Good afternoon –
I’m pleased to announce the launch of the new Travel and Expenses site, travel.unc.edu. As you may know, this site launch is the culmination of many weeks of work, starting with a policy review to clarify and consolidate existing travel policies. The new site contains several new resources to improve the user experience for campus travelers, including a Quick Reference Guide, Traveler Checklist, and Frequently Asked Questions page. A special thank you to the Travel & Expense design team members and the Finance & Operations communications and web teams for your fantastic work to create this site! Travel Services within Finance & Operations will continue to manage the website and resources as Operational Excellence wraps up our involvement with this initiative.
I’m also pleased to announce in this email the winners of the inaugural Operational Excellence Award, which recognizes the outstanding contributions by a staff member to the advancement of Operational Excellence’s mission and goals. We initially had planned to present this award to one person, but with so many high-quality submissions and deserving individuals, we ultimately decided to give an award for each of the three categories for which we solicited nominations: improvement, collaboration and leadership.
(Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill)
This year’s winners are:
- John Medlin, Senior Purchasing Agent, Procurement Services Operations
OE Involvement: Early Impact – Procurement
Award: Operational Excellence Award for Leadership (“building and leading enthusiastic and skillful teams and/or championing innovative initiatives”) - Dani Burns, Budget Analyst, School of Medicine
OE Involvement: Research Design Team
Award: Operational Excellence Award for Collaboration (“establishing partnerships and contributing to an environment to effectively solve problems by sharing knowledge, ideas and solutions”) - Rich Arnold, Senior Director, HR Information Management
OE Involvement: Early Impact – Hiring
Award: Operational Excellence Award for Improvement (“advancing continuous improvement in administrative operations through the design or implementation of tools, processes and services”) - Sara Reese, Senior Talent Acquisition Partner, OHR
OE Involvement: Early Impact – Hiring
Award: Operational Excellence Award for Leadership (“building and leading enthusiastic and skillful teams and/or championing innovative initiatives”)
Congratulations and thank you to this year’s winners! As always, please feel free to share this email with your colleagues. You can also visit our website to learn more about Operational Excellence, read my previous updates, and submit feedback. If you have any questions, please reach out to me at wernoski@email.unc.edu. I read every email.
Best,
Rick