I’m Still Standing

Steve Loflin, NSCS Founder and CEO

At the end of 2011, The National Society of Collegiate Scholars (NSCS) office lease was set to expire and we needed to make a decision on whether or not to renew our agreement or change locations. The reality was that we were simply outgrowing our space and with that realization we set out to find new digs!

Few would argue that the process of moving is never a terribly fun task, but getting new office space really is a great way to kick off a new year. As NSCS staff began making plans for our move, I began excitedly thinking about my future office!

I have had a variety of offices over the years and my past employment experiences have taught me that people’s relationships with their offices can sometimes be…well, weird. I remember colleagues that would have their offices set up like their living room: sofa, coffee table, lamps, photo collages of family and friends. I never quite understood the psychology behind those space decisions. I guess I was always more functional.

As a matter of fact, when I made the decision to leave my role at Georgetown, I remember a colleague saying, “I knew you weren’t committed to being here for very long because you never really settled into your office.” I was there for two years but it’s true that I never really created my own living room. In my mind, I was there to make a difference rather than get too cozy in my space. I was always happiest out on campus interacting versus sitting around in my office.

As NSCS started growing and we began searching for office space, I was shocked at how much it cost to actually acquire office space.  The crazy reality of becoming an employer versus being an employee is that I never really knew, or even considered, how much it cost for the space. Who knew you pay by the square foot? And never before had I thought about the expenses associated with my desk, chair, file cabinet, etc. Those things just somehow always magically appeared, right?

As we moved to our new location this past December, I felt like I had somehow won the office space lottery. I was getting a sweet corner spot with windows and the opportunity to request the type of furniture that I would want.The fact is that office space is expensive.  NSCS has had five (now six) addresses during our 18 years and I have had the opportunity to sit in a variety of configurations from manning the front desk to sharing space with multiple people, then having window space to no window space at all.  Come to think of it NSCS really started on my kitchen table…I hope my desk is never so close to the refrigerator again!

It is important to note that my previous office was known as “the cave”. It was a very functional space situated in the middle of our office with no windows, and was directly attached to another office which I had to walk through to get to mine.  It did have a desk, a chair and a bookshelf which is all I really need to get things done.

So, as I started thinking about what I wanted in my ideal office, I knew more than anything I wanted to get a Standing Desk.  I was always standing when on the phone and most of the time when responding to emails or working from my computer.  My regular visits to the chiropractor simply supported what I already knew (and felt!)…this just can’t be good for my back!   And, to be perfectly honest, I read a story several years ago about Donald Rumsfeld having a standing desk and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I tucked that away somewhere in my mind and wondered if someday I could make that a reality for me and my office.

Finally, in the fall of 2011, I was asked the magical question: “What kind of desk do you want for your new office?”  I immediately (and possibly a bit too enthusiastically) responded, “I want a standing desk!” I did, however, cringe knowing that it may not fit within our budget. I obviously didn’t want to be too excessive, but we were moving to a great new space and this time our lease is for at least six years.

Now that we have been in our awesome new space for several months, I have to say that my office is a place where I truly enjoy standing around and getting stuff done.  My stand up desk is amazing and I even have a conference table and a sofa and lots of light.  I like to remind NSCS staff that they are always welcome to use the space when I am not around – or even if I am.  It really is a great office!

Now that I have written all of this, and thought about it for more than a minute, I guess really what I am saying is that anyone is always welcome into my living room… and that maybe I’m planning to stick around for a while.

And, you can learn more about the benefits of a standing desk here.

NSCS Listed as One of the Nonprofit Times’ 50 Best Places to Work!

We’re excited to be listed at #27 on The NonProfit Times’ 50 Best NonProfits to work for! We also made it to #11 on their small organizations list, which are organizations that have 50 or fewer employees

This is the third annual NPT best places to work survey.

