K-State 2025 Human Capital Services Assessment Report Comments
Between April 10 and May 10, 2013, the K-State community was invited to provide feedback on the recommendations in the Human Capital Services Assessment conducted by Aon Hewitt, an independent human capital consultant. This report compiles the online comments and suggestions received during the formal comment period. The report is sorted alphabetically and organized by the questions posed in the online survey.
- Tell us who you are.
- Do the report's recommendations and general timeline reflect the key priorities that will better position the University to meet our Human Capital needs?
- What changes, if any, should be made to the recommendations?
- What additional suggestions do you have?
- Please provide any additional comments or concerns.
Yes/No Totals
Number of Administrators responding yes: 11; Percentage of Yes Responses from Administrators: 13.92Number of Faculty responding yes: 9; Percentage of Yes Responses from Faculty: 11.39Number of Classified Staff responding yes: 21; Percentage of Yes Responses from Classified Staff: 26.58Number of Unclassified Staff responding yes: 38; Percentage of Yes Responses from Unclassified Staff: 48.10%
Number of Administrators responding no: 1; Percentage of No Responses from Administrators: 5.88Number of Faculty responding no: 8; Percentage of No Responses from Faculty: 47.06Number of Classified Staff responding no: 6; Percentage of No Responses from Classified Staff: 35.29Number of Unclassified Staff responding no: 2; Percentage of No Responses from Unclassified Staff: 11.76)
| Identity | Total Responses | Yes | % Yes (total) | No | % No (total) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Administrators | 12 | 11 | 13.92 | 1 | 5.88 |
| Faculty | 17 | 9 | 11.39 | 8 | 47.06 |
| GTA | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Staff (classified) | 27 | 21 | 26.58 | 6 | 35.29 |
| Staff (unclassified) | 40 | 38 | 48.10 | 2 | 11.76 |
| Other | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 |
Administrators
11 (91.67%)1 (8.33%)
| Changes | Suggestions | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| My area is in dire need of temporary and/or project based staffing solutions. We do not have a need for much of the year for more FT staff and already utilize student staff. I would think that others areas may be in the same position. I would LOVE a resource person to discuss this with who would listen and determine a best course of action for our area and the dept. Is there a way to pool resources that benefits all? | Like one of the questions asked at the forum - can we do this and save money? How? At least temporarily it sounds like a cost add on. With all the clamor for resources - where is this on the priority list? Please clarify funding for this area and initiative. | Many of these changes require IT innovations and support. As do many of the 2025 initiatives - but no one is talking about how understaffed we are in IT and how many IT searches fail. (And, no, I am not an IT professional or an HR professional.) There are many, many, many things we could or should be doing more efficiently but cannot because our IT staff is struggling just to keep us afloat. We need some realism injected into all of this from an IT perspective. |
| None, absolutely none! I am thrilled that AON Hewitt REALLY listened to us as they were doing their legwork!! | It is essential to get a strong, qualified CHCO in place. Our current VP for HR is a wonderful person, but we need strong, visionary leadership at the cabinet level. I agree that this position should report to the President. | Combining HR, Acad Personnel, and Affirmative Action is desperately needed, and in my opinion is the right direction to go! We have got to get these functions streamlined and working together....AND the interactions and atmosphere in Aff Action office (personnel and function) MUST be improved! Since the departure of the former Director of Aff Action, things have deteriorated significantly in that office. Automation (and centralization) of most processes is necessary and should (and could) have been implemented years ago. I oversee a large unit of ~100 employees (instructors,unclassified, classified, grad and student positions) and my administrative assistant spends 90% or her time on redundant paperwork....it's untenable! Am hopeful for a human capital revolution at KSU! Current staff in HR have learned on the job and gained skills on the job - but most have only their experience at KSU to fall back on. Dare I say we need an infusion of professional HR folks at KSU with a broader perspective and understanding... |
| 1. Incorporate Dept. of Labor requirements for Permanent Residency in the redesign of the recruitment and hiring procedures in the event the new hire is a foreign national. 2. It was mentioned that in order to achieve the goal of 2025 "recruiting prominent international faculty will be more prevalent." In order to attract and retain potential candidates I have the following suggestions. a. Develop a clear university-wide policy on sponsorship in all visa categories. b. Revisit our current policy on requesting prevailing wages from the Dept. of Labor when filing H-1B petitions. The process is lengthy and can add additional costs to the filing of H-1B petitions. Due to the lengthy processing times, we could potentially loose new hires. These determinations can legally be made in-house as many other universities do. There is training available to do this c. Permanent Residency should be filed in-house. Currently we use immigration attorneys to file these for our employees. This increases costs to departments and employees. The ISSS Office is capable of filing these petitions on behalf of our departments/employees. In addition, ISSS is more accessible to the departments and employees and is able to respond quickly to questions/concerns. Again there is a training available through professional associations in filing these petitions. These suggestions should be considered for the short term. Policies and procedures could be in place within 6 months. Training for filing academic Permanent Residency petitions occurs once per year (in May) through the NAFSA: Association of International Educators. | ||
| The recommendations are on target and the university cannot afford to not implement them. The human capital processes here are totally broken and a disservice to the faculty, staff, and administrators here.. If the people currently in the university could fix this - they would have done it. While it will be very hard, we must move forward with the recommendations. Tranformational change is needed. | None, other than please move quickly. The issues in this report have been around a long time and only getting worse. Getting the leadership needed and expertise to address the compensation of non-tenure track faculty and unclassified professionals is an absolute priority. | |
| Do not wait. Get a Chief Human Capital Officer in place ASAP. We need the talent and expertise to fix this broken system in place as soon as possible. I know change will not be immediate, but without leadership, this report - that we paid well for - will come to nothing. As a department head, I regularly encounter the frustration of wasted time and energy, conflicting information, even conflicting policies, or policies that do not facilitate our aspirations of having highly qualified, diverse candidate pools and successful hires. We need both more consistency that speaks to fairness and more flexibility that allows us to be responsive to circumstances than the current, fractured system provides. I was at one of the forums where the report was presented, and the question was asked, what will it cost if we DON'T implement the recommendations? It seems clear that it will cost us all of the work we have done in the past two years to move K-State 2025 forward. We cannot accomplish our aims without addressing this key issue. Please, do not sit on the report. Move it forward. We cannot wait. | My primary concern is what will happen if these recommendations are not implemented NOW. We have a broken system, and this plan provides a clear, substantiated way forward. Two sensitive topics of serious concern on campus are faculty compensation and the recruitment and retention of a diverse faculty. We desperately need the new organization and a Chief Human Capital Officer to make progress on both items. I am concerned that short-sighted efforts to prevent the creation of this necessary cabinet-level position will exacerbate the very (and valid) concerns about faculty compensation that seem to spark opposition. Please make it clear that reallocating the dollars already invested in our failing human capital efforts does NOT take resources away from faculty compensation. Most if not all of the recommendations are about becoming smarter with our dollars, not asking for more. And without a CHCO and the new organization of time and effort, we will continue to fail at our efforts to make sense of faculty compensation - we need someone with expertise in compensation structures to advise and guide us. On the issue of diverse faculty recruitment and retention, there is so much bad and conflicting information being bandied about (with proposals being suggested that are at best unwise and at worse illegal) that, again, we need a sensible, proven structure in place to guide us. We do not currently have the talent and expertise in place to be successful - and we need to be successful. A talented, well-supported, diverse faculty and staff is essential to a successful Kansas State University. | |
| I fear too much emphasis is placed on having a Ph.D. rather than having qualified experience. Moving HR to the management level indicated is good but not if the position is limited to Ph.D. only. The Provost already controls/narrows searches that exclude highly competent candidates by requiring a terminal degree or tenure track. K-State have a number of industry experienced professionals who are more than qualified for leadership roles. Industry experienced "human capital" can/do understand and support research processes without a Ph.D. | Universities in general violate HR rules far more than industry, Time-and-time again I have witnessed college/department/Anderson Hall led hiring practices that are closed and use questionable criteria for position requirements. | Overall, I support the report - just question the implementation. |
