process to convert stores from school management to ours. They worked with us each step of the way to ensure that when our first college store management collaboration commenced, we could foresee any last-minute issues and develop good processes to...
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