People First Update to Faculty and Staff

Provost Barbara Bichelmeyer shared the following update with KU faculty and staff on October 11, 2023.

Dear Colleague,

Thank you! Thank you for everything you do to support the success of our students and our vision to be an exceptional learning community that lifts each member and advances society.

While you work to support our students and our institution, our faculty and staff job satisfaction surveys show you don’t always feel valued and supported yourself. As an institution, we need to do better — in both tangible and intangible ways — to recognize, appreciate and reward your efforts. We are working to improve, and that starts with ensuring we have the HR practices, organizational structure and resources needed to best support all KU employees.

In December 2022, we announced that we were starting an initiative to transform HR services for the Lawrence and Edwards campuses. In June, we announced the formal launch of the People First initiative as part of our broader efforts to transform our human resources functions. Since then, the People First working group and steering committee have made significant progress toward our project goals. As part of our commitment to provide regular updates and transparency during this process, I am sharing some of the preliminary findings and recommendations. There are many decisions and details still to be finalized.

What is the Goal?

The goal of the People First initiative is to create an HR organization that is strategically comprehensive, customer service-focused, operationally efficient and benchmarked to best practices. We are committed to investing the resources needed to fully support the strategic, consultative and administrative HR needs of the university.

Both the working group and the steering committee have recommended adopting a best-practice model used at universities similar to KU. The proposed structure includes embedded HR Partners, strategic Centers of Excellence and a transactional People Support Center.

The Model

Under the proposed model, HR services, teams and resources will be structured in three primary areas: strategic, consultative and administrative.

 
The People First working group is currently developing the details underneath each of these primary areas to guide the re-structuring of the HR SSC and HRM functions that support the Lawrence and Edwards campuses.

HR Partners

The model features HR Partners who understand and support the unique needs of individual academic and administrative units. HR Partners assigned to each unit will report both to the central HR organization and to the dean or designated unit leader. These HR Partners will provide strategic consultation to unit leaders and be the initial and primary HR contact for unit employees.

Centers of Excellence

Functional specialists within the central human resources organization will provide in-depth support to HR Partners and employees to help resolve complex matters and develop training materials, strategic advancement tools, systems and resources. These specialists will be aligned in Centers of Excellence, including talent acquisition, learning and organizational effectiveness, total rewards (i.e., benefits and compensation) and employee relations.

People Support Center

Most of the transactional work previously done by the SSCs will be the responsibility of the new People Support Center, which will focus on helping employees with general HR questions, initial employee onboarding paperwork, position maintenance, timekeeping, etc.

Merging Teams

In the past year, we realigned our Shared Service Centers from four SSCs serving both HR and Finance functions into two SSCs — one focused on HR and one on Finance. As part of the People First initiative, the HR SSC and central Human Resource Management will be combined and re-created into a new HR organization that includes the HR Partners, Centers of Excellence, the People Support Center and administrative functions that support the HR organization. A People First subcommittee is currently evaluating the appropriate alignment of each center and refining roles and responsibilities that will be housed within each center.

What’s Next?

As we move forward, the working group and the steering committee will continue to refine the model and we will share more details about implementation plans and timelines. Throughout the change process, our staff in HRM and the HR SSC will continue to work diligently to provide high levels of service to support all our employees and achieve our goals.

To learn more about the initiative and timeline, provide feedback and stay up to date on progress, visit the KU People First website. In addition to posting on the website, we will continue to share project updates through email and in KU Today.

As we engage in innovations to better serve our faculty and staff, we thank you for all you do for KU.

Respectfully,

Barb

Barbara A.  Bichelmeyer
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor