HR and Payroll Colleagues:
This is a heady time for the HR-CoP Office, as many of the areas on which we have been working this past year are coming together in more visible ways. The recent “HR@UW Conference” was an important first effort, bringing together over 250 members of our campus HR community to learn, network, and begin to build a ‘culture of collaboration’ together. Kudos to Sarah Carroll, who played such a critical role in lining up speakers and resources, and to Kathleen Smith and colleagues in Learning and Talent Development for excellent conference operations and logistics management. We are still seeking feedback about the Conference, so if you haven’t yet done so, please take 5m to respond.
December brought our first “Orientation for HR Professionals at UW–Madison” session, which allowed us to provide an overview and tour of OHR and work in concert with Divisions to welcome new HR staff in a variety of roles… As one element of that session, we shared our updated website resources – while that effort was focused on new HR professionals, these resources are ultimately intended to benefit us all – Check them out, offer feedback, and let’s make these resources as useful as possible to all of us! Thanks to many of you for your contributions to this new program, all sparked by the HR Design/Academic CoP taking on the challenge one year ago. These sessions will be offered each month, so please send colleagues to register for an upcoming session.
On the technical HR knowledge side of things, Joshua Schwab has been working with several of you to build a new “Welcome to HR” series of online courses, which will be excellent and immediate resources for all new HR and Payroll professionals. He has also been working closely many of you to help implement eTime (electronic time and labor approval and reporting) as it catches on and gets implemented across the campus. And both Joshua and Sarah have been heavily involved in FLSA and TREMS-related resource development, and are positioned to work with other OHR departments to identify training priorities in their areas of emphasis. Please be sure to stay aware of these varied training opportunities.
As we move into 2017, we are getting the sense that we are moving in the right direction. We want to continue to support and build communities of practice, both as groups that meet to address common concerns and as virtual spaces where all of us can share ideas in real time in response to pressing issues. We have defined and articulated the HR Competencies, which will now serve as the basis for several offerings in the year ahead: We want to launch a Pilot Learning Cohort, to experience the process of mastering HR competencies in a smaller, ongoing group, as well as topical monthly learning events open to all who are interested. We also seek to greatly expand our technical training in HRS-related topics, certifying skills and supporting an effort to increased effectiveness in all related areas. These will occur in face-to-face classroom and coaching sessions, as well as online environments. For these efforts, we are committed to engaging in partnership with all of you… that is the essence of a ‘community of practice’ approach, and it will ultimately be the pathway through which we will experience sustained success in our efforts.
If you are interested in participating in the inaugural cohort, please email hr_communities_of_practice@ohr.wisc.edu. Cohort size is limited to 18.
I look forward to engaging in that journey with all of you.
Harry