About VCU Human Resources

VCU Human Resources Lindsey House | 600 West Franklin Street hr.vcu.edu

About VCU Human Resources I.

Who we are a. How our everyday work aligns with VCU’s strategic goals b. Our university partnerships

II.

How we are organized a. Benefits b. Communications c. Consultation d. Compensation e. Compliance f. Employee Health g. Employee Relations h. Operations i. Learning and Development j. HR Information Systems

III.

Major projects a. The Great Place: HR Redesign b. Compensation c. Fair Labor Standards Act d. VCU RealTime e. Affordable Care Act f. Communications g. Welcome Center h. Professional development portal i. Rewards and recognition j. Wellness and work/life balance

Who we Are VCU Human Resources provides leadership and services to recruit, retain and develop an exceptional and diverse workforce that supports education, research, patient care and community service. A theme in VCU’s Quest for Distinction strategic plan is about becoming a leader among national research universities; one of the two goals that support this theme is the recruitment and retention of progressive and diverse faculty, staff and senior leadership.

To that end, VCU Human Resources serves as a strategic partner to departments throughout the university. We guide and support human investment in academic areas dedicated to strengthening their national presence as well as areas that focus on urban development. We also support investments and activities for faculty and staff that value institutional goals of diversity, excellence and continuous improvement. These strategic university goals cascade from VCU’s strategic plan to each employee in Human Resources and are reflected in our everyday work.

Our everyday work • • • • •

Recruitment and retention of progressively diverse faculty, staff and senior leadership with the skills and talents to advance quality teaching and learning, along with high-impact research, scholarship and creative expression Enhance our role as a strategic partner within the university Improve employee retention and relations by supporting efforts that promote VCU as a great place to work Support the professional, career and leadership development of faculty and staff Manage a competitive compensation structure based on market salary data

Our strategic university partnerships • •

• •

•

Equity and Access Services: VCU Human Resources coordinates Title IX compliance for employees to ensure an inclusive and supportive environment.

Faculty Recruitment and Retention: Many Human Resources initiatives impact faculty as well as staff. We partner and support the Office of Faculty Recruitment and Retention with technology, New Faculty Orientation, benefits, salary infrastructure, and training opportunities for faculty.

The Great Place: HR Redesign: Our team is working with the HR Redesign team to develop compensation structures, career pathways, performance management plans, and leave systems.

Integrity and Compliance: We often guide the development and changes that occur during VCU policy making. Some of our employment policies are guided by federal and state law, while others require thoughtful input to maintain compliance and stay focused on our mission.

Technology Services: HR Information Systems impact every department at VCU. In addition to ongoing maintenance and support, we are often involved in strategic university technology systems purchases and integrations.

• •

•

•

Threat Assessment: Our team works with VCU Police, Employee Health and other departments to maintain a response plan for potential violence in the workplace.

Learning: Our Learning and Development team meets with learning professionals from across the university (technology, grants, libraries, police, etc.) to maintain a central location for all faculty and staff to access for training or professional development opportunities.

VCU and VCU Health Boards: We regularly keep both boards updated regarding new and upcoming legislation (e.g., the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Affordable Care Act, etc.) as well as VCU policies that may have significant impact on VCU operations.

VCU Qatar: VCU Human Resources provides support for our Qatar campus and its employees. This includes benefits, employment, performance management, retirement and other employment-related issues.

 How we are Organized VCU Human Resources is comprised of several departments that work together as well as serve as liaisons to university leadership, HR departmental administrators, timekeepers, managers and supervisors, faculty, and staff throughout the university.

With nearly 50 fulltime employees, (see the HR organizational chart online) our staff works closely with more than 250 personnel administrators in various university departments. Our relationship and communication with Personnel administrators (PAs) is essential to the success of our recruitment and retention efforts at VCU. •

•

•

Benefits: Manages and assists VCU employees with healthcare, insurance and retirement planning benefits. Provides guidance and leadership to managers and administrators throughout the university. While administering more than 6,000 health plans for VCU employees and several retirement plans, each with thousands of participants, the Benefits team is always looking for ways to improve their outreach to VCU faculty and staff. As a convenience to faculty and staff, they developed online tools to help with this year’s health plan open enrollment. The online tools were utilized nearly seven times more than in-person information sessions.