| Too often the report includes faculty with all other staff without recognizing some of the unique attributes of faculty in an HR system (promotion and tenure). While the idea of "career paths" are attractive to many, there are too many jobs/functions on a university campus that do not lend themselves to "career tracks." At best, one can develop skills that are transferable, but gaining experience needed in different job contexts is very difficult while performing your own duties. Be careful about over promising what is feasible. | There is a tendency to over promise in this report. For instance, salary comparisons for unclassified positions are very difficult - even across like universities - nearly impossible outside of higher education. I think you need to be very careful about managing expectations from this process. The university is about 20 years behind in using the capabilities in its ERP (PeopleSoft/Oracle) systems. The potential to streamline and simply workflow is there if the willingness to change exists. Certainly the university needs to develop web-based, data analysis and reporting (for all institutional data). | There are no significant cost savings from centralizing "HR" work. The people in the departments and colleges cannot be eliminated because their work is not simply HR. They perform many other tasks and local experts will still be needed. |
| The time-line needs to be shortened. We've been talking about these issues for several years. Unclassified staff deserve better than hearing that first, we need and consultant and secondly, we are going to follow this very long time line. We have talented, well educated staff throughout the HR system. They can move this faster and are more than ready to do so. | Please consider promoting one of our current HR experts to the administrative position recommended in the report. I so think it is critical to have HR at the cabinet level, because that cabinet member should always advocate for faculty and staff. It is much like the need to have women and cabinet members of color at the table to represent their perspectives. | I must admit that I remain concerned that the recommendations from the consultant mirror the recommendations from the Unclassified Task Force Report. We could have been much farther along had some of those recommendations been implemented. Please, please pay attention to the recommendations that emphasize our compliance based system vs a robust recruiting based system. Searches take longer and we lose people because of the complicated, time consuming process we've created. Some helpful changes have been made, but not nearly enough. People throughout the system are helpful; it is the process that's broken. |
| The recommendations are right on target. The sooner these actions are taken, the better off the university will be, particularly in regard to achieving K-State 2025 goals. Our current recruitment, hiring, and retention systems are in desperate need of restructuring and critical change. | Please take this report seriously and make the tough decisions necessary to move us forward. Change is scary, but status quo is even scarier... | It was refreshing to read such a comprehensive examination of our human capital services and needs that highlighted the areas that are working well and the many areas that need improvement. It was especially helpful to hear from an external entity to validate what many of us already have experienced! My concern is if we do not implement these recommendations the university will have spent a lot of time, energy, and resources raising the hopes of those who want to see improvement in this area... Don't ask the questions, if you are not willing to do what it takes to make things better! |
| I strongly support recommendations and general timeline. I believe implementation of these recommendations are crucial to the attainment of our K-State 2025 goals. | ||
| I strongly support the appointment or process of restructuring an individual or unit to respond to the HC needs at K-state. We need a better idea and consistency in our compensation processes. |
| Changes | Suggestions | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| AON Hewitt's diagnosis of the problem is reasonably good. Their statement that "many existing processes are cumbersome and often guided by compliance concerns rather than on the side of process effectiveness. The recruitment process was mentioned most frequently as needing significant reengineering" is accurate. In fact, the fundamental problem is that compliance is the driver, when the driver should be the desire on everyone's part to build excellence throughout our institution. Please remember that the mission of the institution is almost totally executed at the department level. The ability to recruit and hire top-notch talent is critical to achieving the goals of Vision 2025. The current system has turned department heads into "used car salesman". You can make this offer, but if anything changes, you have to go back through another series of approvals. Meanwhile, candidates are weighing other offers, not only from other universities, but also the private sector. Candidates lose confidence in Kansas State University. We are incredibly slow, because the authority of department heads to act has been removed. | I do not believe that the institution needs a new Division of Human Capital with a Vice President and staff. At the department level, we need people at all levels that not only want to help us comply with policy, but also acquire talent. |
Faculty
9 (52.94%)8 (47.06%)
| Changes | Suggestions | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| My main concern is that the changes don't add additional administrative infrastructure to the University. The report sounds excellent and is well done if it can come to fruition. Adding a Vice President will not solve the problems if Deans and Department Heads are not empowered to make decisions. The hiring process is currently impeded by micro management in the final steps rather than at earlier stages. Having the wrong person in this new VP postion would make this structure a disaster. We already have a classified employee system led by somebody that has little to no desire to help change the process for the better. Whoever is hired needs to have a service attitude rather than an obstructionist approach. | ||
| I am interested in what the orginal recommendations were from AON Hewitt prior to being vetted by the "Core Team". | Listen to the faculty and staff in the future and consider their input valuable rather than wasting money on consultants who tell you the same thing. The hiring of a consultant not only wasted money but delayed the opportunity for making improvements by a year. | - It is unfortunate that the adminstration had to spend limited University resources to pay a consultant to say what faculty and staff had been complaining about for a long time! These ideas were voiced formally (through an electronic format like this) when asked to suggest ways of saving/generating money by the President a couple of years ago. Hopefully this report will encourage the administration to listen to the faculty and staff in the future and consider their input valuable rather than wasting money on consultants. - I am interested in what the orginal recommendations were from AON Hewitt prior to being vetted by the "Core Team". - I am concerned with the recommendations for yet another administrator at the VP level. This concern is from multiple perspectives - 1. Do we really need another high-level administrator that has to justify their job by creating more work for those reporting to them or by creating reports/recommendations that require more resources we do not have? 2. The search process for new hires takes so long that it will likely be a year before this person is even appointed. Once they are in this position it will take time for them to assess the situation (even more time if the indivdual is hired from outside the Univeristy) before they begin to implement any processes that would lead to improvement. I see this as yet another delay in making any positive change at this University. Rather than creating a new position why not appoint another seat on the President's Cabinet to be filled by a person on this campus that can begin implementing change now. |
| These suggested recommendations will help us align our processes for hiring and selection of coordinators in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. Thanks for this work. | ||
| I think the administrative salaries, particularly those in senior administration, are out of control and need some structure too. | ||
| With the redesign of the hiring process, please keep an eye to streamlining rather than making it more complicated, as in the last redesign. We have lost several good candidates because of the slowness of the process. | I just served on a search committee outside my area, and the difference between the search in that area and the search in my own area is incredible. Our searches are made more complex and nit picked to death, and this other search just sailed through without any obstacles. Upon investigating this, I learned it depends on who is assigned to your area in affirmative action. Our area may have had bad hiring practices in the past, but we have new people who are firmly committed to fair hiring practices, but we still seem to be punished, or targeted for scrutiny, or something. As a result we lose many good (and diverse) candidates because of the time it takes us to get anything done. Please provide for consistent hiring practices across the entire university. | |
| None | None | None |
