This is the second of a multi-part case study that discusses the radical, strategic, necessary, and successful changes implemented by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second largest public school district in the nation. The LAUSD was able to implement a large scale $95 million enterprise resource solution a full four years ahead of schedule, which clearly demonstrates how processes or technology alone can never transform an organization’s culture. To read the case study from the beginning, go to Part I.

Problem #1:

Few could argue that there was a significant need for a substantial, immediate HR cultural change at the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). As a large public sector bureaucracy, and especially a public school district, innovation at LAUSD was in short supply. Yet large bureaucracies such as the LAUSD are not normally early adopters of innovation or costly technology. In addition, every major and many minor decisions at the LAUSD were made by committees and required consensus. Risk taking and entrepreneurial spirits were not rewarded behaviors.

Problem #2:

Imagine an organization with 100,000 employees lacking the appropriate automated processes and tools to manage the hiring of dozens of new employees each year. Now picture the same organization using those same processes and tools to try to hire thousands of employees each year. In 2002, this was reality for the LAUSD. College graduates – individuals accustomed to performing almost every function online from staying in touch with friends to downloading music or shopping online – were asked to fill out a paper application and to submit it by snail mail. The district receive as many as 20,000 paper applications a year. These would end up in piles on the desks of overworked and demoralized staff. Applicants would not even receive an acknowledgement of their application for weeks and sometimes even months. The delay forced all but the most desperate of candidates to look elsewhere for a position within the education field.

For those college graduates still sitting on the bench after months of job hunting, there was no prioritization made between those with critical skills such as math, science, or special education teachers and those who might only qualified for what the district called emergency permits – an individual who possesses no formal teacher preparation and only a bachelors degree that in many cases was not even in the subject they were hired to teach. Since less than half of the new teacher hires at LAUSD at that time possessed much needed teaching credentials, the district resorted to hiring thousands of teachers with only the emergency permit. In fact 7,000 of the district’s 35,000 teachers were serving on emergency permits.

To continue reading this case study, please go to Part III.