The campus community will get a chance to learn more and share ideas about the HR Design Project at several events scheduled for this month. Here are the details:

Campus Engagement #14: Wednesday, May 16
Health Sciences Learning Center, Room 1306
11 p.m.–12:30 a.m.
Feedback to Phase 2 Work Teams
Offered in English and Spanish

Campus Engagement #15: Thursday, May 17
Union South, Marquee Theater
1:30–3:30 p.m.
Feedback to Phase 2 Work Teams
Offered in English, Tibetan and Hmong

Campus Engagement #16: Tuesday, May 22
Memorial Union, Great Hall
9–11 a.m.
Feedback to Phase 2 Work Teams
Offered in English and Spanish

Campus Engagement #17: Tuesday, May 22
Memorial Union, Class of 1924 Reception Room
11 p.m.–12:30 a.m.
Feedback to Phase 2 Work Teams
Offered in English, Tibetan and Hmong

A campus engagement event is set today from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. to gather feedback on preliminary recommendations to redesign UW-Madison’s personnel system. The event will be held in room 1306 of the Health Sciences Learning Center.

Comments from Vice Chancellor for Administration Darrell Bazzell and an opening presentation about draft recommendations from teams working on phase 1 of the HR Design project will be live streamed on the Web from 1:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. The live stream of the video can be viewed at http://live.videos.med.wisc.edu/ when the event begins. Click on the title “HR Design: Campus Engagement # 10″ to view.

UPDATE: Video of the introduction can be viewed by clicking here.

More than 300 UW–Madison employees this morning attended an HR Design engagement event at Union South.

The event was designed to inform employees about the phase 1 work team preliminary draft recommendations, and gather feedback as the teams refine their recommendations into the final drafts due in May.

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The transcript for a web chat on the phase 1 draft recommendations for the Employee Categories, Benefits, Diverse Workforce and Recruit and Assessment teams can be found here.

The second chat focused on the draft recommendations from the Compensation, Competencies and Titling work teams. View the chat here.

A compensation system that is more driven by market and performance factors, a more flexible hiring system, realigning vacation and sick leave into a single system, and redefining the academic staff employee category are among the first draft recommendations from the teams working on the HR Design project.

The project structure includes 11 work teams – seven in phase 1 and four in phase 2. The work teams are composed of more than 150 employees and include representatives from governance and employee groups, the HR community, and students.

The seven phase 1 teams today released their initial draft recommendations for improving the campus personnel system.

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UW–Madison’s director of human resources, Bob Lavigna, sent a message this week to employees regarding the progress of the HR Design project. In the message, Lavigna says that preliminary recommendations from seven of the project’s work teams will be released on April 9, and that multiple campus engagement events are planned to gather campus feedback on the initial recommendations. (See the message translated into Hmong, Tibetan and Spanish.)

“I want to be clear that these preliminary recommendations are the initial products of the work teams,” Lavigna says. “The recommendations are therefore not final;  there will be time and opportunities for the entire campus to discuss and provide feedback. Although our timeline to finalize the recommendations is tight, we are far from finished.”
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Two web chats are scheduled for April to gather reaction and answer questions about initial recommendations made by HR Design work teams. The draft recommendations will be released April 9.

These hour-long web chats are scheduled to start at 10 a.m. on April 11 and 1:30 p.m. on April 12. (Click on the dates to participate in the chats.) Users can log on to the chats while they’re live, ask questions or simply watch. Full transcripts are also available immediately afterward.

The topic of the first chat will be the recommendations from the teams that focused on employee categories, benefits, recruitment and assessment, and diverse workforce.

The second day’s chat will cover the recommendations of the compensation, competencies and job titles work teams.

A statement from Darrell Bazzell, University of Wisconsin-Madison vice chancellor for administration, regarding meetings of the HR Design project:

“The historic opportunity to redesign UW-Madison’s personnel system is an inclusive process that has been open to members of our campus community right from the beginning.

“This project is organized into an advisory committee and 11 work teams that represent stakeholders from across the campus, including faculty and staff, labor organizations and students. This diversity is allowing a wide range of perspectives to be represented. More than 150 members of the campus community are on these work teams, drafting initial recommendations to reform our personnel system. Part of their responsibility is to share information about the teams’ progress with their constituent groups.

“It has been the policy of the advisory committee and 11 work teams involved in the HR Design project to allow visitors to attend meetings. To our knowledge, no one who has asked to attend has been turned away.

“Although we stand by our position that these meetings involving members of the campus community do not trigger the open meetings law, I want to make it clear that going forward any interested person is welcome to attend all meetings of the advisory committee and work teams. In addition, we will make sure that the campus community is aware that the meetings are taking place.”

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Campus feedback is being sought in the HR Design project, as work teams look to firm up recommendations for revamping the university’s human resources structure.

A survey will be available on the project Web site until Monday asking many questions about how to best organize the campus’ HR system. The survey questions are the same questions asked at two engagement events this week. The first event, held Tuesday, drew about 135 individuals to Union South. The next event is Thursday at 9 a.m. at Carson Gulley.

See notes from Tuesday’s event.

See notes from Thursday’s event.

See PowerPoint slides from the event.

University of Wisconsin–Madison Vice Chancellor Darrell Bazzell said this week that the chance to reshape the university’s human resources  system doesn’t come along frequently.

“The ability to design a new human resources structure is one of the prizes that came out of the last budget process,” Bazzell told the UW System Board of Regents Thursday.

“We need to make sure we get it right. This opportunity doesn’t come along often.”