Web conferences help transcend time and travel limitations
When the New South Wales Nurses' Association (NSWNA), a 51,000-plus member nursing union in Australia, needed help in determining how to provide effective professional in-service and other training, collective-bargaining representation, and legal and other services to its rapidly growing membership, it reached across 15 time zones for the expertise of John Lund. NSWNA staff members knew Lund, a professor at the School for Workers in the Continuing Education, Outreach and E-Learning division of UW-Extension in Madison, Wis., from his extensive on-site involvement with Australian unions during several previous visits to Australia, including his 2007 sabbatical.
Overcoming time and travel constraints via technology
As the NSWNA and Lund began their planning in May 2009, Lund was appointed by President Barack Obama to head the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Labor-Management Standards in Washington, D.C. This development might have ended the collaboration, but Lund and the union agreed to do an online organizational climate survey of the NSWNA staff, with Lund tabulating the results and sharing them with the union's officers and staff in a series of Web conferences using UW-Extension's Instructional Communications Systems WisLine Web.
"While I have used online research programs before," Lund explains, "I have always felt the opportunity to share the findings and discuss them face-to-face with the group is an essential part of this type of work. But that wasn't going to be possible in the face of very tight time constraints, and so the only possibility for personal interaction was through ICS' webconferencing services."
Convenient technology encourages employee involvement
Nearly 80% of the organization's staff completed the online survey, and Lund immediately e-mailed a tabulation of the results to all of the union's staff members. Three Web conferences were scheduled for the mornings of June 2 and 3, Sydney, Australia, time, which was evening of the previous days in Madison, Wis. The Web conferences brought together groups of approximately two dozen union staff members who reviewed the results of the survey, discussed their significance, and suggested possible action.
Robyn Morrison of the New South Wales Nurses' Association says that the Web conferences allowed union employees to feel included in the overall climate-survey process: "The webconferencing facility allowed participation of all employees who wanted to be involved to do so, thus providing additional input and feedback."
Deadline met, thanks in part to WisLine Web
Gathering comments gleaned from nearly six hours of Web conferences plus the qualitative and quantitative data results from the online survey, Lund prepared a final report with recommendations for improving the union's organizational climate in time for him to begin his new job in Washington, D.C., in late June.
By John Lund, professor, School for Workers, Continuing Education, Outreach and E-Learning, UW-Extension, and Margaret E.(Peg) Davis, senior university relations specialist, University Relations, UW Colleges and UW-Extension
