CASE-STUDY OF THE HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN IMPLEMENTING THE UNIVERSITY MISSION Svetlana Togoeva, Tver State University The following case-study is aimed to analyze the human resource (HR) management at the University of Wyoming (UW), its policies and procedures. The data for the study was collected in October-November 2002 during the fellowship period in University Administration Support Program organized by IREX and funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The starting point for the analysis was to find out how the general goals of the University of Wyoming to educate its students, conduct research, provide service and outreach interwoven in its mission are reflected in the human resource management. The basic unit which is considered to be responsible for HR management is the HR Department at the UW, but actually there are also several units whose duties are to monitor HR management in terms of all the categories of UW employees. They are: Academic Affairs offices, Emp loyment practices office, Teaching and Learning center. The practicalities of UW personnel management are also manifested through structures which are not formal organizational units. Thus, the staff are encouraged to provide meaningful input in the development and operation of a progressive human resource system, they are involved in this process. And this is accomplished in several ways. First of all, there is a Staff Senate and Faculty Senate which are elected representative bodies to be recognized equally with faculty and student bodies as participants in advising the University administration; to be an active two-ways communication link for information exchange between staff, faculty and administration. My experience of attending the Senate meetings shows that open meetings are provided to express, debate and recommend actions on various issues including working and employment conditions and practices: compensation, benefits and grievances. There is also S.A.Y., which was created as the University of Wyoming s new Employee Suggestion Program that awards individuals or teams whose implemented innovations that benefit UW personnel management and community in general. General characteristics HR Department of UW in its strategy, policies and procedures is directly linked to practically all university departments and units, and this predetermines the main functions of the HR Department and its uniqueness as a unit which perhaps in the most visual way demonstrates the Wyoming culture . The analysis of the whole network of relationships HR Department has reveals the fact that HR management is not exactly concentrated in HR Department, though this is the unit absolutely responsible for HR management functions. In fact, all University administration structure and supervisorsubordinate work relationships in various ways reflect HR management practices at UW. Generally speaking the key function of the HR Department is staffing the University, that means to attract, retain and enhance the number one resource its human resources, and thus helping the University to implement its mission, particular goals and carry on all its activities. That determines HR management and the HR Department as strategically important for the University of Wyoming. The same should be considered as necessary approach to HR in Tver State University as well as any other educational institution.
First of all, it is worth mentioning that HR Department at UW administers approved by the Board of Trustees and the University Administration policies and procedures relating to staff employees. The analysis showed that these policies and procedures are structured and carried out so as to be consistent with University Regulations and satisfy the needs of all the staff. HR Department is also responsible for advertising, creating job positions, working out job descriptions, keeping track of salary and benefits for all the UW employees, faculty, administrators, academic professionals, students. The HR Department is headed by the Director who directly reports to the VicePresident for Administration and Finance. The work of the Department is evaluated through annual reports to: President, Vice-President for Administration, Vice-President for Budget and Planning and it is also open to the staff. In its daily activities HR Department has the closest links with: 1) Vice-President for Administration and Finance office, 2) Controller s office 3) Payroll office 4) Employment practices office, 5) Information Technology Division In certain periods HR Department works very closely with Budget and Planning Division, especially when salary and benefits decisions are made or new positions are created. The broad policies for the HR Department are to be approved by the Board of Trustees, such as new pay metrics which were changed in 1994, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2002. Particular procedures and new policies are normally produced by the HR Department and presented for debating at the administration and finance meetings. The important thing about the HR Departme nt practices is weekly meetings of the managers and monthly meetings of all the staff, where are issues concerning daily activities and upcoming changes are discussed with Director of the HR Department, that is unusual for the HR Department in my home University. The budget of the HR Department consists mostly of Section 1 money state appropriated money (90%), of 18 job positions in the HR Department 15 are Section 1 funded, and 3 Section 2. We can see that the total budget of HR Department grew insignificantly for the last 6 years, but the department managed to improve its performance and that is pointed out in the annual reports and audit reports as well. There is an increase in budget for personnel, but some decrease in the budget for support services. The personnel budget rise went parallel with overall UW salary increases and in the equivalent proportion. Table 1. HR Department annual budget Fiscal year Personnel Budget Support Budget
Total Budget
2003 2002 2001 1996
608,983.00 545,689.00 545,689.00 428,978.00
574,189.00 510,914.00 510,914.00 391,888.00
34,784.00 34,784.00 34,784.00 37,098.00
