January 2006

Colonial Community One Year Later

The University recently marked the first anniversary of “Colonial Community, Your Life at GW,” with a week-long celebration, Jan. 9–13. As part of the celebration a new graduate apprentice, who will coordinate the program, was introduced and a quarterly awards program, to tout staff service accomplishments was announced.

Peter Konwerski, assistant vice president for student and academic support services, and Pat Tanner, director of staffing and compensation in Human Resource Services, who co-chair the committee charged with creating the Colonial Community, welcomed Carla Morberg as the new coordinator of the program. Morberg replaces the inaugural coordinator Christina Schneider, who left GW following the completion of her graduate degree in organizational management.
Konwerski and Tanner led the cross-functional team under the authority of employee core group co-chairs Executive Vice President and Treasurer Louis Katz and Vice President and General Counsel Dennis Blumer, to look at ways to engage the University community and better serve GW’s employees. The idea was to break down barriers between divisions, foster communication, and improve employee morale. This committee explored employee recognition, community building, and work-life balance programs in education, industry, and other organizations, as well as conducting a baseline survey of attitudes among GW’s staff.

“It told us a couple of things, one that there was definitely a need” for an employee outreach program, said Konwerski. Part of the assessment, he added, was surveying staff and faculty, asking what the University can do to provide more recognition, appreciation, and enhance the sense of community. “We found out that the sense of culture is positive and people are enthusiastic about working at GW; we have a lot of long-serving employees, but there are things we can do to improve the work-life experience for the whole group.”

The result was the Colonial Community, an initiative based on four cornerstone educational and spirit-building programs for GW staff — an informative Web site; Coffee and Conversation departmental socials; monthly brown bag lunches, covering topics such as stress and time management, flexible spending accounts, and nutrition; and special staff events — to focus on recognition, community building, and work-life balance. In its inaugural year the program has hosted more than 30 such activities ranging from large-scale events such as ice cream socials (with more than 1,000 attendees), to small events such as monthly brown bags.
“I think in a large institution you can never have enough communication between divisions and departments,” said Konwerski, adding each element of the program seeks to foster better communication across University divisions. “It’s about getting people who don’t work together to talk, it could be for information sharing, a resource for background, or maybe to establish a foundation for that next interaction.”

Konwerski believes many of these functions are fast becoming part of the fabric of the University community.

“Our ice cream social in the summer, the trip to the Nationals game, and employee days at GW men’s and women’s basketball games really celebrate Colonial Community,” he said. “Each presents a great opportunity to bring people together to have some fun and for us to celebrate the staff and recognize people. I think those will all become treasured GW traditions.”

“The idea is to get people to rally around a common goal — GW’s organizational goals — and make people happy with their jobs,” added Schneider. “People are interested in the goal and in being part of something larger than themselves. That’s something you can really get from working at a University.”

Those goals are embodied in six employee core operational competencies identified by the employee core group — community, communication, learning, teamwork, respect, and service — that form the guiding principles under which the University operates.

Those areas of emphasis will be featured in a new quarterly employee appreciation program. This is another opportunity to recognize GW staff members for their dedication to communication, respect, service, and teamwork. GW employees may nominate colleagues who personify one of those categories.

Online nomination forms are available on the Colonial Community Web site at colonialcommuniy.gwu.edu/appreciation/nominations. Hard copy forms also are available at the Colonial Community Office located in Rice Hall suite 402.

Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu