HR Spring Newsletter - University of St. Thomas
Transcription
HR Spring Newsletter - University of St. Thomas
THE HR REVIEW Spring Semester 2015 Office of Human Resources Newsletter Our Communication Strategy As is often the case in large, complex organizations such as the University of St. Thomas, we often question whether our message is getting out to our customers and to the campus community. Is our web page effective? Are employees reading our Lyris emails? How can we improve communication to our constituent groups with vastly different communication needs and interests? Indeed, the results of our recent Employee Satisfaction Survey (see page 4) indicate that as an institution, we value communication, but can work to improve it, particularly between departments. In This Issue In an effort to address the issue of communication for our department, the Office of Human Resources formed a project team last fall to develop a communication strategy. This internal cross-functional project team has been working to develop a multi-faceted approach to HR communication, specifically. The project team has focused its efforts on developing our internal SharePoint site, social media (like us on Facebook!) and a newsletter. Our Communication Strategy, p. 1 Managing Our Present and Future Talent, p. 2 Aligning Our Work with Our Strategic Plan, p. 3 What’s Coming Up?, p. 4 New Year, New Newsletter For the new year, we are introducing our new newsletter — The HR Review. Our hope is to publish this newsletter once each semester. Our audience is our employees and our goal is to provide timely, helpful and problem-solving information related to benefits, compensation, training, hiring and many other HR -related topics. We hope you find this newsletter useful. For a link to a survey to provide us with your feedback and suggestions for future newsletter topics, see page 4. And welcome to spring semester! HR Metrics 1 1,155 employees participated in our annual enrollment process last November We posted 36 faculty, 87 staff and 180 student worker positions from July 1 through December 31. We trained 1,151 employees on our revised Sexual Misconduct Policy in partnership with General Counsel and Student Affairs. 80 new employees attended New Employee Orientation from July 1 through December 31. 650 employees now participate in the Vitality wellness program. Our Mission… All of us in the Office of Human Resources seek to be approachable and trusted partners who offer thoughtful, strategic guidance and solutions that enable the University to fulfill its mission and vision and act consistently with its convictions. You can expect us to be resourceful, professional and adaptable. Office of Human Resources 651.962.6510 Providing Access to Life-Long Learning Ongoing professional development of employees is the key to the success of any organization. At St. Thomas, we strive to provide training that meets the needs of our employees and the organization. Managing Our Present and Future Talent HR’s Employment Services group has responsibility for managing recruitment and hiring activities for all faculty, staff and student employees. A significant portion of their work involves administering UST’s Student Employment Program (SEP). During any given academic year, we employ approximately 3,000-4,000 students in a variety of positions across campus. The growth and popularity of SEP has prompted the Employment Services group to take a look at our entire student employment system and consider an overhaul that will vastly improve the program for both student supervisors and our student workers. Revamping the Student Employment Program In assessing our current system, we discovered the following: Too many paper-based processes and manual transactions. Limited automation that doesn’t support our current needs for student workers across campus. Program components that are not well understood or utilized consistently by student workers or their supervisors. The Leadership Academy is designed for and offered exclusively to all employees at St. Thomas to support the development needs of individuals and departments, both from a personal and a professional perspective. Our training programs are designed to serve the particular needs and interests of our employees and provide you with the resources and tools to help you develop both professionally and personally. We offer both classroom and online training through the Leadership Academy. Sessions are free of charge to University employees who are encouraged to take advantage of any offering. Click on Leadership Academy for more information about upcoming courses. Adding Value to the Student Employment Experience During the coming year — and in keeping with the spirit of our new strategic plan — we hope to undertake several fixes to the Student Employment Program that will enhance the experience for our student workers and better prepare them for their future role in our workforce. Contemplated fixes include: Remove manual processes and paper forms to increase efficiency of the program. Develop a student worker onboarding process that includes training in customer service. Revise pay rate structure to align hourly wages with the duties, knowledge, skills and abilities of the position. Create a training program and communication plan and deliver to existing and student supervisors on a consistent and regular basis. Design an up-to-date, comprehensive and user friendly system and processes. 2 Office of Human Resources 651.962.6510 The CHRO Corner Aligning Our Work With Our Strategic Plan Operational units such as HR are often challenged to be viewed as strategic and to find ways in which our work aligns with an institutional strategic plan. We are closely examining the five themes from our strategic plan and determining how we align our work accordingly. Here is an example of what we have come up with: Excellence in Learning and Student Engagement – We will improve our Student Employment Program to enhance the student experience and prepare them for their future role in our work force. Education Informed by Catholic Mission – We will emphasize the critical importance of our mission in our efforts to orient, train and engage our employees. Diversity and Inclusive Culture – We will partner effectively with our new Chief Diversity Officer. We will create a targeted recruitment plan, including outreach to community partners, to increase the diversity of our employees. Globalization – We will support efforts to create a globally engaged student body and workforce here at St. Thomas through efforts such as expanding offerings in our Leadership Academy. One University – We will intentionally look for ways to help our employees connect with one another and role-model effective partnering with departments across our campus. 