Communications: Supports all departments within Human Resources by developing and distributing information through multiple media platforms including internal, mass email, print, web and social media. Maintains HR web presence, which is currently undergoing a complete redesign.

Consultation: Serves as the main point of contact for hiring managers in individual departments, reviews and approves all compensation transactions, manages layoff process, provides benefits orientation to administrative and professional faculty, provides guidance on changes in state and federal

•

• •

•

•

•

•

regulations. Provides feedback on organizational structure and design.

Consultants provided one-on-one orientation to more than 250 faculty members and review hiring proposals for nearly 550 classified positions each year.

Compensation: Provides career path development, compensation structure development, compensation policy, employee classification reviews and market pricing. The Compensation team is currently reviewing data to help departments with Fair Labor Standard Act compliance. In addition, they are developing job classifications and career pathways for VCU’s HR Redesign.

Compliance: Manages background checks and I-9 process; monitors hours worked for ACA compliance.

Employee Health: Responsible for VCU’s and VCU Health’s pre-placement programs and testing-for-cause drug programs. Provides consultation regarding FMLA, ADA and employee relations issues, training on safety and injury prevention, and treatment for occupational injuries.

Employee Relations: Provides guidance for performance management, conflict resolution, workers’ compensation, employee service and recognition awards and events, and work/life and wellness resources. The Employee Relations team has a 95 percent track record of returning injured workers to their pre-injury job within the fiscal year. This team coordinates the university’s service awards program which recognizes more than 600 VCU and VCU Health employees at an annual awards ceremony.

Operations: Maintains employee personnel records which include benefits, leave and payroll information. Ensures VCU employees are paid on time and maintains accurate leave balances. Operation staff process more than 44,000 employee transactions each year, and average of nearly 170 each working day.

These include keying employee data, leave adjustments, personnel actions, and employment verifications.

Learning and Development: Provides university-wide HR training and organizational development activities as well as customized departmental consultation and professional development. Performs New Employee Orientation, VCU RealTime (timekeeping management) training, financial fitness workshops, retirement planning and more. The Learning and Development team offers approximately 25 New Employee Orientation sessions a year in addition to various other trainings that reach nearly 4,000 VCU employees. With a full-time staff of three, they average a training session every day of the year.

Information Systems: Maintains, utilizes, and develops metrics for recruitment, payroll, employee information, timekeeping, documentation and reporting information systems. Provides project management and support to all other areas of HR. HRIS runs reports and supports processes that maintain VCU’s compliance with state and federal labor laws.

VCU’s workforce relies on reliable technology systems and a team of experts to support them for recruitment, retention, payroll and operations. The Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) team maintains and helps departments utilize the following HR systems that keep VCU running smoothly:

o eJobs: Online recruitment and compensation system for staff and faculty o Banner: Comprehensive system that contains student, financial, faculty, staff and alumni information o RealTime: Timekeeping management system o ImageNow: Digital personnel record keeping and routing system o HireRight: Online background check and I-9 tools o PMIS: Personnel Management Information System managed by the Virginia Department of Human Resource Management

 Major Projects The HR Redesign

VCU is redesigning its human resources structure in an effort to support the university’s Quest for Distinction strategic plan goal to recruit and retain a progressive and diverse faculty, staff and senior leadership with the skills and talents to advance quality teaching and learning, high-impact research, scholarship and creative expression. The Great Place: HR Redesign is also a direct response to a 2013 faculty and staff survey that determined the need for a more modern HR system. Unlike the current state system, which is based on a civil service model, the new design will focus more on our employees and their career opportunities. Our plan is to keep what we appreciate about public employment (retirement, health benefits, due process, etc.) while making needed improvements to the processes that support a large research institution like VCU (career development, market and merit-based pay, promotional opportunities, etc.).

VCU has the autonomy to redesign its HR system through Virginia’s Restructured Higher Education Financial and Administrative Operations Act of 2005 (Restructuring Act), which provides public colleges and universities with more operational and administrative independence.