NSCS made it to the list because of our amazing benefits, opportunities for growth and development and most importantly (and intangibly) our workplace culture. Here are our 3 favorite highlights of working at NSCS:

One: NSCS has quarterly “full TEAM (Together Engaging All Members) days”, designed specifically to bring everyone together to share ideas and discuss how we can further the NSCS mission and strengthen our organization.
Two: Flexible work hours and the opportunity to telecommute. Every TEAM member from the CEO to the newest coordinators have the ability to work from home when they need to – which only adds to the flexibility of the environment.
Three: At NSCS employees have the opportunity to grow quickly as there aren’t standard rules for promotion. If you earn a promotion, you get it, whenever regardless of how long you’ve worked with NSCS—it’s not like other organizations where you need to be employed there for several years before becoming a manger or director, etc.

You can read more about the survey and the top 50 nonprofits here.

NSCS, One of Washington’s Best Places To Work!

Last Thursday NSCS was officially recognized as one of Washingtonian’s best places to work. The magazine that came out last weekend featured organizations that were “chosen on the basis of such measures as: generous pay and benefits, challenging and interesting work, great work/life balance, opportunities to learn and grow, financial stability , commitment to charity and community, and the recognition and respect given to employees”.

As you know from this blog, NSCS prides itself in maintaining being a great place to work for its employees, giving them what they need to succeed in their work lives;  so getting this award just proved that we have succeeded in this. All of the categories listed above serves as a standard here at NSCS, we try our best to always be all of the above.

What stood out to Washingtonian and was in our section of the magazine was:

• The great leave benefits: Employees get 15 days paid vacation with unlimited sick leave. After two years of working for NSCS you have unlimited paid vacation
• Flexible telecommuting benefits: All NSCS employees have laptops, this not only lets employees travel easily but also allows them to always stay connected wherever they are. Most of our work is flexible enough that you could do it from anywhere
• The ability to grow in ones job: As Bailey was quoted in the article, here at NSCS one doesn’t grow in ones job based on how long they have worked here, there isn’t a set standard for a promotion. If you work hard and prove yourself, a promotion is easily in the cards.

Personally I am honored to work for one of Washington’s best places to work. It gives me comfort to know that my organization is doing its best for me and tries its hardest to be one of the best places to work. Working for an organization that you enjoy to work for is important aspect of your job; after all you are at work 40+ hours of your week!

Our article can be found on page 101 of the magazine

DJ NSCS

Here at NSCS its common to see people listening to music while doing their work. Which goes along with our philosophy: you can work how you like to work, so long as deadlines are met and your work gets done.

So  when our founder and CEO, Steve sent out a link to the turntable room that he created for NSCS, we all jumped on it immediately. Turntable is a great place to gather with friends, or in our case- co-workers and members (we posted the link on our Facebook page) and have fun through playing music. The unique thing about Turntable is that you can make your own playlists to play while you are the DJ.

Since we are such a small office here at NSCS turntable was a great way to bond virtually with other co-workers. We got to get a sense of the person’s taste and comment on their music choices. Its a great way to bond, and work at the same time, and the music usually complements our work as well. Not only do we get to know our co-workers, but our members as well. Our social media manager had tweeted and posts to our Facebook the link of the room, and a few members join in too. This is a great way for our members, who matter most to NSCS, see that there are real people that work here, and they might like the same music they do.

Hunters and Farmers

Plenty has been said about this topic. The core idea behind it is this: hunters are quick-thinking people who struggle to focus for extended periods of time. but their ability to innovate and react quickly is an asset. Farmers move steadily, methodically and gradually through the world.

Seth Godin said once that the era of the farmer is over and now it’s the era of the hunter.

I disagree. I think today’s organization needs both, and needs them to work in tandem.

One of the most successful partnerships I had at NSCS was with my now former colleague Phil Herbert. Phil is the quintessential hunter– quick-thinking, innovative, able to focus intensely but fleetingly. I’m the utter reverse, if you haven’t guessed already. I’m the ultimate farmer– methodical, steady and process-driven ( or process-obsessed, depending on who you ask).

Together we compensated for each other’s weaknesses and enhanced each others’ strengths. Thanks to him, my projects became more innovative, my solutions to problems more efficient and elegant. Thanks to me, our projects got out of the door with every detail and deadline intact, and under budget.

