Good afternoon,
We held the September Steering Committee yesterday. During the meeting we shared updates on two new areas the Operational Excellence team plans to explore in Academic Year 2019 – 2020: Data Access and Use and Registrar Process Improvement. With the Steering Committee’s feedback and guidance, we’ll continue to refine the scope of focus and inquiry for future design teams and share updates.
We are also continuing to work on the Student Employment Website and Research Design initiatives.
More specifically:
- The HR Design Team is putting final touches on the new student employment website and we plan to launch it shortly.
- The Research Team finished and is piloting the nonprofit playbook while continuing to finalize the industry playbook. The team is also expanding the federal and nonprofit playbooks to include additional information on clinical trials while creating a standalone industry clinical trials playbook to address feedback received in the design team process.
- The Travel & Expense Team has sent a survey to design team members to gain feedback and insights on their experiences now that the work is complete.
In addition, the Hiring and Procurement Early Impact work continues to be rolled out to the final cohort. Progress in hiring is still strong; as of September 16th, the University has hired over 600 SHRA and EHRA-NF employees since the project started. The time to hire these employees has been reduced from an average of 82 days to 46 days. This number is now slightly above the 45-day target as a result of the closure of some senior EHRA-NF positions. In procurement, nearly 89% of all purchases are now completed using the preferred purchasing method. These results are impressive, and we want to ensure progress continues in the year ahead.
Finally, I want to highlight the video for the one-year Anniversary, which shows the impact of Operational Excellence being felt across campus. The success in year one is a result of a collaborative effort across schools, units and central administration. It’s not been one individual, or one-leader but a combined and sustained effort that has led to the success of Operational Excellence. Thanks to Shayna Hill, Noreen Montgomery, Dani Burns, Michael Vollmer, Martina Ballen, Dean Fouad Abd-El-Khalick for their participation and Aaron Moger for his support to create this video.
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