There is a team leading the redesign and working closely with VCU Human Resources on compensation, the creation of job families, rewards and recognition, career pathing and career development, mentoring, and networking. In addition to a senior advisor, the HR Redesign team is made up of a project manager and several program managers that support leadership and development, performance management, and career development. While President Michael Rao and members of his cabinet are executive sponsors for the initiative, they are collaborating and making decisions based on feedback from an advisory committee, which represents and seeks input from five subcommittees: Performance Management, Career Development, Leadership and Management Development, Policy, and HR Partners.

VCU’s classified staff will have an opportunity to enroll in the new HR plan in January 2018. Classified employees hired after July 1, 2016 will be automatically enrolled in the

new plan in January 2018. The Great Place: HR Redesign website was launched in June 2016 and a formal communications plan that shares regular progress about the project is complete. More information about the HR Redesign, including its governance structure, can be found at greatplace.vcu.edu.

 Compensation Project The Compensation team is busy developing a classification system and a market-based compensation structure for the HR Redesign. In addition to a salary structure, they are developing career pathways and compensation related policies. The classification system is currently in development for the university’s major functional areas. Once that is complete, this team will develop the market-based compensation structure for all areas as well as career pathing and associated policies.

This new system will be a decided shift for VCU. Unlike the current state system, the new structure will be broad and flexible so departments can manage their staff appropriately – through compensation, performance management, career development, and personal growth – and reward and retain them.

This team of compensation professionals is building on the Compensation Study performed in 2012-2014 which confirmed overall competitive pay at VCU. The Compensation team uses MarketPay, an online tool for creating and maintaining benchmark data, to review survey results, salary ranges, and employee data. This updated repository of internal and external salary data is a key support to our compensation plan. In addition, the Compensation team is reviewing data and working with departments impacted by recent changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act.

 Changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was enacted in 1938 to set the federal minimum wage and establish requirements for paying overtime. The FLSA created guidelines for determining which employees are subject to the provisions of the Act (FLSA nonexempt) and which employees are not (FLSA exempt). Any covered employee, referred to as a non-exempt employee, must be paid at a “time-and-a-half” rate for any hours worked over 40 hours in a work week. The FLSA provides exceptions from the regulations for certain jobs/employees who meet specific duties tests and the established salary threshold, such as teachers, lawyers and doctors.

In May 2016 in an effort to extend overtime rights to more workers, The U.S. Department of Labor raised the salary threshold from $23,660 ($455/week) to $47,476 ($913/week). This new rule means that some currently exempt employees will become non-exempt, be required to track their hours, and be eligible for overtime pay. The ruling will be effective December 1, 2016. VCU HR has identified which employees may be impacted and is working with department managers to customize plans for compliance.

FLSA may potentially impact more than 600 VCU employees, though we are confident that most departments will manage the change well and within the compliance period.

Information about FLSA as well as tools to support university timekeeping practices is available on the VCU Human Resources website. Coincidentally, VCU is currently implementing a new, online timekeeping management system (VCU RealTime), which supports our FLSA compliance efforts.

 VCU RealTime Timekeeping at VCU is currently in the midst of a long-needed upgrade. VCU RealTime allows non-exempt employees to log and monitor their hours and provides a means for exempt and non-exempt employees to submit leave requests electronically. Several divisions have been trained and successfully using RealTime since Fall 2015. The remainder of the university is scheduled to transition by August 31, 2016.

VCU RealTime is a flexible tool designed to support VCU’s compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act as well as its commitment to its staff. It ensures that staff are compensated appropriately and receive timely and accurate paychecks.

Timekeeping systems like VCU RealTime are an industry standard and offer several layers of quality control for record-keeping. Employees are responsible for accurately entering their time and leave; supervisors are responsible for reviewing/approving time and making sure it is entered accurately; and Human Resources is responsible for using the information to generate paychecks and maintain accurate leave balances for employees. Payroll also uses VCU RealTime to run reports that will alert supervisors and employees about inconsistencies and avoid incorrect paychecks.

 Affordable Care Act compliance Ensuring that full-time faculty and staff are offered healthcare under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) continues to be a priority for VCU. The Commonwealth of Virginia also administers policies and guidelines that help state agencies and state institutions of higher education maintain compliance with the ACA. This includes limitations on the number of hours an employee may work in a year and minimum separation requirements for employees going from full-time to part-time. VCU policy limits a wage employee’s or adjunct faculty member’s average weekly work hours to 29 and dictates an annual hourly limit of 1480.

