Michael Wade Smith, vice president for external affairs and chief of staff, informed senators of the university’s continuing commitment to providing fair compensation for faculty and staff. The identified the equitable compensation of employees as a critical aspect of institutional success. To honor the university’s commitment, Human Resources will lead two university-wide over the next several months. The studies will assess employee wages and Total Rewards, which include all available benefits such as health insurance, retirement and tuition remission.

“We are trying to increase compensation in spite of the limited resources that we do have and the turbulent time that we’re in,” Smith said. “We have our larger university-wide effort that’s underway; that’s going to take some time. But in addition to that, we are trying to make incremental gains wherever we can.”

Smith further acknowledged that the university’s compensation initiative contributed to the recent improvements in employee wages. In addition to the 1% salary increase that went into effect earlier this year, UofL staff and faculty also received a $1,000 bonus in August. 

Executive Vice President and University Provost Lori Gonzalez provided senators with her insight on the current student enrollment figures. Both Smith and Gonzalez reported an increase in graduate school enrollment by 232 graduate students, but a decline of 194 undergraduate students. Gonzalez reported that universities nationwide are experiencing a decline in undergraduate enrollment due to COVID-19 and highlighted the impact of the enrollment efforts made by UofL employees.

“I want to point out that we started out at about 750 students down. We are now only 194 students down. This was a Herculean lift from our enrollment management team and the Cardinal family, and now this year we will be focused on retaining those students,” Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez also encouraged senators and their constituents to contribute to the Cardinal community of care by vaccinating for the upcoming flu season. UofL will offer flu shot clinics on both the Health Science Campus and the Belknap Campus until Friday, Oct. 1. Dates, locations and hours of operation for the clinic can be found on the .

“When we talk about a community of care, the one thing that people can do to make sure this a safe campus is to get vaccinated,” Gonzalez said. “Now in addition to COVID-19, we are getting ready to move into flu season. Just like we’re encouraging you to get your COVID-19 vaccine, please get your flu shot as well.”

Brian Buford, executive director of university culture and employee success, presented an overview of UofL’s reimagined employee onboarding experience. Launching in January 2022, the improved onboarding process aims to address issues that were identified through numerous focus groups and interviews conducted by the Employee Success Center.

New aspects of the process will include a full year of onboarding support through the Employee Success Center, increased onboarding support at the departmental level, a revamped new employee orientation, as well as a welcome gift during the first week of employment and again on the one-year employment anniversary.

Buford also announced that each department will have a designated liaison known as an onboarding navigator. As the point-of-contact for onboarding employees, navigators will strive to create a spirit of welcome for new hires within their department. Those interested in serving as onboarding navigators for their departments will have the opportunity to volunteer and receive training in the coming months.

Committee reports and a of the virtual meeting can be found on the . The next Staff Senate meeting will be held on Oct. 11 via Microsoft Teams.

The metrics were calculated by considering the 222 tickets processed during that time, each of which would have included 36-page packets in the “old process.”

At this pace, Melissa Long Shuter, Executive Director of Business Operations, predicts that UofL will save 100,000 sheets of paper in shared services’ first year, which would be taller than Grawemeyer Hall if stacked.

The new model is also projected to save about 2,280 hours of time and about $71,500 in its first year.

“From the previous process to this, it is about 63 percent less time and that’s because we aren’t asking people to enter or fill out what they’ve already filled out or what we already know about them,” Shuter said.

The previous onboarding process included 36 pages of information and 13 forms, for example. This meant students had to fill out their name 13 times, their Social Security number 10 times and their address nine times. Those documents were then reviewed by the applicable department and sent off to payroll.

The new process includes an online form that is submitted to the Business Operations Center. That’s it.

Though new, feedback from users thus far has been positive. Business Operations has conducted user surveys with a 19 percent response rate yielding a 93 percent “good” or “very good” rating. Just two responses were not positive (one “fair” and one “poor,” which was rectified).

“If I get a 93 percent favorable rating on a brand new process, I’m elated,” Shuter said.