| While we need to centralize/standardize/streamline etc., I strongly disagree with the recommendation that we need a new senior level administrator to accomplish this effort. If such a role is created, it should be done via re-organization of existing units, and funds freed by elimination of duplication and increased task efficiency. Create the structure, and then pick the best existing person to step into the role, giving them the authority they need to make decisions and carry out the proposed changes. Continually creating new top level administrative positions drains the resources of the University when faculty/staff morale and pay are already low. This needs to be a concrete shift/re-organization, and not a change in name or leadership only. | The problem with the report is that the recommendations are fairly generic, and the needs were well known to the community even without the consultant's report. I regret that we wasted a year waiting for this when prompt action could have been taken on concrete tasks like a job analysis and development of categories/compensation schemes/job progressions. In the future, we need to make better use of the expertise that already resides on campus. | |
| In many academic fields there are fairly clear norms for how hiring is done (e.g., when in the year ads come out, if interviews are done at major conferences, what are the required materials). Any changes in the hiring process should be able to accommodate these practices, and it should be clear within this planning process that this is being done. | It appears that there is an argument within the report that the streamlining of human capital-related services and putting procedures online (electronic) will ultimately save money for the university (as well as be more efficient. This is not well explained in other parts of the report, so one could get the impression that the recommendations are just more costs and no savings. |
| Changes | Suggestions | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| This looks like more bureaucracy, more gathering of data, more design of fancy charts, more experts brought to the table. | To reduce the number of surveys and assessments departments have to prepare. To reduce steps everywhere, anything that is done at the university level has to be approved by 4-10 committees, department meetings, colleges, provost´s offices, ad hoc committees, senate, the Board of Regents and everything else in between. Simplify. | |
| Pay ALL faculty more (NOT JUST GRANT GETTERS). We are ALL making a contribution to the betterment of the University and helping reach the 2025 goal. There are many professors who care deeply about their students and spend considerable time preparing high-quality lectures. They should be financially rewarded for their efforts. Ask the average citizen what the purpose of a university is and they will tell you "teach." So why doesn't the university show that they value that part of the university's mission by paying ALL professors (including those who excel at teaching) more? | Pay ALL faculty more (NOT JUST GRANT GETTERS). We are ALL making a contribution to the betterment of the University and helping reach the 2025 goal. There are many professors who care deeply about their students and spend considerable time preparing high-quality lectures. They should be financially rewarded for their efforts. Ask the average citizen what the purpose of a university is and they will tell you "teach." So why doesn't the university show that they value that part of the university's mission by paying ALL professors (including those who excel at teaching) more? | Pay ALL faculty more (NOT JUST GRANT GETTERS). We are ALL making a contribution to the betterment of the University and helping reach the 2025 goal. There are many professors who care deeply about their students and spend considerable time preparing high-quality lectures. They should be financially rewarded for their efforts. Ask the average citizen what the purpose of a university is and they will tell you "teach." So why doesn't the university show that they value that part of the university's mission by paying ALL professors (including those who excel at teaching) more? |
| Lessen centralization of decision-making, with respect to recruitment and hiring. Those working directly in the hiring department are more likely to make the best decisions. Eliminate the additional cabinet position. | ||
| I don't really understand the implications of most of the recommendations. They are not presented in a way that makes it clear how our human resource processes will be affected. It seems absurd to have a centralized office write job descriptions for unique faculty positions without deep knowledge of the disciplines. Talent management and compensation structures seem best done at the department and college level. | The suggested changes seem to centralize many functions. In day-in and day-out practice, I would not be surprised if this actually made situations worse. For example, now I can get the answers that I need in my department and college; I dread the idea of having to go through a centralized university office that doesn't understand my discipline or need. In particular, I can't imagine a centralized office recruiting faculty for my discipline without knowledge of key national and international contacts within it. I liken this to the university's centralization of departmental websites--before, we could easily make updates to our departmental site, and now that our site is managed through the university, it is so difficult to get things fixed that we just give up. I needed permission to use the university logo for a research project and could not even get a response from Communications and Marketing. It was so much easier before the forced take-over, and I suspect it will be the same in this case, with Human Resources. | |
| The report is so sanitized that there is no useful information to make recommendations - it says nothing more than repeating concerns faculty and staff have had for years. | What information was deleted during the vetting process? If this is all the contractor came up with, we spent a lot of money on nothing. | We don't need an additional administrator - move an existing staff member in that position. Something is wrong when a university has more "unclassified professionals" than faculty! No business could operate at the level of overhead we currently have. |
| In no way shape or form shoudl be add yet another VP to the administrative team. use those resoucres at the department level to aid in training and increased efficiency at that level. We already have too much of a top heavy university transferring resouces away from needed departmental needs. this process should not be centrally conducted and controlled. Faculty know the potential candidates, they know where to advertise, recruit, etc.. Bringing this in centrally is a HUGE mistake. Departmental and college control is the key, use resources to help in these areas. | We need to have procedures in place that allow the process to move mroe quickly as pointed out in the report. This means less peoples desks to go across, more staff resources at bottleneck areas to assist in the process. We have to move away from the negativity caused by the hiring process when it should be one of enthusiam. | As a facutly Senator, this week at our monthly meeting after this report was breifly discussed, it was pointed out that KSU will have to be called VP State Univiersity. This brings to light the seriousness of moral of faculty if that were to happen. I do not think the President and Provost know how upset the majority of faculty are with these choices they have made. While this information does not directly comment on the plan, it is certianly a future implication. |
| President Schultz's 2025 plan really means 20 faculty and 25 administrators... What the hell are you thinking hiring another V.P. ??? You guys fit the Dilbert comic series to a T !!!!!! Sheesh!!! | ||
| The report does not include a plan to improve the salaries of faculty and unclassified professionals. We are not competitive and will never be a top 50 research university until this dire situation improves. We are unable to retain faculty because of uncompetitive faculty salaries. In my area, we have always been able to recruit qualified faculty, but retention was the problem. This is changing and recently we have not even been able to hire faculty. Faculty searches have failed because of low salary and hiring practices that are too complex. | Concentrate more on the real problem - our ability to hire and retain high quality faculty. This is the key to becoming a Top 50 research university. This report mostly deals with a shell game of shifting around administrative responsibilities and the creation of new administrative positions. | The report calls for a growth in administration and the creation of new administrative positions. Our university has recently experienced a huge growth in the size of the administration. We already have too many administrators and not enough people out in trenches doing research and teaching. Overall, this report is unrealistic and does not address the real problems. |
Staff (classified)
21 (77.78%)6 (22.22%)
| Changes | Suggestions | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| I agree with the majority of the changes. | Having come from a large corporation where I was previously employed in Human Resources, I was spoiled by the streamlined approach to Human Capital Services of that company. I have found the universities current paperwork system alone to be quite cumbersome, time consuming and often unclear. I am looking forward to changes that will hopefully be implemented with recommendations from this report. | |
| The survey was such that it "forced" personnel specialists to over state their time commitment with HR duties. I'm not saying it's less (work load) but it made it seem like 70% of our time is HR and nothing else, and we all know that isn't true. Are there even real "personnel specialists" at the University? Most are thrown in with about 4-5 other roles. I believe most of us in that role would say they spend less than 20% time on personnel issues, most of the time at the last minute, without training or support. There is simply NO time and most of the "personnel specialists" who are qualified and talented are totally overwhelmed and confused, as they should be. All of the processes are totally fragmented as the report states. With no clear guidance, Departments rely HEAVILY on their "administrative person" to navigate the sea of confusion. There is no way at this University for a "personnel specialist" to feel successful with all of the other tasks in the job (accounting, budget, office management, receptionist, you name it, to name a few). It leads to faculty and higher administration thinking their admin people are incompetent and us "admin people" feeling totally overwhelmed, confused, and stressed. | ||
