University Business - January 2007 - (Page 24)

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In this situation, HR can’t hire the right faculty without knowing what skills employers need from their workforce. Better teachers lead to stronger curthrough the front door each and every time. Sometimes, you may need to crawl through an open window. She explains that HR must prove itself by delivering on the small stuff before expecting to handle large tasks or projects. Either way, it’s important for HR leaders to develop a problem-solving attitude, an attitude of “we can deliver.” The more confident they become, the more credibility the department will earn, and the sooner top management will look to HR for answers, Carrier notes. GREATER EFFICIENCY Back in 2005, the university launched a huge strategic positioning exercise. It melded six existing colleges into three. The school’s executives hoped that the reorganization would strengthen its programs and interdisciplinary work and achieve a greater level of efficiency. The process lasted roughly two years with HR at the helm. Instead of sitting back and focusing on layoffs, she says HR set up a strategy group that accomplished a variety of tasks. It formed one culture from six, created a communication plan for affected employees, hired new administrative leaders and developed a professional development and coaching program for them, connected with senior administrators who oversaw the operations of these colleges, and gave a presentation on the new structure to the Board of Regents. Whatever the task, Carrier says the alignment between HR and achievement of goals must be crystal clear. HR managers of each division must be familiar with their school’s goals, determine how they can help their institution move forward with these goals in mind, and prioritize their own activities according to the president and Board of Regents’ work plan. “We feel that we are involved in helping the institution pursue these critical initiatives because of this kind of approach,” says Carrier. “If [senior officers] feel you’ve been able to deliver on something that was really important, the next really important thing that’s on the table, they’re going to say, ‘What can you do now?’ ” make changes, employees understand. It makes the process as we go forward much more collaborative,” New says. ACROSS BORDERS There are many different ways to go about understanding the business of higher education at your school. One small college designed HR to be an integral component throughout the school. There is no segregation—HR’s fingers touch every function or department. “We take a unique approach that may not fit a traditional university,” says Maurine Findley, executive vice president at Neumont University Utah , who oversees HR and a number of other areas, including finance, student services, and operations. The college offers two degrees—an MBA and a B.S. in computer sciences—to its 290 students. But even if the college achieved its planned growth—supporting multiple campuses—Findley says HR would still assume a broad role. Take career services as an example. At many schools, this is a completely separate department from HR. But not at Neumont. One of the school’s goals is to increase student enrollment by between 10 and 15 percent each year. On the employer side, demand is high for techies. More than 90 percent of its graduates are typically placed in jobs. However, interest in computer science at the high school level has been dropping. So HR crosses a border and gets directly involved with career services. Together, they routinely survey employers about the school’s graduates. Was their résumé representative of their knowledge and job skills? Do they possess the right skills to perform their job? Likewise, graduates are surveyed about what else the college could have done to prepare them for their position. All responses are shared with other institutional departments. This process not only helps HR learn the business side of education, but enables the college to fill in any gaps, making their school more appealing to Develop a “we can deliver” attitude to earn the HR department more credibility. riculum, enhanced learning, and a higher rate of quality placements, which ultimately boost student enrollment. Still, this approach can be difficult for large universities. While common practices at big schools include talking with deans and officers about competitive pressures, HR should also consider attending Board of Regents meetings to learn about administration issues and market factors that are driving their business, says Carol Carrier, vice president of HR at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, which employs approximately 17,000 full-time staff and enrolls roughly 60,000 students. Other options: Get involved in projects or on committees working on key initiatives. Carrier says HR leaders must go beyond their own little walls and capitalize on such opportunities as well as help managers, department heads, or supervisors better understand what the HR department can bring to the table that will be useful. “One of the things that I sometimes hear is that [HR] people don’t feel that they get invited in until there are particular problem situations, which are at a desperate level,” says Carrier. “That’s what I hear a lot—‘We’re not brought in early enough.’ One has got to find out what are the doors that are available.” Bu t you may not be able to walk 24 | January 2007 universitybusiness.com HR107.indd 24 12/15/06 11:26:35 AM Warning : Unknown : The session id contains invalid characters, valid characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in Unknown on line 0 Warning : Unknown : Failed to write session data files . Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct /var/lib/php/session in Unknown on line 0 http://universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - January 2007

Contents
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Editor's Note
Sense of Place
Stats Watch
People Watch
Viewpoint
Human Resources
Money Matters
Marketing
Financial Aid
Community Colleges
Missed Connections
Escuse Me: Can you Spare a Million?
The Associate
Media Relations Boot Camp
Admissions Administrators Speak Out
Business Technology
What's New
Calendar of Events
Direct Connect
End Note

University Business - January 2007