Case Interview With Jaquetta Harris
Introduction For my interview I choose to speak to Jaquetta Harris, executive director of the leasing department at the Rochester Housing Authority (RHA). Having been employed with RHA for less than one year, Mrs. Harris has had to overcome many obstacles accompanied with being new to the organization and also being an African American female leader. Being both African American and a female, has in the past caused much heart ache for many aspiring African American women. However, Mrs. Harris has had years of experience leading from various other jobs; the most recent being an executive director with the Volunteers of America organization. While it is important to note her undertakings, it is also imperative to discuss the challenges faces
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Harris. She notices that men respect a woman that knows what she is talking about and is assertive. So to contest the females are poor leaders stereotype, Mrs. Harris makes effort to be the best leader and role-model that she can be. However, RHA’s current staff is generally female, so this task is easier to handle than others are. A third challenge that Mrs. Harris encounters is that over half of her employees are provisionally appointed and can end up being replaced if they do not have a high enough passing score on the next civil service exam. This is difficult to deal with because the turnover rate is high enough, getting people to stay is a challenge in itself. So having people who want to stay, and then losing them because of their scores not being high enough, is a difficult problem to manage. Mrs. Harris tackles this problem by teaming up with the human resource department and figuring out trainings to have the staff take to better prepare them for the exam. While passing the civil service exam is never a guarantee, Mrs. Harris believes that the morale boost alone from the employees believing they are ready for the civil service examine could enough to get them high enough scores. Having the employees feel confident enough to take the civil service examine could be the difference between a 65 and a 70 on the civil service
Harris. She notices that men respect a woman that knows what she is talking about and is assertive. So to contest the females are poor leaders stereotype, Mrs. Harris makes effort to be the best leader and role-model that she can be. However, RHA’s current staff is generally female, so this task is easier to handle than others are. A third challenge that Mrs. Harris encounters is that over half of her employees are provisionally appointed and can end up being replaced if they do not have a high enough passing score on the next civil service exam. This is difficult to deal with because the turnover rate is high enough, getting people to stay is a challenge in itself. So having people who want to stay, and then losing them because of their scores not being high enough, is a difficult problem to manage. Mrs. Harris tackles this problem by teaming up with the human resource department and figuring out trainings to have the staff take to better prepare them for the exam. While passing the civil service exam is never a guarantee, Mrs. Harris believes that the morale boost alone from the employees believing they are ready for the civil service examine could enough to get them high enough scores. Having the employees feel confident enough to take the civil service examine could be the difference between a 65 and a 70 on the civil service