| Decision of whether University resources should be used to develop the electronic forms or whether a third party vendor solution is used would be critical to the timelines for deployment and the associated costs. | Perhaps a cost-benefit analysis should be conducted to determine the above decision so that immediate progress could be made. | We already own a product called eForms (associated with the ImageNow product for document management and electronic workflow) for development of electronic forms. There are limitations with forms developed by in house or outsourced professional services from the company that may cause their use to be less effective but the cost is relatively low. Some sourcing has already been done by the Division of Human Resources of well-developed electronic forms from other vendors where the efficiency is high but so is the cost. Some type of comparison of cost-benefits analysis of both solutions needs to be conducted very early in this change process. |
| More information about possible changes/suggestions for classified employees | Possibly look at changes to the classified system. With the Alternative Service Committee looking at changes, it might merit looking at how this fits into the whole human capital system. | While the addition of a Human Capital Officer at the VP level may be needed. It is really hard to handle the addition at that level when classified positions are not being filled in order to stay within the budget. There is a very talented group of classified employees at KSU and because most do not have a degree they are constantly overlooked but continue provide a great deal of leadership to the university. Is there some way to allow experience to play a greater role in the human capital system? |
| Seems as if this plan needs to adress classified employees more, and not so much faculty and unclassified. How would this plan benefit Classified personnel needs to be looked into more. | More electronic forms is a must with adequate training on how to do them. Automated time and leave for all employees, faculty and staff should be looked into. So each person is held accountable for whether they get paid or not. I realize supervisors would still need to approve but that could and is automated also, | Are all 3 sections willing to combine into one? and where will they house us all together? If they do not house us together we will be seperate same as now.Not very beneficial- Concerned over will departments let this one new department do the recruiting for them? as stated in the meetings it would be like. Concerned about doing dual work, like when we upgraded to PeopleSoft. Seems as if this plan looks at the unclassified issues more than the classified issues. Also how will this affect the State Civil Service system if KSU opts out? |
| Streamline Non Resident Alien tacking to reduce payroll adjustments. Subscribe to webinar training for all involved. | ||
| Since there is an active committee studying the possibility of exiting the state civil service system and patterning after the KU withdrawl, I am hoping that the human capital recommendations will include members of that committee. They have been gleening valuable feedback regarding the classified hiring process. Thank you. | There are some outstanding classified employees who would do very well in management type unclassified positions if they had some guidance and direction toward advanced training needed or experience needed to promote. I think that when an employee seeks to better themselves through training, KSU should do a good job congratulating or rewarding them for it. When a person is recognized and honored for striving to be more accomplished, they would surely be more proud of themselves and their work; and the reward doesn't even have to be monetary. Happy employees = better production! | |
| More dispute resolution resources should be established on campus for all constituents. The system is there but not well used and many don't know about their options and resources. More help is needed in this area (more positions to focus on this to help with employee moral campuswide). | The report didn't tell us anything new. Most of us knew what was needed. Money was spent on a high-end consultation firm to tell us what we already know. Changes need to be made. The report did not give any new suggestions, other than hiring a position that, ultimately, is not really needed. Reorganization can help alot, without hiring another administrator. I have nothing against administration, and in fact work in administration, but do not see a need for a new position. Especially when so many of us have gone without raises for five years (classified) and many others are struggling as well. Put the money into the employees we currently have and reorganize your talented staff and professionals to have a more efficient system. A small task force of key people can do this without hiring another. | |
| There is no mention of classified or university support staff, and having the right people in those positions can make or break the success of the system. | Include classified/USS staff in the report. That omission is glaring, but consistent with the value that seems to be placed on those positions. I have seen many projects succeed or fail depending on the quality and motivation of the classified staff involved. | |
| Make necessary changes for recruitment issues a high priority so the process can become more efficient immediately. Loosen the grip on salary increases and hires for grant funded positions. Pre-approval for this isn't necessary when the University doesn't determine the salary or positions needed for research funded by grants. | Since the University has tilted the scale and been found to be overly compliant, why is there a need to recruit and hire yet a 4th lawyer for the Office of General Counsel? Seems wasteful and not a wise use of limited resources. This University is getting more and more unnecessarily top heavy. As good as it sounds, this University will never be able to afford to pay its employees what they are worth due to the expense of higher administration and lawyers. Makes no sense to move to Unclassified Support Staff when faculty are only receiving 1% increase. If admin can't afford to pay faculty more with what they have, how are they going to afford paying a larger pool of people? | |
| The recommendations make business sense. The scary part is how the reorganization would take place and how the people in HR, Academic Personnel and Affirmative Action fit into the new structure. I agree that a new unit that encompasses the three departments should be created. I agree that a new administrative level position needs to be created to head this unit. I believe you have people within this organization that are capable of leading that unit. | ||
| Excited to see streamlining of processes and automation | ||
| The automation and restructing are long overdue. |
| Changes | Suggestions | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| This report from Aon Hewitt mirrors the Unclassified Professional Task Force Report and Recommendations. Very little attention was given to Faculty and Classified Staff which should be the biggest change. Where are the Faculty and Classified Staff Task Force Report and Recommendations? It seems the Unclassified Staff dislike the main idea that makes them different from Classified Staff which is the structured civil service job descriptions. The way that many Unclassified moved into that title is because they feel their job duties are not described well enough and they do "above and beyond" a regular Classified Staff job, so they then complain about lack of consistency. | There are many Classified Employees on campus who are very well qualified for Unclassified jobs and in many cases do the jobs of Unclassified employees, but do not have a degree which precludes Classified Employees from getting those jobs. Experience should be an acceptable alternative to a degree. | PLEASE stop calling Unclassified Staff "Unclassified Professionals"! It is very offensive to Classified Employees. It makes Classified Staff feel as they are unprofessional. Classified Employees are the workers that are the base which this university is built upon. If you want great employees, be a great employer. |
| I believe that a shorter (faster) timeline is needed -- slow and steady may win the race but we have a system so badly broken that immediate and visible change is required for the good of the University and its human capital. | Review existing management positions and incumbents immediately. These evaluations should identify the ones qualified to continue and the ones better suited to other positions. The Peter Principle should not be practiced, much less protected. | I am very concerned that the current HR management is so entrenched in existing practice that success of a system retrofit/upgrade/restructuring will be hampered or even prevented by current HR decisionmakers. No current employee is prepared to lead such a massive, crucial change. Another concern is the cost of change. Without University financial commitment to this project, philosophical support is meaningless. |
| Since the recommendations do not include Classified - what's the point...... | ||
| I will retire in about two years. What ever happens will not effect me. But here are my thoughts. No changes. We do not need a HR Czar and a centralized HR fiefdom that nobody would have free access too. The common classified staff has easy access to his/her HR rep at the local level now. A phone call or stopping by the office will answer most questions or concerns rather than having to call HR for an appointment to meet them at their convenience. This would be the same logic as taking all of the Accountants in the Colleges/Departments and establishing a Super Financial Services for the University. | It looks like most of the problems deal with the facility in the hiring process and the compensation. A little effort from the Provost and the VP Admin/Fin could fix that. Its not rocket science. | The firm that did the assessment would not stay in business for long if it took the stance that every study resulted in that changes are not necessary. The wording of the report make me think that they ascertained what the situation was, looked in their book of solutions and plugged in a report already prepared. |
