School to Work – Responding to Culture Shock Tips for Managers and Supervisors

Thursday, May 28, 2009, 1:30 pm
Ottawa Public Library, 120 Metcalfe, Auditorium

Remember when you started your first job? Did you ever think: "I have to ask so many questions, I'm afraid they'll start to doubt why they ever hired me?”

For a new staff member, the learning curve during the first six to twelve months is the steepest it's ever likely to be, and even more so for the new graduate fresh out of an educational program, whether at the technician or graduate level. Supervisors and co-workers need a deeper appreciation of the challenges and complexities that the new graduate faces in transitioning from school to work.

School-work differences can be thought of as the differences between two cultures, the culture of student life in the classroom and the culture of working life in an organization.

This session identifies some of the key differences in how the two cultures are perceived and experienced, and offers sustained leadership strategies for effective orientation, socialization, guidance, and empathy – strategies not only for new hires but for co-workers, supervisors, educators, and mentors as well.

More careful attention to transitional phasing will pay off both for new hires and the organization in greater self-confidence, productivity, and enhanced leadership for the former, and greater creativity and innovation for the latter. The alternative for many new graduates is a rocky journey as they attempt to hitchhike across the shifting terrains from classroom culture to organizational culture.

When: Thursday, May 28, 2009, from 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm
Where: Ottawa Public Library, 120 Metcalfe, Auditorium
Cost:

• CLA Members - $10
• Non-members - $15
• Students - Free

To register, please send an e-mail to rsvp@caslisottawa.on.ca.

For more information, please contact CASLIS Ottawa at info@caslisottawa.on.ca.

About the Speaker
Alvin Schrader, Past-President of the Canadian Library Association, is a professor and former director in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta. His teaching and research interests are in the areas of library leadership, school to work transitioning, professional education, research methods, library service measurement and evaluation, intellectual freedom, and sexual minority library services and collections. Before taking his doctoral degree at Indiana University, he worked in special libraries and later as a public library deputy branch head.