Introducing the Better Together Series from Rosenboom Workforce Institute
By Dr. Matthew Rosenboom | October 26, 2026
Professional development has long been central to higher education. Institutions invest in conferences, webinars, workshops, certification programs, and individual learning opportunities to help employees strengthen their knowledge and skills.
These opportunities can be valuable. However, they also raise an interesting question:
What happens when an entire department experiences professional development together rather than individual employees completing it independently?
That question is at the heart of a new professional development series from Rosenboom Workforce Institute: Better Together: Group Professional Development in Higher Education.
Moving Beyond Individual Learning
Throughout my career in higher education, I have observed that some of the most meaningful professional growth occurs through conversations among colleagues.
An employee brings a challenging situation to the group. Another colleague offers a different perspective. Someone identifies an approach that has worked particularly well. Together, the team considers how those ideas might strengthen its daily operations.
These conversations are not necessarily formal training events. Yet they often provide valuable opportunities for learning, collaboration, and professional growth.
The Better Together series makes that collaborative learning process more intentional, structured, and accessible.
Rather than asking employees to simply read material and apply it independently, each workbook gives teams a framework to explore concepts, examine realistic situations, exchange perspectives, and develop practical approaches that fit their institutional environments.
The objective is not to suggest that every institution should operate in exactly the same way.
It is to create opportunities for employees to learn from one another while strengthening the work they already do.
Twelve Sessions. One Shared Learning Experience.
Each Better Together workbook is organized around 12 facilitated professional development sessions.
The sessions are designed to encourage meaningful participation without requiring institutions to develop an entire training program from scratch.
Depending on departmental needs and scheduling preferences, a team might complete one session each week, every other week, or over another locally appropriate period.
The workbooks incorporate:
Realistic higher education scenarios and case studies.
Guided discussions that encourage different perspectives.
Individual reflection and collaborative team exercises.
Practical decision-making and problem-solving activities.
Facilitator guidance and model discussions.
Opportunities to identify strengths and improve existing practices.
Action planning that connects professional development with everyday responsibilities.
Importantly, these are not intended to be lectures delivered by a supervisor while everyone else listens.
They are structured opportunities for employees to participate in their own professional growth.
Introducing the First Workbook: Financial Aid
The first workbook in the series is Better Together: Building a More Engaged Financial Aid Team.
Financial aid professionals operate in an environment that requires technical knowledge, regulatory awareness, accuracy, communication, and meaningful collaboration.
Yet their work is also deeply connected to the student experience.
Every interaction represents an opportunity to help a student better understand financial aid, resolve a concern, or move forward with greater confidence.
The Financial Aid workbook explores 12 interconnected areas of team development, including shared purpose, psychological safety, workload management, student-centered service, interdepartmental collaboration, supervisor support, employee voice, complex decision-making, operational continuity, meaningful feedback, change readiness, and team commitments.
Participants work through realistic situations that encourage them to consider not only what needs to happen, but how colleagues can support one another in making it happen effectively.
The result is a professional development experience centered on strengthening the team while maintaining the importance of regulatory compliance and institutional accountability.
Designed for Departments Across Higher Education
Financial Aid is only the beginning.
The Better Together series is being developed to support departments throughout higher education, including Admissions and Enrollment Management, Academic Affairs, Registrar and Student Records, Student Affairs, Advising, Career Services, Human Resources, Business Operations, Information Technology, Institutional Research, and Institutional Leadership.
Each department has different responsibilities, challenges, and opportunities.
However, the underlying principle remains consistent:
Employees who have opportunities to communicate, collaborate, learn, and contribute are better positioned to support the students and institutions they serve.
A department does not necessarily need an expensive outside training initiative to begin strengthening professional development.
Sometimes it needs a well-structured resource, a commitment to regular conversations, and a willingness to explore possibilities together.
Professional Development That Continues Beyond the Session
One of the most important features of the Better Together approach is its emphasis on translating discussions into practical action.
A successful professional development session should create more than a temporary sense of enthusiasm.
It should encourage participants to identify something useful they can carry into their everyday work.
Perhaps a team develops a clearer communication process. Perhaps employees identify an opportunity to strengthen handoffs between departments. Perhaps a supervisor discovers a better way to invite employee input or recognize the contributions of colleagues.
These improvements do not need to be dramatic to be meaningful.
Small, thoughtful adjustments can create opportunities for greater consistency, stronger relationships, and better experiences for students.
The series also encourages teams to revisit their commitments and consider what they have learned over time.
Professional development becomes an ongoing conversation rather than an isolated event.
A Practical Investment in People
Higher education institutions regularly invest in technology, facilities, academic programs, and student support services.
Those investments are important.
But the employees responsible for delivering those services are equally important to institutional effectiveness.
Providing employees with structured opportunities to develop professionally, share their experiences, and contribute to improvements is one practical way to demonstrate that their knowledge and perspectives matter.
For institutions managing limited budgets, these workbooks are also intended to provide an accessible approach to department-level professional development.
A single employee can benefit from the exercises and reflections. A supervisor can use the material to facilitate team conversations. An institutional or system-level leader can consider using the workbooks as part of a broader departmental development initiative.
The format is flexible because institutions and teams are different.
Because We Really Are Better Together
The Better Together series reflects a simple belief that has become increasingly important throughout my professional career:
There is tremendous value in giving employees the opportunity to learn with one another, not simply alongside one another.
Every department contains experience, knowledge, creativity, and perspectives worth sharing.
Professional development should help bring those strengths together.
Over the coming weeks, Rosenboom Workforce Institute will introduce additional titles in the Better Together series, each designed to support meaningful group learning within a specific area of higher education.
The goal is straightforward: provide practical, engaging, and adaptable resources that help departments invest in their people, strengthen their collaboration, and continue improving the student experience.
Because when employees grow together, their departments have an opportunity to grow stronger together.
And that is what Better Together is all about.
About Rosenboom Workforce Institute
Rosenboom Workforce Institute develops practical professional development resources and organizational assessment services for higher education institutions. Founded by Dr. Matthew Rosenboom, the Institute brings together more than 25 years of higher education administrative experience and doctoral research interests in employee job satisfaction, work engagement, and organizational effectiveness.
Explore our professional development resources at:
https://rosenboomtaxandadvisory.net
Better Together is an expanding series. Additional departmental titles will be announced as they become available.