HR Turnover Rates in HR Department by Calendar Year are: 2002 - 44.4% 2001 - 11.1% 2000 - 22.0% 1999 - 38.9% 1998 33.9% 1997 - 27.8% 1996 - 33.3% The turnover figures are higher than the average for UW, and that can be explained first of all by the discrepancy between the workload and salary paid. At the same time though the turnover was substantially high, HR Department achieved considerable success in the face of severe personnel, equipment and budget limitations. And the most important success of HR Department is its staff, an attitude of teamwork, good internal as well as external communication are the main characteristics of work processes; people working in the unit are competent and helpful. It is very much resulted from the management style of HR Director Jim Pew. He is recognized within the university community as practical and flexible while maintaining standards, he is characterized as participant- manager . Structure and functions. The HR Department has several offices the responsibilities of which are related to assisting the University staff in solving workrelated issues, supplying information and promoting good employee-employee relations. The internal structure was changed in 1995 and 1996 to meet the new objectives and work plans, so now there are 5 offices: Record-keeping, Training and Professional Development, Employment, Classification/Compensation office, Benefits, Computer Analyst office, and 5 positions which act as Managers over these five major areas. Record-keeping office keeps and updates an official record of employment for all the UW employees including demographic, employment, salary, leave and other related information, in the form of a personnel file, Director of HR Department is the custodian of these files and is responsible for their safety and confidentiality. All new or rehired University staff employees are required to work for a probation period of 12 months, which is a period of learning, the employee and his/her immediate supervisor meet to evaluate his/her performance. Each year in January and February supervisors hold performance planning and performance appraisal meeting with each employee, and will establish qualitative and/or quantitative objectives for the coming year. Completed documentation is sent to the HR Department. Supervisors are evaluated by their administrative superiors, in part, on their performance appraisal and performance planning. The University of Wyoming has designed a personnel activity reporting system to comply with the Federal A-21 Guidelines. In conjunction with meeting the Federal and State audit requirements, all information is accumulated on a Fiscal Year basis to provide the president, Vice Presidents, Deans, and Department Heads detail for use in management of their units. The data is also being used by the University for its Management Information Data Bases, Space Allocation Studies, Sponsored Programs Reporting, and Indirect Cost Study.
This is different from the University of Tver, where only the Faculty have 12 month period after which the person is either fired or is elected to have 5 year work contract. There are no systematic appraisal meetings and staff management, in general, lacks effectiveness in planning and controlling the results. The offices and HR people at UW are involved very much into staff instructing and educating process and that is completely different from the HR Department at Tver University. As a rule, HR departments at Russian universities perform only recordkeeping, handle some of the compensation information. No training for staff actually is being carried out, the learning period for staff and managers goes mostly on their own. So the most interesting thing was to analyze the work of the HR Department of UW in this direction. These activities are organized by the Training and Professional Development office, but HR managers of other offices teach in the workshops. Table 2. Dynamics of training activities Year 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
# of workshops # of people attended # of staff attended # of faculty attended 67 53 45 42 40 32 26
2449 1878 2986 2655 3964 3759 2645
1635 1344 2484 1919 2624 2279 1520
33 24 33 203 388 425 306
In the last few years the topics changed according to the changing laws and needs of the UW community, the shifts are presented in the table below. The range of issues is very wide, there are: general topic workshops, such as Defensive driving, Drug- free workplace, Environmental health and safety; connected to labor laws; management issues oriented; work evaluation workshops. Table 3. Dynamics of major topics of HR Department workshops Topics
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
PC technology Internet Sexual harassment General Compensation Benefits Management issues Performance appraisal New employee orientation Retirement
++ ++ ----+ + ----+ + + -----
++ ++ + + + + + + + +
++ ++ + + + + ++ + + +
++ ++ + + ++ + + + + +
+ + ++ + ++ + ++ + + +
+ + + + + + + + + +
+ + + + + + + + + +
The Employment office performs centralized automated selection process functions supporting teaching, research and service functions of the UW and performs employment verification process for UW employees. It also provides centralized automated selection process for student employment. All employees of the University appointed to staff positions are designated as exempt or non-exempt employees, according to the criteria established by the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Employment office is also responsible for advertising, creating job positions, working out job descriptions, keeping track of salary and benefits for all the UW employees, faculty, administrators, academic professionals, students. The dynamics of changes in each category of the UW employees is presented in Table 4. Table 4 Employment dynamics Fiscal yr 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Administrators Faculty Academic Professionals Staff Admin.Professionals 99 99 103 105 99
641 632 622 616 608
390 395 392 389 428
1519 1513 1500 1489 1482
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The HR Computer Analyst office is responsible for controlling and managing the automated data processing functions of the HR Department including the design, implementation and maintenance of computer systems. In fact, this office supports all other offices of HR Department as it handles all the information and data bases. It works in close collaboration with Information Technology Division. Total compensation is understood as salary + overtime + bonus (that kind of incentive compensation they don t have it at the UW now) + bene fits. The starting rate of pay for staff employees is based on the position s classification and grade in the UW Classification/Compensation Plans, as well as other factors such as experience and special skills and abilities. All staff performing satisfactory level or above and being employed for at least 6 months and not on disciplinary action may be eligible for salary increases pursuant to Trustees actions. In Russian universities too much still depends on supervisors at-will actions and decisions as to the salary raises and one-time money bonuses. Table 5 presents data for 1999-2003 fiscal years as to the salary and benefits dynamics in UW budget in general (in millions $). It shows a perspective considerable increase for the coming year. We can also see that benefits constitute about one fourth of the salary figure, and the percentage of benefits in the total budget is about 20%, which makes it a substantially big incentive for attracting and retaining UW employees.
Table 5 Salary and benefits dynamics in UW budget Fiscal Year
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
Full- time salaries Part-time salaries Benefits
74.7 8.4 23
77.4 9.3 22.5
83.5 9.2 23.4
82.6 9.4 22.6
92.7 11.4 28.0
There are average salary figures for 6 categories of UW employees in Table 6, which give view of the dynamics through 4 years and also a comparison in-between the categories, this gives us a picture of 1) a definite stability in terms of the categories ratio, 2) a difference between categories which comprises from about $15000 (between A and B), to $53000 (between A and D). A new category of UW employees was created through the year 2002 administrative professional which resulted from a certain shift in responsibilities and job descriptions respectively. Table 5. Salary dynamics Fiscal yr Administrators Faculty 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
67183.84 69692.72 73276.62 78245.71 81715.71
58286.52 60180.52 61876.92 67348.26 67756.44
Academic Professionals Staff Admin. Professionals 34528.96 35484.04 36931.45 40173.42 40526.49
22947.94 23982.71 25202.35 27253.54 27486.18
----------------54690.60
Other offices involved directly in HR management include the Academic Affairs office and Employment Practices office. The Employment Practices office, which is to control employment UW practices consistency with the laws. The Employment Practices Office is part of the Office of the President. This office is responsible for ensuring institutional compliance with federal and state regulations and policies concerning equal opportunity and affirmative action. It also administers the university s complaint process, including staff emplo yment disputes and staff appeals of discipline and/or termination, as well as coordinating the civil rights complaint procedure. The Employment Practices office in collaboration with HR Department provides seminars on a variety of topics, including discrimination, sexual harassment, affirmative action and conflict resolution. In cooperation with the Human Resources Office, it provides specialized workshops to the university community, such as preventing sexual harassment, civil rights protections, conflict resolution, complaint processes, EEO/AA policies and principles. The Academic affairs offices provide record-keeping, evaluation and promotion for the faculty members. Full- time Faculty Appointments Faculty members are appointed by the Trustees. Recommendations for such appointments are initiated by the head of the unit in which the appointment occurs, and then forwarded through the appropriate academic officers, and after that forwarded to the President of UW who in his turn forwards the papers to the Trustees. Probationary period of tenure track faculty filling a
budgeted vacancy normally is for one academic year. Administrative and academic officers do not have tenure in their administrative positions and serve in such capacity at the pleasure of the President or the Trustees The conclusions that can be made as a result of the research carried out are as follows: State universities in both the USA and Russia are confronted with tighter budgets brought about by shifts in government (federal, state and local levels) funding priorities and by tax levy limits. This occurs simultaneously with increasing demands for efficiency and changing demographic situation. At the University of Wyoming the HR Department is really considered to be a strategic partner in the university administration, but not as record-keepers and it acts accordingly, its range of responsibilities and functions is very wide. The key characteristics of the personnel management in the University of Wyoming is to trust the subordinates and delegate the authority depending on their skills and knowledge and clear understanding that the management practices must satisfy the University mission. As a result of the analysis carried out we may say that the key to the viability of a higher educational institution in a very changeable market conditions is well-trained and flexible employees. It is necessary for my home University to start changing management practices based on negative stereotypes and adopt new positive and efficiency-oriented lines. It seems to be the most important things that should be done at my home university are: 1. with the help of American experts to work out a permanent in-plant management training system for administrators, faculty and staff 2. to use the US University experience to elaborate an new compensation system, including benefits for the University employees, to motivate administrators, faculty and staff to work effectively and to participate in fund-raising activities. 3. to set up alumni association to grow loyalty to the University and to be a partner in fund-raising for educational purposes 4. to work out a fund-raising activities plan to support the University mission implementation involving the University employees, students and alumni.