The trend continues at NSCS with all our other employees as well. As managers, we work to balance our teams with creative, innovative and crisis-driven types, alongside the methodical planners who think through every detail and contingency. We also try and put the right type of person in the right type of job. Putting a methodical person in a job that requires constant change and innovation is not only cruel, but also setting that person up for failure. We do everything possible from  personality testing to our interviewing questions, to get a feel for how someone’s natural aptitudes dovetail (or not)with a job. The result is we have a group of people who are suited for their jobs and can succeed in them.

Taking the Tech Plunge Again

Staying on top of the latest technology has always been important to us at NSCS. Our key demographic is college students – if we don’t make things easy, cool and integrated with the things they already know and love, they won’t bother coming back to nscs.org. Also, as a people-driven business, our goal is to free our resources up for interacting v. data entry or other administrative work.

To that end, we’ve come to be completely dependent (isn’t everyone?) on technology to run our core business, consistently putting both time and money into defining our online environment, what platform it sits on and well well pieces are integrated within it.These are not easy questions and often once you have an answer it’s already out of date.

At some point in early 2007, we decided that our current AMS was great at the basics but wouldn’t allow us to start using new tools without bulky and resource-eating integrations. We thus began the long process of finding a new system, or a developer to build one for us. We did research, talked to countless firms and eventually signed a contract with a company who seemed to get our vision and had the tools to make it happen. That was spring. By early summer we had a preview planned for our chapter leaders. Nothing was ready. By late summer it was clear that the company could not actually deliver what we scoped. We terminated the project and began our search again.

Fortunately, we could salvage some of the work done, but not all. A new company jumped in on a tight schedule, with the intention of getting us ready to launch by January 2008 at the start of our annual membership campaign. The launch was rocky and with just 48 hours of joins (or lack thereof) under our belt, we had to make the difficult yet easy decision to put our tail between our legs and go back to the AMS we had just left. While we were excited about the potential of a new system, if we didn’t have the ability for new members to join easily, there was no point in having a new site.

We stuck it out for the next few months with that 2nd company – working through scenarios whereby we could keep our database of record as our current AMS yet lay a new site and social networking experience on top of it. This was a point in time where Facebook was gaining momentum but we still had the idea that our members would be excited about an exclusive network tied to their membership. They weren’t, and so we finished out the project as scoped and sought out yet a 3rd company that would focus on integration with Facebook (and other tools) rather than building them from scratch.

That vendor relationship lasted for almost a year and a half  – the longest we’d worked with a technology company other than what is now a 12 year stint with our AMS. There were a lot of good things that came out of that work, but the strain on both our time and money resources was just too high for what we were getting. We had data going back and forth between too many places, and our members still weren’t wowed by their experience with us. Even though choosing stability was the right decision in the short term, we still needed to find a way to evolve our online environment without compromising our ability to run our core business.

Thus in the winter/spring of 2010, we began the thought and eventually search process for the next iteration of our online environment. It started with a redesign of our home page and an elimination of all social networking technology that wasn’t Facebook. We evolved from there into embracing Facebook Connect and using Facebook’s core technology for many of our business needs. Finally, in late 2010, we started conversations with Salesforce development companies, convinced that the platform would give us the stable and strong business processes that we needed combined with scalable innovation and integration.

Most importantly, we took time during this evaluation to look internally as well, asking and answering the question of why our past efforts had failed. Was it the companies? Were we trying to do the wrong things? Did we not manage it well? Our ability to answer these questions was a key turning point in the decision to try the redefinition of our online environment again.

In assessing our development strategy, we understood that both trying to build from scratch and trying to integrate new tools with an out-of-date AMS were fruitless efforts. Additionally, in all instances, we tried to re-create our processes verbatim, failing to think differently about how to best reach our outcomes. In assessing our management strategy, we understood that we had managed the project too top-down, failing to get input and then buy-in from the on-the-ground TEAM early and then throughout the project. And again, with process v. outcome, we understood that we falsely set expectations for the TEAM that the new system would replicate every key stroke of their current operations. When it didn’t, neither our employees nor our chapter leadership embraced the new tools, even in places where they worked well.