That’s not to say the transition has been without some challenges. It is laborious to align processes that are currently done in different spaces, Shuter explained. To solve these challenges, Business Operations has worked closely with other central units, such as HR and payroll, has engaged end users, and has created focus groups and work groups to hone the model.

“We tried to create workgroups that were reflective of the total process. Our focus groups, too, were critical. They helped us think about things we simply didn’t think about,” she said. “We have learned something from every one of these groups and we took those learnings and reapplied it. By doing that and then soft launching and testing, we were able to address so many issues before it went out to the university.”

Testing continues

Phase I of the new shared services model officially went live on Aug. 15 and includes the onboarding of graduate assistants, temporary students and student assistants. The launch came after the three-week pilot in five areas – Student Affairs, Provost’s Office, Libraries, SIGS and Arts & Science.

“We started with the areas that had the most activity in this space and made enhancements as we moved through the pilot process, wanting to learn things along the way,” Shuter said.

Business Operations identified 10 processes to affect based on analysis from 11 workgroups.

“We combined some things that made sense to combine, and we broke apart some things. Monthly and hourly, for example, are different conversations, so we broke those apart,” Shuter explained.

The project will continue to be implemented throughout the next two years (). The ultimate goal is to change our business processes – from reconciliations to onboarding to travel and expense reimbursements – so that they’re easy and intuitive or, as Shuter describes, “Amazon-esque.”

She admits that there are UofL employees who are anxious about job loss, but assures that is not on the radar.

“What we know is the jobs will change. What people do today should not be what they did two years ago or two years from now,” Shuter said. “If you’re too busy with paperwork, you don’t have time to think about what you’re doing and how you can make it better. This is more efficient and we believe very strongly it will help free up time for people to do the things they weren’t getting to do, such as be more strategic and create.”

Shared services will be housed in a to-be-determined Business Operations Center on campus and will focus on customer service, operational excellence, efficient transactional processes and analytics to continually improve operations.

According to Lee Smith, associate vice president of performance improvement and business analytics, the move to a shared services model will streamline the transactional business processes that are currently “fragmented.”

The existing process does not meet the university’s current and future needs, Smith said during one of two town hall meetings recently held to address the Belknap Business Operations Center initiative. The university’s current setup is complex, with nearly a dozen acronyms, for example (XPR, PAR, PAT, JDF, etc.), and inefficient redundancies. For instance, the onboarding process for students includes 36 pages of information and 13 forms.

“That means they have to fill out their name 13 times, their Social Security number 10 times and their address nine times. The documents are then reviewed by the department and sent to payroll,” Smith explained.

By contrast, the “future state” – or post-shared services rollout – includes an online form that asks these questions once and is then submitted to the Business Operations Center for review. Smith noted there are some processes that will still need to be done in person, such as filling out an I-9 form.

“The goal is for everything to be done within one business day,” he said.

Smith added that the future workflow will entail departments and central units working seamlessly with Business Operations, which will consist of customer service generalists, who will address many units’ basic needs, questions and issues, and functional specialists, who will be specially trained to quickly and accurately push transactions through the system. 

Lead fiscal officers, focus groups and other business officers have been providing input regarding improvement opportunities for the initial rollout. Phase I began in April and is expected to continue through December. It includes more than 500,000 transactions and the identification of a top 10 opportunities list. The Phase I focuses are onboarding, position maintenance, job changes, additional payments, time reporting and expense transfers.

Phase II is expected to be rolled out in 2017 to include more than 100,000 transactions. It will focus on the processes of Procard reconciliations, program/account reconciliations, travel and expense reimbursements and leave management.

According to Smith, the phase rollouts and work group and focus group tests will help produce the core tenets of a successful Business Operations Center:

1. Centralized
2. Automated
3. Responsive
4. Data driven
5. Standardized and simplified

“Our goal is to make these processes more efficient for the end users and to maximize value, efficiency and accuracy,” Smith said. “This model is the best way to get us there.” 

More information about the shared services initiative, including a Q&A session with the standing-room-only crowd, is available in the town hall video below: