Good afternoon,
I hope you all have had a smooth transition back to work after the holiday break. In our first update email of 2020, I want to take the opportunity to thank you all for the incredible support you have shown Operational Excellence over the past year and highlight some of our accomplishments from 2019.
When we kicked this initiative off in the fall of 2018 with our listening tour, we focused first on identifying opportunities for operational improvement that were important to people across campus. Then, with your help, we came together in groups to design, test and implement solutions that have already made a tangible difference throughout the University.
Early Impact – Hiring: Since the beginning of 2019, 977 SHRA hiring events have occurred with an average time of 46 days from offer posted to acceptance (down from 76), and 255 EHRA-NF hiring events have occurred with an average time of 65 days (down from 110). 95% of hiring managers surveyed reported that they got their top choice candidate.
Early Impact – Procurement: 89% of small-dollar transactions across the University in the most recent month were processed using one of the preferred payment methods, compared to only 65% in July 2019. Both Early Impact initiatives have been fully rolled out across campus.
Travel & Expense: travel.unc.edu launched at the beginning of September to assist faculty and staff with pre-travel and post-travel planning, policy and reimbursement.
Student Employment: studentwork.unc.edu launched at the beginning of October to give Carolina’s 12,000+ students employees and their supervisors and hiring managers a “one-stop-shop” for useful information and resources.
Research: Playbooks for Federal, Nonprofit and Industry award setup (clinical and non-clinical) were piloted across 11 units and will be rolled out with a new engagement model across campus next month.
Data Use & Literacy: The design team is currently developing a salary dashboard and literacy program as a use case for other campus data projects as well as a “one-stop-shop” website for official University dashboards.
Student Registration: The design team is currently working to create a more equitable, transparent and easily navigable registration process to reduce conflicts and enhance student, faculty, and staff success.
Resources from these initiatives can be found on Resources page of our website and on our new resource card.
Additionally, last September marked one year of Operational Excellence. We came together not only to celebrate the progress that had been made on the goals at that point, but also to recognize the people from our Carolina community who made it happen. The inaugural Operational Excellence Award was given to staff members who demonstrated excellence in the areas of improvement, collaboration and leadership while working with OE. Congratulations again to Rich Arnold, Dani Burns, Sara Reese and John Medlin.
To date, we have engaged more than 500 Carolina faculty and staff from across campus. Whether you have been on a design team, led a training, used a solution, given feedback, or stay up to date with this email each week, thank you for being a part of Operational Excellence. We couldn’t do this without you.
To learn more about working with Operational Excellence and what we achieved together in 2019, you can read the 2018-19 Annual Report, watch our video, find us in the news and visit our website. I look forward to continuing to update you on our progress. If you have any questions, please reach out to me at wernoski@email.unc.edu. I read every email.
Best,
Rick