(Guest Post) Navigating the Ripple Effects of a New Presidential Administration with the Crystal Ball

In this special post, Reese Ramos, the University Ombuds & Director at Virginia Tech, offers thoughts on how Ombuds should anticipate the ripple effects from a new Trump administration, including shifts in workplace policies, DEIB rollbacks, funding changes, and increased stress among visitors. He believes these challenges will impact the Ombuds profession itself, with potential office closures, compassion fatigue, and greater demand for conflict resolution services. Here is his full essay.

Introduction*

In the spirit of Mary Rowe’s Crystal Ball I thought I get the ball (pun intended) rolling with what ripple effects the new Trump administration will have in our respective organizations, our profession and truly, the world. This post is not about siding with, or against, the politics of a particular executive order, policy, potential legislation, etc. but as with any wide-spread event many of us experience (think Covid-19 a few years back) it behooves us to ponder the consequences, and unintended consequences, of such events.

For those of us not familiar with Mary Rowe’s Crystal Ball I recommend reading the Journal of the International Ombudsman Association (JIOA)’s October 2010 (Volume 3. No.2) issue in which Mary Rowe, Ombuds at MIT for over 41 years until her retirement, describes how the “crystal ball” began in 1984 as a tool to help Organizational Ombuds anticipate dealing with specific conflicts and, eventually, the query led to Ombuds identifying possible new concerns and areas for systemic change.

When I first became an Ombuds in 2001 and attended my first conference at which Mary Rowe was presenting her Crystal Ball I actually expected her to be up on stage with an actual crystal ball for added effect. There was no crystal ball per se but an unforgettable experience of listening to Mary Rowe and the foresights she had gleamed from not only her mind but also from conversations with other Ombuds about what emerging trends & patterns they were seeing. It’s quite a valuable exercise because it takes the collective wisdom of crowds, Ombuds in this case, and then perhaps accurately predicts (as my favorite classical author Charles Dickens stated) the shadows of what will be or, at a minimum, what may be.

Here’s a common story used to explain the wisdom of crowds and why Ombuds have found this exercise in forecasting helpful. Back in the day, 1907 to be exact, Sir Francis Galton asked 787 villagers to guess the weight of an ox and as you might guess, no one individual got the right answer. However, when Sir Galton calculated the average of all 787 guesses the answer was 1197 pounds. The actual weight of the ox? 1198 pounds. And so, the collective wisdom of the masses accurately predicted the “shadow of what may be.”

And why pondering the future is important is because all of our respective institutions that we serve are made up of people and when people are impacted by massive change to their work, livelihood and well-being there will be an impact in how they perform and how the mission of our institutions are executed.

So, let’s peer into our collective crystal balls that might be foggy at the moment, but as we imagine what the ripple effects of a Trump administration might/will be perhaps there’s some clarity we can see. Many of us are already starting to see some patterns emerging in our respective institutions and so I invite all of us Ombuds to peer into the murky waters of the future. I hope that some of my and your “predictions” below do not come to reality but perhaps with some preparation we can avoid these realities. Peter Drucker, the father of management thinking, stated that the best way to predict the future is to create it, and perhaps in this case, perhaps preempt and mitigate the impact on our corporations, academic institutions and respective organizations, what may be with preparation.

The Ripple Effect at our Respective Organizations

The following is a starting list of issues, changes and new challenges that will impact organizations and that Ombuds can help mitigate and manage.

Federal Sector

• Federal employees being required to return to work on-site after being give the flexibility to work from home and the cascading effect of corporations, academic institutions and others following suit and impacting non-federal sectors by being required to return to work on-site
• Challenges balancing work-life balance as what has become the “norm” in teleworking is now disrupted by new mandates to return to work
• Added financial stress to federal workers (especially those already living in the high-cost living areas of D.C., Maryland, Virginia area, where most federal workers live) that will need to adjust working solely in the office
• DEIB dismantling in the federal government resulting in:
• Federal agencies cancelling training and DEIB service contracts
• DEIB staff put on paid leave and eventually being laid off
• The removal of DEIB documents and resources on websites
• The possible elimination, or downsizing, of the Department of Education, Department of Energy, NIH, and government in general
• Some employees experiencing “workplace survivor syndrome” as a result of their job not being impacted but seeing colleagues need to depart
• The freezing, or slowing down, of new hires as budgets become tighter as a result of the economic uncertainty for the federal government
• Workers, already stretched with the volume and demands of work, feeling overwhelmed by the increase of work as workers depart
• Morale decreasing among employees in the federal sector as a result of these changes that bring about uncertainty, feeling devalued, unable to fulfill their missions, etc.
• An increase of federal works speaking up against the changes through rallies, lawsuits, etc. while some hunker down for fear of retribution