| Bring back inflationary increases for Classified staff. Based on reviews. Many classified staff have college degrees and entensive training. The university would preferr to balance and award the unclassified staff and disregard the classified staff. KSU is one of the only 3 top job resources in the Manhattan area (USD383 school district, Fort Riley, KSU) It appears the Legislators preferr to balance the state budget on the backs of state employees. So much money for unclassified during recruitment and nothing for retainment. What about retainment for classified staff? 3. | ||
| 43 pages is a little long to wade through. My main suggestion would be to make sure that the job descriptions are consistant for the positions across the board. You have postings for Admin Asst positions that are really mail clerks, and have nothing to do with being an admin asst. There are Sr. Admin Specialists being paid to do Sr. Admin Asst work, and vice versa. There is no position of Accounts payable Clerk. Sometimes an accounting clerk will do AP or AR, sometimes Sr. Admin Assistants do this. Sometime an Accountant I will have the job description of an Accounting Clerk position. At times you have an Admin Specialist that handles the human resources functions of a department, and sometimes it is the Public Service Administrator. It's almost like "this is what we want to pay someone to do these functions for the department. Make it fit whatever job title pays this rate." Very hap-hazard. | Quite frankly, the governer's budget ax aimed directly at "human capital" of ALL state employees makes it seem very unlikely that the university will ever reach adequate "human capital" needs, much less the recommendations of this report. |
Staff (unclassified)
38 (95.00%)2 (5.00%)
| Changes | Suggestions | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Put the money into purchasing or developing a quality piece of software for automation. Too often, K-State purchases subpar software or does not purchase a full package or does not fully implement. We need ALL of the functionality for it to be effective. | The biggest issue for me is automation. As you consider this aspect, I think it would be helpful to consider other university processes that should be automated. There could be more cost savings achieved it workflow software were purchased for multiple purposes. The university definitely needs an automated workflow for the recruitment process. But we also need an automated workflow for payment documents (currently generated in departments, with multiple approvals within the Division of Financial Services depending on what was purchased). It can take 2-3 weeks for a payment to be approved because the paper physically moves from office to office. The time could be cut to 2-5 days. This makes vendors happier and cuts down on the amount of calls between offices and vendors who are inquiring about payments. We also need an automated workflow for reseach projects between departments, Pre-Award Services and DFS-Sponsored Programs. This would help with speed but also with accuracy and ease of communication throughout the life of the project. Having one workflow system that everyone knows how to use and can access would help with efficiencies and training. | |
| I believe the timeline is a little aggressive but we have to start somewhere. Changes definitely need to be made. The recruitment and hiring process needs to be improved and streamlined. Currently the process is fragmented and dysfunctional. it is like the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Each office (OAA, HR, Budget, Provost Office) has their own way of completing the same process. This causes delays, it is time consuming, and very frustrating. Thank goodness, all the staff are friendly and helpful, and some feel just as frustrated as me. | We need the same procedures for recruitment and hiring across the campuses. For example, the Budget Office doesn't necessary agree with the Pre-Search Procedures on the OAA website. I recently found that out while trying to get a simple position number for a new position. This is not the fault of any one person, but that each office has their own way of doing the same process. We definitely need to have e-forms and the option to sign the e-forms with e-signatures. We also need to have more than one person with authority to sign documents so the documents don't set in someone's inbox for days until they return. Again, this delays and draws out the process. Faxing appointment papers to HR is no more secure than scanning the documents in and emailing them. On a regular basis, we fax documents to HR only to fax them again several days later because the first fax was not legible. We may have to fax the same documents several times over several days before they are legible. Mailing the documents is sometimes faster. Small tasks like this need to be reviewed and revised to make the whole process more streamlined. | I'm on board and ready to move forward. |
| none | please continue to look more deeply and specifically at unclassified professionals | We can not afford to wait. Every day spent under the current structure is ineffective, inefficient, and causes K-State to squander scarce resources. Begin the transformation! |
| NOTHING | PLEASE FOLLOW THROUGH WITH THE RECOMMENDATIONS | |
| I don't see the hiring of a Chief Human Capital Officer specifically listed in the short term recommendations. I hope that is the first step and that person is hired at the level of authority, and with the necessary skills and abilities, to implement the rest of the needed changes to our human resources-related functions. | I'm happy to see the recommendation to restructure the existing functions performing human capital-related services into a single, unified organizational unit. I think that step alone will eliminate much of the confusion and duplication in our current recruitment/hiring/accommodation/evaluation/discipline/termination processes. Part of the redesign, and new Chief Human Capital Officer's role, should include the cleaning up of our policies --- including ownership and location. | |
| Although I do not like the idea of another VP position, I think given the current status of the structure, we will not be successful if we do not put an individual who has a direct voice with the President in charge of managing change in the three areas (and the campus departments) that provide human resource support. If it could have been done within our current structure and existing leadership, it would already have happened. The problems noted in the report have existed for years, and have been pretty evident to the entire campus for years. Nothing stated in the report is something we did not all already know. Without a person who is "connected" and fully empowered to change the status-quo, it clearly won't happen. With this said, I am in support of strengthening our support of human resource issues by starting at the top. | I think it is important to try and build some sort of common understanding of unclassified positions and their titles. However, I am concerned that this effort could go overboard and take away what little flexibility we have to draw distinctions in the area of salary between high performers and poor performers. Some people are just better at what they do. Trying to define this in a position description is very hard. The system developed has to have very broad ranges of acceptable pay within them when dealing with professional level positions. It is critical that we don't get locked into a system that is so rigid that it looks like the current classified system, or the system contemplated under the alternative service system. | |
| Compare suggestions to what other universities in the Big 12 (with similar people and dollar numbers) use. | ||
| The Short Term recommendations on page 30 of the report seem incredibly ambitious and unrealistic. Although in the long-term there may be more cost efficiency if the recommendations are put into effect sooner, it is pretty obvious that up-front costs of dollars and time necessary for hiring a new VP and associated support/professional staff to work with her/him will be hard to supply...given the tight financial status of the University. The priorities look appropriate, but it will take at least a year to post and hire for the VP, then to assemble additional staff will take even longer. After all, our hiring practices are less than efficient. :) | The current HR processes are deeply entrenched and many employees' jobs will need to be redesigned in order to meet the recommendations. Who has the energy to keep this project on track and who will support the changes? A new VP ("CHCO") must have the skills necessary to oversee this enormous project and be given a clear mandate of support by the President and Provost to act decisively and efficiently to move the University forward...and must be supported consistently in the change efforts by all means by all departments across campus. Not every change can be made via "consensus" if time is valuable. | It seems that an "empowerment problem" occurs at K-State when there is a much passive resistance to change by existing middle managers and their staffs. Example, Ken Stafford and IT. He appeared to be an agent of change, but has not been able to effect much improvement in the structure or function of the IT services seemingly because of the existing "inertia" and inability to attract and hire employees with superior skills necessary to move K-State forward. If we are as fragmented as we suspect (and has been mirrored in this report) then the inertia against this change will be substantial. Changes of this magnitude become personal very quickly to those whose jobs appear to be threatened. The first order of business should be to create a process of transition for employees whose jobs are "obsolete" to allay distrust. I agree with essentially everything in the report, but unless there is sufficient political will behind this effort, I fear it will founder. |