In Spring 2016, the Virginia Department of Human Resource Management released a policy change stating that any full-time or quasi-full-time (30 hours or more) faculty member or classified staff at a state institution of higher education must have a minimum separation of at least 26 weeks before they can be rehired into other types of positions (e.g. wage or adjunct) within their institution. This applies to all former

full-time and quasi-full-time classified staff and faculty employees, including retirees.

This change in policy addresses compliance with the ACA, which requires large employers like VCU to offer qualifying healthcare coverage to employees who regularly work 30 hours or more per week, or pay a penalty. VCU HR is working with departments that this rule has impacted to ensure compliance.

 Communications from HR Ongoing communications between Human Resources and university departments has supported VCU’s culture and values as well as university compliance efforts with important requirements such as the Affordable Care Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. Regular and timely communications also helps ensure faculty and staff understand their responsibilities regarding timekeeping, benefits, retirement planning and more.

VCU Human Resources is currently in the midst of a website redesign – a contemporary, mobile-friendly, and ADA compliant web presence that will align with the university’s modern human resources practices. The new site will allow us to track its usability to not only ensure we do our best to recruit top talent, but that tools and resources are accessible to our internal stakeholders. Upon the completion of the website, we plan to enhance our online forms and e-guides for various university information systems. We are also developing a social media strategy for recruitment and internal communications.

 The HR Welcome Center The VCU Human Resources Welcome Center is scheduled to open in Summer 2016 and is designed to serve as a “one-stop” resource where VCU employees, prospective employees and guests can receive assistance with general questions related to benefits, payroll, leave and employment in a prompt and professional manner.

The Welcome Center supports VCU’s Quest for Distinction and aligns Human Resources as a strategic university partner. This new service will not only engage university employees, but support Human Resources partners university-wide in providing immediate access to services and timely attention to issues and concerns.



A portal to professional development In an effort to further position VCU Human Resources as a strategic university partner and serve as a role model for the HR Redesign, the Learning and Development team coordinated the formation of a career community of learning professionals throughout VCU. This group meets monthly and recently rolled out a comprehensive Learning and Development portal, so VCU employees can search and access training offered in all university departments – from leadership training in Human Resources to specific technical training in Technology Services. This portal and the partnership among learning professionals will be the foundation for VCU’s future Learning Management System (LMS), a framework for the administration, documentation and delivery of VCU’s professional development and training opportunities.

 Rewards and recognition A key component to motivating and retaining good employees is recognition. This can be in the form of a memorandum, email, handwritten note or a more public announcement of a job well done. VCU offers a variety of ways for colleagues to recognize one another. Monetary awards up to $2,000 in a fiscal year and/or five days of leave per calendar year can be given to classified employees or $1,000 per fiscal year for wage employees. Employees can also be recognized through an online recognition award form, which generates an alert to the employee being recognized as well as their supervisor. The recognition is also posted to the VCU Human Resources website and archived.

Annually, we also coordinate a service recognition ceremony to honor employees who serve VCU from five to 55 years. President Rao, our faculty senate president, and our staff senate president lead the ceremony and give remarks to more than 600 attendees. Five, ten, and fifteen year recipients are recognized with service award pins. Employees with more than 25 years of service are presented with a "milestone gift," a limited-edition artwork crafted by an artist with a connection to VCU. During this ceremony, we also recognize recipients of the Dorris Douglas Budd Award, an award given to an administrative professional, and the President’s Awards for Staff and Administrative & Professional Faculty from VCU and VCU Health.



A commitment to wellness As a member of the College and University Work/Family Association, VCU offers faculty and staff a myriad of free resources to support wellness and a work/life balance. This includes lunchtime workshops including topics such as “raising a money-smart kid” or “positive parenting” as well as employee discounts, community service opportunities, family planning resources and more. In addition, our office coordinates wellness challenges that encourage faculty and staff to track their walking, running, or other form of exercise in exchange for prizes and recognition.

Collectively this year, VCU faculty and staff participating in the wellness challenge moved nearly 126,000 miles.

