Officer nominations opened the meeting. The election will be held during the June meeting.

To save time, reports were all posted online, including:

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• Staff Grievance Committee: No grievances filed
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John Elliott, interim AVP for HR, said his department has a substantive update that he will defer to the June meeting, including a presentation relative to staff compensation.

Joseph Han, COO, provided some brief updates from his area, including a promulgated emergency operations plan that is .��

A newly formed space committee met for the first time and plans to develop a space policy with a soft deadline of August for the first draft. A strategic technology executive committee has also met to discuss technology priorities throughout campus.

The operations team has also developed a mission statement, and adopted the vision: “Service excellence to which others aspire.” Han said the “strategy map” to achieve this vision includes customer focus, data and continuous improvement.

“We’re creating clarity and momentum. We’ve gotten stuck in a couple of areas,” he said. “These are all things that go into our 5-year plan. We have to demonstrate that we’re operations professionals and we know what we’re talking about.”

Operations also developed a “house of pain” list that outlines top priority topics for the area. The list, in order, includes HR/unfreezing budget; salary market review; financial reporting; staffing numbers of all departments; outdated policies and procedures; funding model; and process improvement.

The climate survey has been concluded and a team has processed every single comment from the survey. Han said benefits and incentives emerged as employees’ biggest concerns, followed by leadership and administration, workforce, morale and communication.

The Campus Environment Team has drafted an action plan to respond to the issues raised in the Campus Climate Survey.�� The action plan ��under “2017-2018 Campus Climate Action Plan” near the bottom of the page.�� The draft has been shared with President Bendapudi and Interim Provost Boehm for discussion and implementation.��In follow-up to the action plan, focus groups will be formed to provide opportunities for further discussion and recommendations to improve the campus climate.�� More details regarding the focus groups will be provided later this summer.��

The next Staff Senate meeting is June 11 at 2:30 in Chao Auditorium.

Han thought she would make the move out west when he was hired at CWU, but she decided otherwise.

“I talked to my (CWU) boss right away and told him I didn’t think I’d be able to stay. It was pretty clear our family wouldn’t do that distance,” Han said. “Which was very unfortunate because I loved that job.”

Han comes across as the type of guy who would love most any job. He has stacks of leadership books lining his office, and he radiates energy and enthusiasm. He says this comes from staying active – his preferred hobby is running.

Prior to his March appointment at UofL, Han had never stepped foot in Louisville.

“When this job came up, I was really excited. It was within a good driving distance from Cleveland, so we could be closer to my daughter and it made sense. Then I saw everything that was going on (at UofL) in the media and my wife asked if I still wanted to come here,” Han said, smiling. “I love a good challenge.”

Han considers himself to be in the transformational business. As he describes his leadership style, it’s easy to understand why.

“The solution to most organizational challenges is getting folks to do what they love and align them to both their passion and to the institution at the same time,” Han said. “You’ve got magic when that happens.”

He admits is a simple principle.

“But it requires a tremendous amount of listening and relationship building, of getting people to own their decisions and recognizing they’re not a victim of their circumstances and that they actually choose their own destiny,” Han said.

The work is underway

Han, who has about 700 people under the COO umbrella, has hit the ground running with this philosophy. He has met with different departments and has hosted open houses in his office. He enjoys the casual conversation among employees the most.

“I love that people feel free to say some of the stuff they’ve said. I think folks just want to know what’s going on and have opportunities to vent. We will use that as a venue for sharing another perspective,” he said.

Han has also implemented a weekly newsletter, a climate survey among the operations units and, just this week, a customer satisfaction survey for everyone else on campus. He will use these results to develop a 5-year action plan alongside a best practices analysis facilitated by the leadership team.

“It’s all data-based. When we develop a 5-year plan, it’s based on something more than my opinion. It’s very intentional based on expertise with feedback from the community,” Han said.

Han put a call out to members of his team who wanted to be a part of this process. They are tasked with reading every comment included in the surveys and categorizing everything.

“They’ll tell me what the themes are. It’s really important that the team members who participate in this go back to their teams and say we are the ones who coded this; Han didn’t tell us what to put down,” he said. “That sense of control that is given to the team is so critical.”

Once this data is gleaned, Han will report back to each department to figure out what the next steps are.

“That’s the fun part – asking the team if this is what they expected. We’re going to talk these things through,” he said.