3 by Michelle Thom, AVP-HR Defining Who We Are, What We Do One of the first things I did when I started last summer was to work with HR staff to define who we are and what we do. We spent time in groups and in individual conversations talking about the work that we do and how that compares to the work of other similarly situated HR offices. As an office, we agreed that we can define our core functions in seven key areas: Business Management, Employment Services/ Talent Management; Human Resources Development; Compensation; Benefits Administration; Employee and Labor Relations; and Human Resources Information Systems. We engage in numerous activities under each of these headings, everything from recruitment to training to handling complex employment issues. Through this process of defining who we are and what we do, we realized there are many activities that we are not doing that a full-service HR office should be providing to our employees. We are now undertaking an assessment of our structure to determine what activities we can add to our seven core functions. Moving forward, we seek ways to be more proactive on employee relations issues; we want to actively assist departments with their organizational development needs; we want to tailor a framework for managing change to fit the environment here at St. Thomas; and we want to enhance our training and development offerings via the Leadership Academy. Stay tuned as we move forward with these changes. Retirement Plan Enhancements Last spring, the Retirement Investment Committee, in consultation with the Fringe Benefits Advisory Committee, recommended some enhancements to our retirement program. The following changes will take place effective April 1: One plan with a new recordkeeper and new set of investment options — The University of St. Thomas Retirement Plan and Voluntary Retirement Arrangement will be consolidated into one retirement plan called the University of St. Thomas Retirement Plan. Transamerica, an independent recordkeeper, will replace Fidelity and TIAA-CREF as the sole recordkeeper for all new contributions to the retirement plan, with a new set of investment options designed to be best-in-class. Employees will have the option to transfer their existing retirement balances to Transamerica or retain them with Fidelity or TIAA-CREF. Moving to a single plan and recordkeeper will make it easier for employees to review all of their retirement contributions. With the strengthened bargaining power of the consolidation, Transamerica will provide greater services and reduced fees to participants. Increased flexibility — Employees will have the ability to take retirement plan distributions at age 59 ½ while still working for the University, allowing for more flexibility, particularly for anyone wishing to phase into retirement. In the coming weeks the University and Transamerica will share more information with employees, including details about the new investment fund line-up, what to do if you want to transfer your existing retirement contributions from Fidelity or TIAA-CREF to Transamerica, and how to access the new retirement account. Information will be provided through written communications and a new retirement plan website, as well as group and one-on-one meetings with Transamerica representatives. Office of Human Resources 651.962.6510 Satisfaction Survey Results Let Us Know What You Think! Last fall, in partnership with the Office of Institutional Effectiveness, we administered the Noel-Levitz Employee Satisfaction survey. We invited 1,922 employees to participate in the survey. More than 1,100 employees responded for a response rate of almost 58%. Via the survey, faculty and staff were asked to provide feedback regarding the importance of and their satisfaction with campus culture and policies, institutional goals, the work environment and involvement in planning and decision-making. The envelope, please... This is the first edition of our newsletter, The HR Review ! We are hoping to publish the Review once per semester. The results of the survey are in. Regarding campus culture and policies, the greatest gaps between importance and satisfaction were in response to “There are effective lines of communication between departments” and “There is a spirit of teamwork and cooperation at this institution.” With respect to work environment, the greatest gap was in response to “My department has the staff needed to do its job well.” The overall satisfaction rate was 3.93 on a 5-point scale. Please follow the survey link below to give us feedback and let us know about other topics of importance to you! Next steps... Link Here Institutional Effectiveness is in the process of analyzing and summarizing the data by employee type and themes. We are developing a communication plan and will present the results in various venues over the spring semester and determine ways in which we consider the results in planning for FY 16. If your department is interested in learning more about the results, please contact Michelle Thom at 651.962.6538 or [email protected]. What’s Coming Up? Annual Employee Benefits and Services Fair — We will host our annual Employee Benefits and Services Fair on Monday, March 2 in St. Paul and Tuesday, March 3 in Minneapolis. Paperless HR — We continue to move toward automated systems within HR. To that end, we will implement automated benefits enrollment during the spring semester. This will impact all new hires. We are also implementing Phase II of our talent management system. The goal is to automate more of our onboarding process, including new hire paperwork. Change to Tuition Remission Policy — Last fall, President Sullivan approved changes to our tuition remission policy, which includes 100% remission for dependents after three years of employment and participation in the Tuition Exchange. The changes will take effect this fall. Expect a formal announcement with an updated tuition remission policy soon. Manager Development Meetings — On February 25, we will launch bi-monthly Manager Development Meetings in an effort to provide our manager’s with ongoing training and development, as well as the opportunity to network and share information. Free Biometrics Screenings — Free wellness biometric screenings will take place on both the St. Paul and Minneapolis campuses as follows: Tuesday March 10: Minneapolis Campus – Terrence Murphy Hall, room 301 (TMH 301) Wednesday March 11: St. Paul Campus – Anderson Student Center, Woulfe Hall Thursday March 12: St. Paul Campus – Anderson Student Center, Woulfe Hall 4 Office of Human Resources 651.962.6510