Academic Sector

• Title IX regulations reverting back to 2020 regulations, impacts include:
• Using the wrong pronouns no longer possibly being considered harassment; with LGTBQ+ possibly now being intentionally harassed for their preferred use of pronouns
• Colleges requiring live hearings with an opportunity for those accused of sexual misconduct to cross-examine accusers; possibly discouraging victims of actual sexual misconduct from filing complaints for fear of having to be cross-examined by their offenders
• DEIB dismantling on campuses impacting students, staff and faculty with disabilities, rural students, minority students, veterans and others by
• Some campuses banning the word diversity from job titles and offices
• Eliminating spaces and resource centers that were created to support students
• Removing training on implicit bias and microaggressions
• Eliminating diversity statements and land acknowledgments
• Removing courses and programs such as gender, race and ethnicity, critical race theory, etc.
• Further DEIB staff laid off
• The possible elimination, or downsizing, of the Department of Education
• Students, whose parents work for the federal government, having difficulties financially paying for education if their parents are impacted by the changes occurring in government
• Alumni from the political spectrum intensifying calls for their alma matter to implement or resist the shifting landscape
• Research funding shifts from sectors such as renewal energy, infectious diseases, arts & humanities, DEI to a greater emphasis on AI and emerging technologies
• The freezing, or slowing down, of new hires as budgets become tighter as a result of the economic uncertainty for institutions
• Increased visa restrictions and vetting on international students resulting in a decrease of international students
• Undocumented students impacted by the elimination of federal funding for non-governmental organizations supporting undocumented students
• Levels of stress increasing for employees impacted by these changes and/or the support they provide students that are impacted by these changes
• Workplace ostracism as a result of some workers supporting, or being against, these policy/political changes
• Students and employees staging walk-outs and protests as they seek a voice in how changes should be implemented
• Employees and students being disappointed, frustrated and angry at the lack of communication, reassurance and/or decisions made by upper leadership as they attempt to navigate the tsunami of changes

The Ripple Effect on our Ombuds Profession

• Compassion fatigue being experienced by Ombuds
• The elimination, or reduction, of Ombuds offices in some organizations where the Ombuds Office has reported under DEIB leaders, as those organizations trim budgets and the workforce
• The elimination, or reduction, of Ombuds Offices in the federal sector
• Limitations on Ombuds Offices to travel to off-site locations, attend conferences and seek professional development opportunities because of the financial impact of these changes on the national economy
• Some Ombuds retiring or preemptively leaving their positions instead of seeing how the changes impact their organizations
• An increase for trainings and workshops to be conducted by Ombuds as organizations hire less consultants
• The maintenance and/or increase of Ombuds Offices in organizations that see the value of Ombuds on their organizations to manage, prevent and resolve conflict while also identifying systemic challenges and helping organizations stay ahead of the curve

The above list is not intended to be all-inclusive and so please dear reader, as I sometimes say, go “mad” on it and modify, add, delete to this list as you see fit. As the list expands I’ll do my best to make sure these issues/questions and hopefully answers get added. 

* I’ve taken the liberty of self-plagiarism and repurposed the beginning section of this blog post entitled “Introduction” from an original blog post I wrote entitled “Navigating the Dark Waters of Covid-19 with the Crystal Ball” and published on LinkedIn (circa March 2020). 

Related posts: Guest Post: The Thread that Unites Us All – A Celebration of Ombuds Day*; Virginia Tech Names First University Ombuds; The Power of Speaking Up: Thoughts On Ombuds Day (Guest Post); Virginia Commonwealth University Ombuds Announces 2024 Conflict Resolution Day Event; 2024 Year in Review: Five Big Stories (Presidential Election has Ombuds Waiting to Exhale); New Administration Ends Department of State Ombuds Program.