February 5, 2016
Putting a face to the name: Alma Deutsch, director of the Resource Center and Operations
Submitted by Communications and Marketing
Meet Alma Deutsch, director of the Resource Center and Operations! She's the one in charge of a highly functioning team that cuts every K-State employees' paycheck. Did you know they produce 260,000 paychecks a year? On top of all that dough, they hire 5,000 new employees every year too.
As an alumna with a Bachelor of Science in business administration and with more than 25 years of experience at K-State, Deutsch and her team are kicking Human Capital Services into high gear as a transaction hub for the university.
Deutsch and her team use the Human Resource Information System, or HRIS, to do a lot of their work. They also are in charge of processing personnel transactions related to payroll, time and attendance and longevity pay as well as ensuring nonresident alien employees and those with tax treaties are in compliance.
Learn more about Deutsch and all the amazing stuff she's able to do for K-Staters in the following Q-and-A:
What are some of the big changes you have implemented since you started in this position?
In 2014, several of us in Human Capital Services attended a yellow belt training, part of the Lean Six Sigma methodology used to improve business processes. During this training we learned how to think through our current processes and how to redesign/improve them. As a result, we streamlined and automated the hiring process for hourly and graduate students by enhancing HRIS template-based hire process by allowing department Human Capital Services liaisons to hire hourly and graduate students without completing paper documents.
The template allows us to use the data already entered to complete the hire document and prefill other important documents with the employee's name, social security number, etc. We sped up the process by saving two minutes per hire. We hire 4,000 new students per year so the time savings adds up and is distributed across the university.
We established the HCS Transaction Call Center in 2015. The call center has been a great resource for department liaisons when a rapid response is required for basic questions. The Call Center is available by phone at 785-532-1888 or online by visiting the Chat Service on the HCS department liaison website.
What are your goals for improving employment at K-State?
When I was hired in what was then Human Resources, everything was done by hand. To hire an employee, we completed large data processing cards and sent them to the processing center to be keyed into the main frame. Now I'm in a position where I can help make the process of hiring and paying employees more automated and help make the department HSC liaisons' jobs easier. It is challenging and interesting work.
How will what you are doing help K-State employees?
Right now, our team and the HCS department liaisons are completing paper transactions and manually entering data online to hire university support staff and unclassified employees. In many cases, the paperwork has to be mailed or in some cases hand-delivered to HCS, which adds time to the process. My team is working closely with the HCS Talent Acquisition team to automate the hiring process for these individuals. Our goal is to hire employees quicker so they have needed resources available to them their first day at work without paper documents zigzagging across campus.
To assist HCS department liaisons complete required forms and transactions, we conducted regular Form I-9 training sessions as well as payroll funding training sessions throughout the year.
What keeps you up at night?
There is so much to do. There are so many ongoing projects and so much that we want to improve. I want it to take place tomorrow but it takes time to implement needed enhancements. For the most part, I sleep pretty well at night because I have a wonderful team and they are very devoted. I couldn't ask for a better team — they support me 100 percent and they work well together. They are awesome.