After this process is completed, another application-based team will come in – the innovation team – and will be charged with looking at the data, coming up with action plans and making recommendations to the leadership team.

“What are they going to come up with and will it move the dial? This all happens organically. People are always looking for an opportunity to grow and this is it. It’s all intentional,” he said.

He plans to create a new innovation team every year made up of different employees.

“It’s going to be neat. All of sudden, they’re doing something they didn’t know was possible,” Han said. “My path is about helping people discover their passion and creating a place where their passion can be nurtured.”

Challenges

Han’s infectious enthusiasm doesn’t seem affected whatsoever by the challenges his wife initially referenced when he applied for the job; namely a budget deficit and low employee morale. He admits there are some morale issues, but believes they are manageable.

“I see frustration and I get that people have morale issues and I believe that’s the case. But I think sometimes we can flame it to the point where it seems more real than it is. What I’m really getting is good energy from everyone,” Han said.

Han added that any budgeting challenges will take a multipronged approach to solve.

“The wonderful thing about this job is I’m not alone – it is a collective effort,” he said. “My role is to make sure that whenever we make a decision to reduce the budget, it is data driven and that people understand the implications of the cuts before the decision is made.”

Han has committed to transparent communication about any such decisions. He has also started a comprehensive projects list to ensure the right projects are prioritized; for example, campus entry points versus individual offices.��

Han’s to-do list is daunting to be sure, but he genuinely seems empowered by the work and the people of UofL.

“On this campus, I feel like there’s a lot of people who have a vision and are fully engaged. Many of them really love their job. This is a group that is resilient and has really demonstrated that,” Han said. “They’re not bitter about the fact that they had to be resilient. They’re proud of it. It’s a great place to be and you can sense that energy. It makes me feel like I made the right decision.”

John Elliott, interim VP for HR, discussed flexible scheduling.

“From my perspective there can be a policy and the (Policies and Economic Development committee) is the most appropriate group to research this,” Elliott said. “This will take a lot of conversations and what may work for some departments won’t work for others.”

Elliott said there were 116 RIFs in 2016 and 36 percent of those affected employees were older than 50. The RIF process was discussed by employment manager Stacey Gardner, who noted there were several checks and balances in place before a RIF takes place, including underutilization, performance, grievances and disciplinary records.

Laura Carter, employee relations specialist, presented the revised performance management information. UofL created a work group with different constituencies to come up with a new approach to employee performance evaluations and benchmarked a number of other institutions. A new form was created that is a one-page, two-sided form. Also, a new rating was put into place that includes: Exceeding, Succeeding, Learning, Needs Improvement.

HR has also re-created the self-assessment form, which is one page. These new forms have been presented to the appropriate committees and will be presented to Faculty Senate in May.

Joseph Han, COO, discussed the process behind his 5-year plan. All department heads have completed initial drafts of their plans, which will include results from a climate survey sent out last month, which yielded a 20-percent participation rate. Twelve volunteers are going through the data, while 19 employees have joined the innovation team to figure out next steps.

“It’s an exciting time. It provides an opportunity for folks to look at operations-level projects,” Han said. “I’m asking folks to devote their time in this. I’ll weigh in with the resources we have and the challenges. There’s no initiative that goes unrecognized.”

A customer survey went out this week, and a comprehensive projects list is underway.

Han also discussed UofL’s mail and delivery services, which are being outsourced to Canon. The team received RIF notices last week and they have 90 days for it to go into effect. Han said it affects 22 employees in mail and print services.

Mark Watkins, AVP for Business Services, said Canon did not guarantee it would hire everyone back, but it did guarantee it would interview those interested. The pay is comparable if not better, he said.

Susan McKellep discussed the Employee Assistance Program, which is available to all employees and covers everything from test anxiety to relationship issues and grief. The service is confidential and free. The office also serves as a clearinghouse for resources, McKellep said, and phones are answered 24/7.

Employees have access to eight sessions with a counselor per issue. If long-term counseling is needed, the office will make that referral.

In other news:

Chair Will Armstrong announced he is not seeking a third term and encouraged senators to consider running for the spot.

Rhonda Gilliland, systems manager for HSC Shared Services, won the election for secretary/treasurer.

The UofL Foundation has agreed to include ex-officio roles, therefore the Staff Senate, Faculty Senate and SGA will have representation on the ULF Board.

The next Staff Senate meeting is May 14 at 2:30 p.m. in Chao Auditorium.