Category

HR Management
Customer Service 

Submitted By

Kenneth Hopping, Kenneth.Hopping@colorado.edu, Director of Faculty Affairs, College of Arts and Sciences

Project Team

David Braz, David.Braz@colorado.edu, Faculty Affairs Coordinator, Arts and Sciences HR
Logan Ejupi, Logan.Ejupi@colorado.edu, Faculty Affairs Coordinator, Arts and Sciences HR
Gavin Laing, Gavin.Laing@Colorado.edu, Faculty Affairs Coordinator, Arts and Sciences HR

Project Description

Our office templated letters of offer for Temporary and Non-TT faculty; we utilize spreadsheets that are required by the Human Resources Service Center (HRSC) and mail merge these letter of offer types for our departments. We began by testing the process for Summer Session 2020 and rolled it out for Academic Appointments in Spring 2021. After successful implementation for temporary faculty letters, we will use the same process in Spring 2022 for reappointments of our NON-TT (Teaching Professor) rank letters of offer.

Project Efficiency 

Prior to this process improvement, the program managers were required to provide duplicate information to multiple offices. In addition the letters of offer for as many as 600 temporary faculty (college wide) were drafted within departments, reviewed by the dean's office staff, and routed for signatures. By implementing this process improvement our program managers and department staff are now allowed to have much more time available for our students. Another positive effect of this process change is, our temporary faculty now gain access to systems and are compensated in a much more timely way. Finally, we have successfully decreased error rates on payroll items, and we provide the HRSC with documents for entry much sooner than in the past.

Project Inspiration 

While building and managing the HRSC I became increasingly aware that payroll efficiencies began at the department level, and that departments were handling multiple other items than faulty HR; however, faculty HR is detailed and cumbersome. I moved into my current role with the intention of creating process improvements at the department level that would result in more efficiencies across the organization.

What Makes You Happiest about this Project?

Happiest? We have limited the negative impact of inefficiencies on the affected employee, namely our temporary faculty employees. Overall, I am extremely happy that during the harsh realities of COVID, I was successful in adding our departments and allowing an incredible team of staff to find excitement in their work at CU. During COVID and the downstream hits to our staffing, we not only maintained the work load, but we made the workload more manageable even as employees were resigning or retiring. Successfully making CU better during COVID was a thrill.