Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (I-DEA) Action Plan and Executive Order Implementation 

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Client:

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of Resolution Management, Diversity, and Inclusion (ORMDI)

 

Challenge:

In 2021, the Biden Administration issued several Executive Orders placing renewed emphasis on the Federal Government’s commitment to Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access. The VA formed a Task Force, and with ORMDI, have identified strategic opportunities across VA’s vast ecosystem of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (I-DEA). Twenty actionable recommendations were identified to eliminate barriers and create access points for underserved communities, thereby ensuring all VA employees, Veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors have equitable treatment and experiences when interacting with VA.  ORMDI’ s mission is to promote a healthy working environment through the prevention, resolution, and processing of workplace disputes. The current organizational structure and decentralized execution of diversity and inclusion efforts across the VA have created a significant opportunity to refocus these efforts and ensure equity in the delivery of healthcare, services, and benefits.

 

Approach:

The team is supporting ORMDI to promote a healthy working environment through the prevention, resolution, and processing of workplace disputes.  Stemming from the recent policy initiatives of the Biden-Harris Administration, ORMDI is exploring opportunities to refocus and bring greater cohesion to the various diversity and inclusion efforts across VA, which are currently executed in a decentralized manner. The team is assessing the feasibility and defining and operational plans for 20 recommendations on strategic opportunities for enhancing VA’s ecosystem with improved inclusion. To assist with governance and decision-rights, the team manages a bi-weekly I-DEA Sub-Council to enable collaboration across VA executive leadership.  The Sub-Council acts as an enterprise-wide policy-making body, providing recommendations via the Evidence Based Policy Council  to the VA Operations and Executive Boards.

 

Results:

While this project is still in its first year, the team has assisted ORMDI by:

  • Coordinating and facilitating I-DEA Sub-Council executive leadership discussions to enable strategic direction to and promote continuity of I-DEA initiative.
  • Managing feasibility assessments across several domain-specific workstreams to determine viability and implementation approaches for recommendations.
  • Developing individual implementation plans for each recommendation, including comprehensive strategic communications and change management approaches.
  • Bringing together a robust strategic communication and change management group to bring ‘people’ along while executing the plan for improved inclusion and diversity.

Employee Education System Organizational Transformation 

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Client:

Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Employee Education System (EES)

 

Challenge:

VHA employs over 322,000 full time health care professionals and support staff at nearly 1,300 health care facilities located in every state and major metropolitan area in the United States, as well as in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. Approximately 73,000 volunteers, 127,000 health profession trainees, and 15,000 affiliated medical school faculty are an integral part of the VHA community. EES’s mission is to provide training solutions and services to empower development of this high-performing workforce that delivers exceptional care to Veterans. VHA leaders recognizes that EES must modernize to keep pace with VHA’s strategic direction and become a world class organization.

 

Approach:

Our team is collaborating with EES leaders and customers from across VHA – National Program Offices, Veterans Integrated Services Network, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, other learning stakeholders – in support of the VHA priority of becoming a High Reliability Organization (HRO) and meeting the learning needs of staff across the nation.  Our subject matter experts used the Prosci ADKAR® (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement) methodology, as well as the Prosci®-3-phased approach (Preparing for Change, Managing Change Reinforcing Change) to assess and adapt strategies through the phases of change. The team conducted a series of parallel assessments focused on understanding the organizational current state and performing a benchmark study to help outline future state learning organizational models. Specific recommendations collected from the current state analysis and benchmarking study were key to 1) informing the comprehensive transformation strategy and implementation plan and 2) identifying quick-win solutions to build buy-in. As the team moved from completing the assessments to defining the transformation vision, journey, and implementation plan, the team infused program, change, and communications approaches to support the realization of an innovative and agile workforce armed at dealing with post-pandemic health care demands.

 

Results:

The team conducted qualitative and quantitative assessments to develop a current state analysis, including comparisons to best practice benchmarks to define gaps; establishing a vision statement to collectively address the EES culture, learning culture, and future state organization; and applied a methodical approach to define an EES Journey including the EES strategic goals, priorities, and initiatives to support that vision.  Our team has facilitated design sessions to develop the EES future state learning organization structure that will support the desired end-state, outlining both short-term and long-term implementation plan and activities that will bring the future vision to life.  We have defined and deployed a robust strategic communications and change management group to bring ‘people’ along the journey of change, engaging leadership and staff in change network activities to support all impacted stakeholders and employees through the journey of change. We have also developed methods to measure and track change adoption and resistance related to the adoption of new learning solutions from both, the employee and customer perspectives to enable ongoing improvements.