| I agree with the recommendations by Aon Hewitt to renovating the process of handling K-State's human capital. Granted, there is no way changes can be made without affecting some positions negatively but the changes need to be made for the good of the University. It is going to take a strong leader with resolve and commitment to turn the human resource processes around. I believe the bulk of K-State personnel agree a change is needed and will support it. Thanks for the opportunity to be involved. | ||
| I cannot tell which is considered more important in the recommendations, but in my opinion for unclassified staff - Career paths need to be given the same weight as the hiring process as the first items to be addressed. Let's look at the talent we already have here that is not being utilized and look at ways to expand it at the same time we are creating a great hiring process. | I believe a new VP is a position that should not be filled by anyone currently at the University, it needs to be someone with a proven track record of being able and willing to make changes that many may not like but is truly in the best interest of the University, not department X. And they must have the full support from the President and his cabinet. All employees designated as a supervisor should be required to take management training and refresher courses. The principle that true communication is vital should be a mainstay of all workshops!. | An equitable pay scale needs to be at the top of the list. Many employees are already looking at what opportunities will be available with the federal government as well as the private sector when NBAF really gets going. K-State will not be able to compete if they don't do something about it now. |
| The time table doesn't specifically address when a merger/reorganization will occur of the three entitities for which HR type services are provided (HR, AA, Acad. Pers), but it is long overdue and could happen independent of other recommendations as a step toward the functional structure recommended. | Don't delay implementation of HR e-forms. Financial Services has been using eforms for many, many years, but HR has been told there is no money for this need. The benefits of eforms are the same for Finanical Services as would be for HR, and the entire university should be behind this change and fund it as other campus-wide needs are. This isn't a luxury. | It's unfortunate that a consultant was paid to develop recommendations that have been the topic of much discussion for years. From the Centers of Expertise, to Resource Centers and Partners, these same ideas/recommendations have been proferred by HR time and again--without success. So my recommendation would be to break down the "listening barrier" or implementation of any changes will not produce the desired results. We've had these same ideas for some time, and whatever the barriers were to listening to our ideas will be the same barriers to implementation. HR has wanted to improve services, upgrade technology, be more available and responsive but have lacked the staff and funds to be all we can be. |
| The time table doesn't specifically address when a merger/reorganization will occur of the three entities for which HR type services are provided (HR, AA, Acad. Pers), but it is long overdue and could happen independent of other recommendations as a step toward the functional organization structure recommended. There was no spell check for this submission and I regret sending it prior to doing my own check. So if a human is checking these responses, please use this one and not the one that reads mostly the same but with spelling errors. Thank you. | Don't delay implementation of HR e-forms. Financial Services has been using eforms for many, many years, but HR has been told there is no money for this need. The benefits of eforms are the same for Financial Services as would be for HR, and the entire university should be behind this change and fund it as other campus-wide needs are. This isn't a luxury. | It's unfortunate that a consultant was paid to develop recommendations that have been the topic of much discussion for years. From the Centers of Expertise, to Resource Centers and Partners, these same ideas/recommendations have been preferred by HR repeatedly--without success. Therefore, my recommendation would be to break down the "listening barrier" or implementation of any changes will not produce the desired results. We've had these same ideas for some time, and whatever the barriers were to listening to our ideas will be the same barriers to implementation. HR has wanted to improve services, upgrade technology, be more available and responsive but have lacked the staff and funds to be all we can be. |
| In the Restructuring a Human Capital Function section: I'm confused about the bullet point addressing new governance process. If this is to take the place of the sham that is Faculty Senate - then this is good. If this is yet another "governance" piece by faculty/staff who have no HR background - I don't see any purpose to this. I feel that the Human Capital Partners should have a direct line to their college and dotted to HR. With the change in culture needed to make this all happen, it is critical that the needs of the colleges/units remain the focus of the Partners functions. This is easily diluted, resulting in a "cookie cutter" approach that is not flexible enough for the different needs of the colleges/units. A large part of the reason that the system has evolved to its present state is that a centralized "one size fits all" approach that exists in the current HR structure was modeled around the classified employement system, and the unclassified and faculty hiring and services are much different - even between the colleges and units. We must have a new structure that is able to continue to meet the very diverse needs of the colleges/units. In the Compensation Structures and Career paths section - I find the bullet point about "existing university roles that do not fit neatly into the designed career architecture" to be very vague (which is probably the intent), however, there needs to be at least some sort of example - or everyone who doesn't want to participate will use this as the "out". I think this is probably a very important point, and by being vague the message is lost. | Change Management Considerations - one of the most crucial barriers to this organization-wide change is the differing outcomes and objectives of the colleges/units. While some parts of this are listed within the bullets, I think it will have a greater impact to acknowledge this separately. If, after the transformation the needs of the college/units are still not met, then the entire, painful, exercise will have been in vain. HR is a "service" function, and the main focus of all of this must be to provide that service more effectively, and efficiently to achieve the needs of the college/units. If this is the goal, I believe the restructuring will be successful. I would suggest IT as a pilot project to start. The # of unclassified professionals across campus in these roles make it a diverse group with which to develop PDs and classification and a much needed compensation review is needed as well. This is also an area where the need for more support for International applicants is critical. We lose many candidates due to our slow, if any, response to requests for assistance with visas, etc. We also waste a lot of time, money and effort in readvertising to meet labor certification requirements on IT candidates. We need an on campus immigration/international labor attorney or advocate of some kind. The Budget office has a small role in the Human Capital process, with the assignment of position line items. They seem to be missing from the process, and it is a very important first step because nothing else can happen without their providing these numbers. While it may remain a separate function, I can also see where it can be better integrated into the HC process. | Bottom line on compensation - without some clear idea of where the additional funds would come from, it is difficult to go through a change of this magnitude without some skepticsm as to its viability. We knew many of these issues before the assessment - and I support the restructuring 100%, but the compensation issues and inconsistencies are large and I think it will be difficult to get buy-in unless it is clear that the administration is committed to finding the funds to make this work. I also approve of the CHCO reporting to the President. In private industry, we would never have had the HR/Human Capital leader not represented in all major discussions and decisions at the equivalent Cabinet level. This doesn't mean the President weighs in on the CHCO operationally, but does mean that one of the main resources on campuses (the employees) are represented and their work understood and advocated to the President and Administration. Finally, I applaud the assessment for pointing out that the existing processes are too focused on compliance and overly restrictive and risk-adverse. This is in my opinion the largest problem at K-State. Having worked in HR in private industry, many of the procedures have no true basis in federal or state statue or regulation, and have been created merely to control every aspect of the recruitment and HR process. This must change if we are to have any chance to develop the type of workforce we need to reach K-State 2025. |
| As an unclassified employee and department head, I see these recommendations as vital to fulfilling the "reach" required of 2025. Ironically, as I was watching the livestream, I was anxiously awaiting the approval of my appendices ### to begin a search. After waiting a reasonable amount of time, I called OAA to find out that my PER-23 had not be delivered properly and so OAA was waiting on HR which had nothing from me. There were no alerts or systematic ways to find this out - thank goodness for the good people in our systems who then worked extra hard to move this forward after this "gap" was identified. (BTW, this step is not noted in the infamous hiring manual) | I still remember the reference that Dr. Schulz made about "good to great" during his open forum presentation when interviewing for the President's position. I hope he will continue to put those concepts into practice if we are to collectively - and effectively - work toward the goals of 2025. | |
