Understand the work
Use incumbents, supervisors, and archival data to identify real tasks, context, and KSAOs.
The design question
Waste to Taste was created as a hypothetical global nonprofit confronting food waste and food insecurity. As the organization grew, its people systems failed to keep pace. Outreach workers faced outdated performance criteria, inconsistent hiring, administrative overload, burnout, and declining engagement.
I approached the assignment as one connected system rather than six isolated HR problems. If the organization misunderstood the work, every downstream decision would be weakened.
The connected system
Each people decision became an input into the next.
Select for reality
Replace unstructured judgment with job-relevant assessments and simulations.
Support adoption
Design equitable, phased training for a new volunteer-management platform.
Measure the whole role
Balance task results with contextual performance and volunteer feedback.
Reduce burnout
Examine workload, support, meaning, and the conditions surrounding performance.
Learn as a system
Pilot, gather feedback, monitor outcomes, and refine across diverse regions.
Start with what the work actually requires
The existing criteria captured only a narrow portion of outreach work. I proposed a mixed-method work analysis using surveys, supervisor interviews, and archival records, grounding the redesign in job-relevant tasks, contextual demands, and competencies.
Make hiring an extension of the work analysis
I developed a multi-stage approach combining minimum-qualification screening, values and situational-judgment assessments, and behaviorally anchored simulations. Accessibility, cultural variation, interviewer bias, and reliability were treated as design requirements.
Treat technology adoption as a human transition
The proposed training combined self-paced learning, demonstrations, mastery checks, a soft transition period, office hours, and ongoing support. Measures included proficiency, turnaround time, and patterns in support requests.
Measure what the organization claims to value
Performance management had to recognize logistical outcomes and the relational, contextual work required to produce them. Otherwise, the organization’s people-first philosophy would remain symbolic.
Selected writing
My reasoning, in my own words.
“In short, the work analysis showed us that our people were not the problem, our systems were. This difficult truth showed us that our commitment to hiring from underserved populations was being undermined by a hiring system that couldn’t identify the specific competencies needed to thrive in this demanding role.”Excerpt · Predictors and assessments in hiring
Source shelf
Read the full academic work.
The complete paper allows a visitor to examine the research, citations, writing, limitations, and full organizational argument behind this condensed case study.
What this project demonstrates
A people-first value is only credible when it appears in the machinery of the organization: how work is defined, who gets selected, what support people receive, and what the organization chooses to recognize as good performance.