1. Negotiating Competency, Asserting Authority
Erin Leach
Jessica Schomberg
@erinaleach
@schomj
#camms #alctsac17 #alaac17

2. Negotiating Competency
The competencies state that examples “are for illustrative purposes only and should not be considered prescriptive.”
How can we ensure institutions negotiate these competencies with library workers instead of using them against workers? We’ll use the behavioral competency Professional Curiosity to identify possibilities.
Mention in presentation that using competencies against workers means hiring for fit, supervising for fit (to enforce conformity)

3. Negotiation Negotiation depends on knowing what you deserve and why.
Negotiation doesn’t start with a yes.
What are your walk away points? What are your institution’s walk away points?
Negotiation is about relationships.

4. Two Caveats
Negotiation can be unfair: women, especially women of color, are often penalized for making demands in the workplace.
Sometimes taking a communal or collective approach will be more successful than advocating just for oneself.

5. Behavioral Competencies
Behavioral competencies describe both personal attributes that contribute to success in the profession and ways of thinking that can be developed through coursework and employment experience.
Professional Curiosity
Maintains awareness of professional literature and research
Seeks involvement with professional organizations
Advocates for the profession
Appropriate knowledge and skills form a basis for cataloging competency. A grasp of the key concepts and skills, however, do not add up to successful cataloging practice.
If these are expected as job tasks, they should be written into position descriptions, considered work, and made part of the evaluation process

6. Develop research skills Engage in research Deciding where to publish:
Requirements to Maintain awareness of professional literature and research
Time
Tools
Financial support:
Develop research skills
Engage in research
Deciding where to publish: OA
Paywall journals
How many hats do you wear? Is this limited to cataloging development or required for other positions? How to balance? Who decides that balance?

7. Requirements to Seek involvement with professional organizations
Deciding where to participate
Time
Financial support:
Association dues
Costs associated with face-to-face meetings
Accessibility at virtual and face-to-face meetings
In-person attendance at face-to-face events:
Childcare availability on-site
Support at home for caretakers to be away
Re: deciding where to participate: Is a national-level organization seen as more prestigious than a regional or local one? Who in audience has paid leave to attend ALA, who has financial support from their institution vs who had to take unpaid leave and pay their own way

8. Requirements to Advocate for the profession
What do we mean by “the profession:”
Workers?
Individual libraries?
Professional associations?
The public good?
Will libraries actively protect employees who engage in critical practices with the intent of making professional improvements, even at the risk of being controversial?

9. Human Behavior: It’s Structural
What are the common threads running through the requirements for this competency?
Time
Money
Power
In what ways do these threads burden library workers?
Student debt + low wages = Little financial flexibility for travel or dues
Precarity keeps people from speaking up and out
“I did it, you should too!” mentality from incumbent library workers
Last slide for Jessica

10. Negotiating Competencies, Asserting Authority
Professional associations:
Remove barriers to participation wherever possible
Libraries and their leaders:
Have reasonable (and measurable) expectations for new hires
Provide material support for professional growth
Job seekers (early professionals and otherwise):
Ask for what you need to be successful
Know your walk-away points
First slide for Erin

11. Institutional Responsibilities
ALCTS:
Consider how dues structures and appointment protocols can be revised to increase participation
Provide lower-cost options for participation
Make sure in-person and streamed opportunities are accessible
ALA:
Support cross-division discussions that present competencies as a negotiation tool, not a hiring list
Develop cross-division toolkits to help administrators support library workers

12. Financial Costs of Personal Membership
ALA + ALCTS membership =
Student: $51
Non-student, 1st year: $133
Non-student, 2nd year: $169
Non-student, 3rd+ years: $202

13. Institutional Responsibilities
Individual libraries:
Consider whether (and how) performance of behavioral competencies can be quantified before making them a job requirement
If professional curiosity is a job requirement, it needs to be supported through:
In-house growth opportunities
Resources to support engagement with the broader professional community

14. Individual Responsibilities
Managers:
Set realistic goals around behavioral competencies
Advocate for staff to get resources necessary to be successful
Incumbent staff: Mentor students and new hires, formally or informally
Job seekers: Know what you deserve and why

15. Conclusion
Barriers to success with behavioral competencies are often structural
It is incumbent upon institutions who benefit from the labor of library workers (especially students and early career workers) to support the growth of those whose labor they depend on
Library workers have the right to assert their authority when it comes to negotiating around behavioral competencies
In this context, “institutions” means both professional associations or individual libraries.

16. Questions? Comments?