| The recommendations are what we already knew need to be done. We have a disjointed inconsistent approach to HR at KSU. We don't provide support to our employees to facilitate their growth. We provide minimum training and no career paths. HR spends all their time pushing paper because no central money is ever allocated to improve processes that would benefit the entire University. I agree that the first task that needs to be accomplished is to get electronic forms up and running which will free up HR personnel to work on the other recommendations in the consultant's report. | HR needs to be viewed as a valuable partner to administration. HR could be a huge asset to the campus if allowed to increase staff enough to assist the campus with recruiting, training, compensation and classification reviews, employee relations, train supervisors in disciplinary management,and other HR services we don't currently provide. Right now many of these efforts are handled in the departments by people who don't have the expertise or time and don't perform these duties often enough to do them well. Recruiting needs to be handled by experienced recruiters who can spend the time seeking out the best candidates and selling KSU to them. | The University administration, past and current, pays too much attention to complaints from the faculty instead of supporting advancements in administrative infrastructures. They don't hear the complaints of new employees regarding how backward our processes are. Many newly hired faculty have never had to sign paper HR documents and ask why we don't have electronic signatures, automated work flow etc. We are never going to get and keep first class new faculty (or unclassified staff) if we don't change the way we do business. We need to change the way money is distributed on campus to hold some funds centrally to invest in HR and other administrative initiatives so that we can afford to move forward with automation and support the campus' HR and administrative needs adequately. This will be costly, but it will be money well spent. In the long run, time and money will be saved, new hires will be onboarded quicker, managers will receive the support they desperately need, department personnel will be able to focus on department business, knowing their HR needs are being handled by experts, errors will be greatly reduced, processing time will be shortened and employee turnover may decrease. This is an investment that needs to be made and a reorganization that is overdue. |
| The recruitment redesign process should begin over the summer. At the very least, the process should be on the IT calendar of projects pending. A focus group can be conducted to learn what end users would like to see from the process. | The appointment of key roles should occur once a CHCO has been appointed. The individual should have the opportunity to assess the current talent and organization structure. KSU is ready for change and needs individuals that can drive and support it. | I have heard reservations about the proposal and the cost associated with making the changes, however, no one is discussing that if KSU does not make these changes, the cost will continue to rise. KSU's current method of recruitment is not being done in an efficient manner, nor does it pull in resources to assist departments to recruit and attract the best qualified applicants. The current process is inefficient and KSU has the opportunity to streamline the practices and to hire individuals that can drive the process. |
| As an academic advisor, I am constantly told how critical I am to the success of students, or how important I am to the mission of the college, but no one wants to back that up with salary bumps or promotions. I would seriously like to see our pay scales adjust upward and I would like to see our positions compared across campus to other academic advisors. Some of us have much greater responsibilities than others but we all have the same title and pay grade. I've asked about reclassification in the past but get stone-walled every time. | ||
| This is sorely needed. As an unclassified staff member, there is no path for advancing my salary. I am at the mercy of those without power to voice for a raise that is not merit based but equity based. The sad reality for most classified and even faculty is prove to your Dean that you are needed and then go out and get a better job offer from another university. If you are lucky they will fight to keep you. This is not how a university should operate. | ||
| I hope that we can act on these recommendations as quickly as possible. It is unbelievable that we spend 4 million dollars on ‘basic transactional processes’, and yet we’ve been unable to spend a fraction of that to automate these processes. To make (save) money sometimes you have to spend money, so I certainly hope we don’t try to ‘save’ money by trying to develop electronic forms in-house. Hiring this out to a reputable company like Gideon Taylor will save both time and money in the long-run as we could be up and running in a matter of months rather than spending year(s) to develop, test, train, troubleshoot, refine, and finally launch our own product. The University of Missouri purchased Gideon Taylor back in August and they are already up and running. On another note, it is also crazy to think that we have purchased a recruitment module, but we are not using it! | ||
| I believe it would be beneficial have the assistance of a consulting firm to get started with these changes. Changes of this magnitude can be unsettling to many, especially long term employees. Yet they are very needed to keep K-State growing and achieving their 2025 goals. Also, looking inward to the Psychology department, particularly Industrial and Organizational area, could be very beneficial. The talent we have there could be extremely helpful in implementing the changes outlined, or at a minimum, giving guidance. They have been instructing students in the areas outlined in the Aon Hewitt report for years. | ||
| Short term high priority: Build an on-line system that manages all aspects of the hiring process. The current process, including inconsistent form numbering and ever changing guidelines is extremely frustrating. Why are the forms required named things like Appendix 12, B, per-23, etc. with no apparent consistency or logical ordering? We need an on-line data management system that walks us through the process and allows submitting required information online in the system. There is also a lot of duplication in the process that could be removed. The hiring committee should all have access to this system and should be able to review candidates and manage the whole process through this on-line system. This would GREATLY reduce effort spent on this task and frustration. Approvals could then be performed electronically and immediately. | While I understand the role of affirmative action, they have become quite a barrier to the whole process. Rather than looking for the most qualified candidates, we are required to change requirements to meet very specific demands of affirmative action rather than the specific needs of our position. These demands are also constantly changing and often contradictory. Affirmative action should have a role but it should much much less authoritative than it currently is. | |
| If the move from civil service to university support staff is successful, K-State will need to include those employees in the standardized compensation structures. | K-State is in dire need of all these improvements. Please do not let this study become just another report that sits on a shelf without being implemented because the changes are too 'painful' for certain areas. | |
| The recommendations reflect the key priorities. | I would encourage those recommendations that target unclassified professional staff be flagged as critical priorities. At least faculty have a mechanism in place for advancement. Unclassified professionals do not and there is no equity at all. I also know that there are unclassified professionals and administrators on campus who have received substantial salary increases in the last few years. So it is not the quality of the job you do that gets recognized; it is who you work for. This needs to be corrected. | K-State is a higher education institution. We have faculty who teach and train our future human capital managers every day. Instead of doing a national search for a vice president of human capital resources, why not utilize the experts we have right here on campus. |
| none | I recommend hiring the CHCO from outside the organization. I think it would be too difficult for someone already here to tackle the changes recommended. Lack of a diversity strategy is identified in the findings however, I don't see this as a focus area in the recommendations. | I strongly support the recommended changes. We have a very comprehensive report provided by experts in the HR field and we should take full advantage this information. This is a great opportunity to take steps to move this organization forward. |
