From Elementary School Teacher to Instructional Designer: Heather's Journey of Professional Growth at Team Solutions
We are thrilled to celebrate Heather MacLean's promotional transition from Jr. Instructional Designer to Instructional Designer! Heather has been an invaluable asset to our team since joining us over a year ago, bringing with her a background in education, a passion for teaching, and an enthusiasm for learning.
Team Solutions has a reputation for helping eager learners transform into competent professionals - armed with the training, tools, and resources they need to be successful. Heather is no exception to this philosophy. After 8 years of teaching in the public school system, Heather discovered her true passion lay in the midst of designing lesson plans and structuring classroom time. With the help of Team Solutions' resources and guidance from her leadership team, Training & Development Specialist, Zack Schaff, and HR Director, Melissa Parziale, she was able to bridge the gap between her teaching experience and the knowledge she needed to pursue her passion to become an Instructional Designer. It was a perfect fit.
It’s important to note that the Instructional Designer role was not a position that existed at Team Solutions prior to 2021. It was a position created to fill a need communicated by the Team Solutions employees in 2020 during an Employee Engagement Survey. The survey was conducted by HR Director, Melissa Parziale, who then reported the results back to TSD Founders, Jason DeFranco and Chad Holman. The survey boasted an unprecedented 85% satisfaction rate among TSD employees. Melissa shared that where most companies would accept 85% as a score of excellence and move on to the next order of business, Jason and Chad could not move past the idea that 15% of their employees were dissatisfied with something regarding their experience at Team Solutions.
The executive leadership team did a deep dive into the data to determine what employees were not happy with and began to make some immediate changes. Employees were clear. They wanted more access to training. They wanted to know what their next steps needed to be to advance their careers, and they wanted to have the ability to independently learn what they needed to know to accomplish this goal. Taking this feedback to heart, Jason DeFranco immediately decided to make an investment in industry-specific professional education. He purchased a Learning Management Platform so that internal courses could be created, electronically stored, and managed. Meanwhile, Human Resources got to work looking for a Training & Development Specialist. After an extensive interview process, the leadership team hired Zack Schaff - a talented Instructional Designer - to run the Training and Development department under the Human Resources umbrella.
Zack’s position within the new education department grew exponentially, and soon, a need for additional resources was necessary. The company launched the search for a Jr. Instructional Designer and, through a similar interview process, invited Heather MacLean to join our team.
That is how we run things at TSD. We listen when our employees speak, and we are committed to providing them with the tools and support they need to succeed - especially when they have the courage to ask for it.
At Team Solutions, we embrace a culture of inquiry. Zack Schaff describes this as being in the "learner’s shoes," where we challenge ourselves to analyze every situation more deeply.
While learning and getting established in her role, Heather was encouraged to be comfortable with being “the dumbest person in the room.” This means she consistently asks the questions that someone with no prior knowledge would ask in order to create and deliver comprehensive training materials that help the learner understand what they are being shown.
This enabled Heather to develop her skills through experimentation and observation, finding the most effective methods and courses for employees and allowing her the ability to customize them to meet the individual needs and styles of each learner. Because of this, it has been essential for Heather to stay open-minded and ‘Embrace Change,’ one of TSD’s core values. As the company continues to expand, not all solutions are successful, and Heather must be able to quickly adjust and find new ways to tackle existing challenges. This also aligns with another Team Solutions Dental core value - “Find A Way, Face The Challenge.”
Zack is full of praise for Heather's success and personal achievements, “Heather can now pivot and she has a better design acumen on what looks good and what doesn't. She's gone from a career where you plan, teach and go to Team Solutions where we may only have one person to train. If they don't get it we have to be able to pause and look at what's not working. Or maybe it works for them but it's too slow for the company. We need to adapt and always find the best way…she can pick up those pieces and put them all together now.”
TSD is committed to recognizing results in a variety of ways - whether it's a night out in the Amway Presidential Suite or, as in Heather's case, a title promotion.
Praise and recognition are powerful incentives that often fuel an employee’s desire to continue developing their skills and knowledge. We asked Heather how TSD creates an environment that encourages employees to stay motivated on a daily basis. Her response? By creating a culture that values and respects each individual - a culture that recognizes its employees are humans, as Heather says TSD does.
Heather was pleased to discover the freedom of being able to take a break whenever she needed at Team Solutions. We shared this with HR Director, Melissa Parziale, who was surprised to learn how something as simple as taking a break when you need one could have such a positive impact on a new employee. Sometimes we take for granted the things that seem more like common sense than a perk that motivates employees to keep striving for greatness.
Melissa expressed how she’s extremely pleased with the results Heather has brought to the table. Heather recently constructed a 6-week training course for our ‘Customer Service Representative’ role, which was well received by the leadership team. Soon after, President Jason DeFranco challenged her to pivot and condense it into a 2-week course that still yielded the results we wanted to gain from the 6-week course. Heather rose to this challenge and delivered amazing results that allowed our newest rockstar trainee in our Customer Service work center to thrive and experience immediate success in her new role.
“What I love about Heather is she's always just where you need her to be. Right now, she’s lending a hand in the Finance Department, creating Standard Operating Procedures. Before that, she was sitting in the Digital Receiving Work Center creating job aids and training materials for new employees stepping into that role. She's always willing to help wherever help is needed, and she has really great input.”
Her dedication and enthusiasm for taking on each task have earned her a reputation as an invaluable member of the Training and Development team. As we’re constantly evolving and developing at TSD, the talks of what’s next to come for Heather are already in the works. Zack and Melissa are both eager to help her reach her next goals, such as obtaining new certifications and helping her continue to hone her skills.
Team Solutions is committed to continuous growth and improvement as an organization. Achieving this goal requires our employees to be committed to their individual professional improvement. So how does this mindset of continuous growth and improvement inspire people at Team Solutions? HR Director Melissa says she’s always inspired by people that want to grow.
“It keeps me in a growth mindset as well. But I think we all do that for each other on this team. Everybody. I'm proud to say everyone on my team has a growth mindset. We're always looking to learn more from each other, and we enjoy bouncing ideas off each other, challenging each other, and holding each other to our highest and best when it comes to individual and team performance. Our meetings are always productive, fun, creative, and collaborative. So anytime I see somebody stretching, growing, and becoming more, it inspires me to push myself to continue to grow and be better with and for them.”
Heather is just getting started with her TSD Career, and Zack Schaff and Melissa Parziale are eager to see what she will accomplish next. At Team Solutions Dental, the possibilities are endless.