With respect to the point about development, we chose to go with Salesforce and then a consulting/development company who didn’t just build but helped redefine our process based on core outcomes. With respect to the point about management, I stepped back from the day-to-day of the project, empowering our Director TEAM to interface with the developers, get others involved and define every detail of the system. Also, while Salesforce is the platform, we’ve been deliberate in how we’ve talked about it, embracing the tool as ScholarCentral and thus branding it as ours.

The combination of these efforts has given us buy-in from day 1, and the collaborative nature of the project has fueled the excitement around our launch last week. We’ve also figured out our own best practices around technology development, and will continue to employ them in the future. It’s not to say that the project hasn’t been without challenges, but our approach has made them just things we have to figure out instead of potential show-stoppers. Check out our next post by the day-to-day TEAM for more information on that.

Using Technology for a Virtual Full-Staff Meeting-It really works!

Last week we had our annual new fiscal year kick off meeting. This was again another full staff meeting for all employees, where both individuals and teams presented to the full TEAM what they were planning for the new year. The difference in this meeting was that the few telecommuters we have, didn’t come into the office for the meeting. This was something completely different and new for us, which was really exciting and challenging.

We currently use Webex for all of our online conference needs. So we worked with this technology in order to create the smooth transition of a virtual meeting with our telecommuters. While setting up the technology it was definitely important to make sure that everything was working properly and to have everything set up the day before. For our full staff days, we currently move the furniture into our big open work area in order to create a big conference room feel. This meant we had to not only move our conference room furniture into our big room, but our technology too. I ended up creating a projector screen out of flip chart paper, positioning our projector and camera in the back of the room, and just using our regular phone for our conference phone. At first I was worried that since we weren’t using the nice, conference style phone and camera, the telecommuters would have trouble seeing and hearing; but after testing and multiple placements to create the perfect view and sound, we were set.

As far as presentations went, we had asked all staff to make their presentations virtual friendly. Meaning make slides that can be easily shared on Webex, stand in front of the camera without moving too much, and make sure that all handouts were also emailed in advance to the telecommuters. We even accommodated our telecommuters in our break out sessions by going to separate offices and calling the telecommuters, and then having them call back the conference line when they were done.

When the day was over our telecommuters and our employees let us know how they felt present in our full staff day, and they enjoyed it. This of course was amazing to hear, because having a virtual conference was something we never had before. Of course there were a couple things I could think to change, but overall I think it went well, and I feel confident in having more events like this in NSCS’s future.

Great Benefits=Happy Employees

As the recent round of NSCS hiring comes to an end, I am reminded just how awesome our benefits here at NSCS are. As an employee of over a year, I’ve gotten to the comfort level of taking the benefits for granted. But once we started to describe them and our prospective employees, I am reminded once again how amazing they are. Just to see them light up and get excited about yet another great thing about working here, I am reminded of another great perk of working at NSCS.

Having these benefits in place give the employees the opportunity to put something like paying for healthcare at the back of their minds, since NSCS pays for it.

Another part of our benefits speaks to our working culture. The leave policy mirrors the belief of, as long as you get your work done, you can work how you want.

Below is a list of the amazing benefits that we offer our employees:

1. NSCS provided health, dental, and life insurance (no cost to employees, unless they have dependents)

2. 15 Days paid vacation. After two years unlimited vacation (within supervisor’s approval)

3.Unlimited sick days (within reason)

4. A paid sabbatical after five years of working at NSCS

5. And a great 3% matching after 1 year of employment to the 403b program

These great benefits were not always in place, they were put in place only a couple years ago. The benefits have grown along with the culture growth here at NSCS. Amy Shopkorn, COO, describes “the benefits evolved over time as NSCS’ culture of trust and accountability has grown”. The benefits were put in place to mirror that culture. It also has to do with Steve Loflin, our CEO’s philosophy of making NSCS the best place to work.

From this culture, it has created some of the hardest working people. Our employees enjoy the culture that has been created by the executive TEAM and from that they bring out the best for our organization.