| The report mentioned a major recommendation (also mentioned in the oral presentation) that we create a chief officer for human capital, yet that recommendation is not reflected in the list of short-term and long term recommendations on the page with this survey. That recommendation should be included in this list. Also, there are parties who mentioned that they should have been consulted by the Aon group; for example planning and analysis. | As suggested in the presentation, we need to hire a consultant to help us address the recommendations, create realistic timelines, and create a reasonable process to insure that we follow through on the recommendations. This is a major incision in our university processes and will take a major effort to make it work. It was mentioned to the consultant that we have many systems that used to be coordinated by the state, and as those systems were turned over to the university to oversee, we now have a series of policies and procedures that were created in a way that seems now to be disconnected, choppy, and repetitious. Now we have a great opportunity to create smooth, thoughtful systems that work for all of us. According to the report, we have a significant amount of money to use to remake our system. We are happy that we are beginning this process and look forward to positive results. . | One wonders if it possible to have the consultant report fulfill all of the expectations that were supposed to be addressed after the report was received. For example, the recommendations from the unclassified task forced were placed on hold, to be addressed after the consultant’s work was completed. Now it is time to address those recommendations. Similarly, the salaries of unclassified staff were not addressed until after the report was received. In addition, the work of the office of affirmative action will now need to be reviewed and a permanent director hired. And finally, the search processes that included the involvement of the college diversity officers in all searches will now need to be addressed. It is hoped that we will take the necessary steps to address these areas in the short term, so that we do not have to wait for the implementation of all of the consultant recommendations and the incremental roll out of the recommendations over the next five to ten years. We need a short term plan which addresses concerns while we wait for the completed implementation. The involvement of the university in this process is greatly appreciated. We hope that the recommendations are adopted; the cost to the university is great if we do not move forward, both in monetary terms and morale. |
| Begin the re-design of the recruitment process immediately along with electronic recruitment. Acquire and implement eforms immediately in order to have a quick win, positive impact on a significant number of individuals across the university and free up time to work on other recommendations. Do not wait until CHCO is hired to make any changes. Begin position analysis sooner by requiring job descriptions for all professional staff. | The Human Capital Partners is a good approach but consider expanding that concept to incorporate other business processes such as financial (purchasing, accounting, travel, etc.) and grant accounting support...Shared Services Center concept. | This report supported recommendations from the Unclassified Staff Task Force as well as the Recruitment Focus Groups...it is time to move quickly to being to implement at least some of these recommendations as the campus is getting frustrated with the slowness of implementation of any changes needed that have been identified for so long. |
| I think there are lots of great ideas that I'm excited to see implemented but I'm concerned this will just collect dust on someone's bookshelf. | ||
| I would not want a VP for Human Relations. HR is more of a clerical and process function. I do not believe the hiring of faculty should be under a VP of HR. That is a Provost and Dean function, including record keeping. A finance VP would not want to have a third party involved in hiring administrative and working staff. While the processes at KSU are very convoluted and unnecessarily overly compliance oriented, the basic structure is not wrong. | The campus needs to review the actual EEO and Affirmative Action laws and have the university compliant with them. KSU has completely bastardized the laws into such and misinterpretation, that the hiring system is completely broken. The consultants told us exactly what we already knew. What they didn't do was tell how to fix it. That would have been valuable. | |
| It appears that Aon-Hewitt did a good job of identifying key issues with our current human capital management, or lack thereof. The recommendations are ambitious and I hope our administration not only pursues these but also communicates clearly across the university about plans before they are implemented, during implementation and after implementation and is flexible through the process. | I strongly support the idea of Human Capital partners associated with each college/department to clearly identify and address the variety of needs across each the University. It would be nice if administration reached out to existing employees to help fill these new positions to demonstrate good faith in developing leaders and growing current employees. | I am deeply concerned that the "good ole boy" network currently at the University will derail these recommendations. |
| The recommendations are on the right track but I have to question if it is only looking at career paths for certain positions and if so what are those positions (the high-priority job families)? | Management needs to be understand all employees should be treated with respect and dignity. Employees should be informed off all changes that affect them asap ( even better they should be included and able to voice their opinion about proposed changes) instead of as an afterthought. Aside from it being a sign of professionalism it is the right thing to do. Unclassified staff need a structured process for grievances that they really do not have at this time. | An equitable pay scale needs to be at the top of the list now as well as treating ALL employees with fairness How do departments justify certain employees receiving raises (some more than 1) over the past 5 years (above the across the board ones) and others receiving nothing when the people receiving the raises often rely on the work of the ones receiving nothing? Is anyone reviewing this and asking questions? |
| I cannot stress enough how important I believe implementing AON Hewitt's recommendations are to the future success of the University. And although the University has an Associate VP for Human Resources, I believe the incumbent lacks the skills, talents and abilities to adequately perform the role in a manner that will move K-State forward. The individual in the position must be able to advocate for employees while making the tough decisions necessary to foster change. Furthermore, I am not convinced any of the current staff in the areas included in the restructuring--Academic Personnel, Affirmative Action, Human Resources--can fill the bill so it is my opinion that the University should look outside the University for the right individual. | It is my opinion that while various systems on campus are broken, many of the barriers and issues that exist have more to do with the people running or working within the systems than the systems themselves. Therefore, I feel it is necessary to comprehensively review individual performances along with the systems to determine the "real" barrier(s). To be blunt, I think some personnel need to be held accountable or they need to go. Past experiences tell me that the employees who put up the barriers or refuse to do their jobs are often the employees who are rewarded the most. Likewise, supervisors also should be held accountable for the performance issues of their employees. Past experiences tell me that many supervisors would rather not deal with employee performance issues so they tend to become bigger by lowering the morale of other employees, etc. Also, I think the current budgeting system does not lend itself well to human capital efficiency. College, department and program budgets are rarely reviewed and the bulk of the unit's total budget is tied to salary. Under the current model, unit heads are encouraged to hang on to positions in order to hang on to budget which blanketly increases on the rare occasion that the Legislature grants increases regardless of the unit's budgetary needs. Budgets should be reviewed periodically so that all units are adequately resourced and budget distributed equitably. |
| Changes | Suggestions | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| The whole thing should be tossed out and we should get our money back. This was clearly led by the administration to get the recommendations they were hoping to get, not actual prioritized goals. The idea of adding even MORE senior administration when we can't even staff current offices and departments is criminal. They didn't talk to key personnel in several of the offices that should have been involved, and didn't address the biggest issues facing this campus. We cannot continue to add to the overgrowth in high-level administrators without first working to solve the issues facing everyone else. | Climate survey. NOW. | Time for a new administration. Too bad Kirk didn't let April take that other job instead of giving her a $38,000 raise. Shame!!! |
| They needed to provide recommendation of how to make these changes. | Instead of adding a new VP positions, why don't you just ask Gary Leitnaker to join the cabinet and represent the Human Resource unit. Also, give him some power to make changes. Since he will be doing what he is already doing, there is no responsibility change so no need to increase salary or change title. | The Human Capital Consultants just reiterated what we already knew. We did not need to pay them $300,000 to tell us what we already knew. I'm sure the funding for this was from temporary funds, but wouldn't that money have gone a lot further to making changes than a ??? page report that basically said nothing. I think we should ASK FOR OUR MONEY BACK!!! If they were truly good Human Capital Consultants and understood higher education, they would have determined ways to restructure without costing us a dime. They would have also interviewed the right people and would not have erroneous information and data. They would have suggested ways to gather position descriptions and to initiate performance evaluations for all unclassified staff. So, President Schulz and Provost Mason, are we going to select various task forces to work on whatever it is in this report and maybe two -five years down the line we might actually move forward for unclassified professionals? It seems that we are paying for consultants and assigning task forces to delay decision making. I guess as long was we don't make the tough decisions, we don't have to back them up??? This is probably the first time in my tenure that I really feel that this university is in trouble and may not make it for another 150 years. |