Don’t Be Afraid of Hiring People on Work Visas

When I graduated college from American University a few years ago, one of my biggest fears was finding a job. This fear surpassed what the usual graduate might feel; I was doubly terrified because I was an international student and needed a work visa to stay in the country beyond a year after graduation. Take all the fears you had after graduation (figuring out what you want to do, paying your bills, etc) and multiply that by the near existential fear that you’ll have to give up the life you’ve built for yourself over the past 2-5 years. Terrifying stuff.

Anyway, within six weeks of graduating I got two job offers and had a hard time choosing between both. One offered more pay and was out in the sticks (hello far reaches of Northern Virginia). The other was a DC-based association focused on supporting students. I was at a total loss for what to do. Then I decided to tell both of them that I would need a work visa to work there beyond a year. (This breaks the international student protocol, by the way. I was always told not to talk about the visa until I had made a good impression on the job).

Anyway, I told both companies, and their reaction was telling.

One company was horrified, claimed that I wanted a green card to become a permanent resident, couldn’t make sense of what a work visa was, and withdrew their offer.

The other said they were open to it, and contingent on my doing a good job, they’d hire me. The hiring manager told me that she had NO experience with work visas, but she was open to learning more.

I took the second offer, obviously. And I’ve been here, at NSCS, ever since.

Here are a few lessons that companies should take away from this experience:

1. Don’t assume. Ask: It’s easy to get intimidated by the visa process simply because it’s not something most hiring managers have to think about on a daily basis or factor into their planning. But a quick call with your company lawyer can clarify what it entails.
2. The visa process for a work visa isn’t hard or convoluted: At least with H1 visas, the paperwork is relatively light and your lawyer does all the work.
3. Work visas are not that expensive: Including legal and government fees, it works out to $2,500-5,000.  This is not that big an investment if you’re wowed by a candidate.

On NSCS Board Meetings

The NSCS Board of Directors held the summer installment of their semi-annual meeting at the end of last week. As the COO, I am privileged to attend these meetings, working closely with the Finance Committee and Board Chair on the planning, and participating in the discussion throughout the day.

Boards of Directors can take on many forms. Some are merely cursory – names to fill the governance slots. Others are based in fundraising with give or get commitments as the most important contribution. A third set manages the day-to-day of an organization, filling holes in staffing due to budget. Another takes on pieces of all of these. What many Boards have in common though is the feeling from executives that they demand too much while remaining out-of-touch with the realities of what it takes to run  an organization. This disconnect often causes friction, pitting a disengaged Board against a management team.

The “wish you worked here” moment during last weeks meeting came as I thought about how different the NSCS Board of Directors is from others that I’ve experienced and/or heard about from colleagues.  They’re engaged and committed in a way that is inspiring. We have 100% attendance at most semi-annual in-person meetings, and quarterly optional conference calls. Our Finance Committee meets monthly, less to examine the details of our financials and more to work through big picture questions about how to ensure fiscal stability for the future. The Board as a whole challenges us, asks hard questions and refuses to settle for anything less than the best – all with our members in mind. And even with those hard questions, they tout that they’re not here to micro-manage but rather to guide the right thinking. We have representation from multiple sectors – higher education (administrators and students), nonprofit management, corporate recruiting, consulting – with each slot carefully chosen based on how and where NSCS is growing. To that end, those particular Board members spend hours/weeks/months working with key TEAM members to get new initiatives off the ground, contributing to the initial planning as well as connecting us to key individuals who can help us. And when we’ve struggled, those same Board members have been there to problem-solve.

There’s no doubt that I was completely and utterly exhausted after last week’s meeting, but in a good way. It was one of our better ones with the Board critically analyzing our FY12 budget at a time when our organization is at a turning point. My good feelings on this are present despite the fact that after months of work leading up to the meeting, the Board still didn’t approve the budget that was put forth for a vote.  We could be frustrated by that, but we’re not. Instead we’re pretty charged up to make the changes we need to make. We know that they have our (and our members) best interests at the center of their thought process. And, we know that they’re there to work with us to get our budget right. It’s a true collaboration, one that will make us better as we continue to work together and learn from each other.