More brown bags

• Thursday, April 28 — AGR Room, Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center
• Thursday, May 26 — Ballroom A, Conference Center
• Thursday, June 30 — Ballroom A, Activities and Recreation Center

All are scheduled from noon to 1 p.m. The meetings are open to all employees, but will be focused on the progress of the shared service center project for the five participating divisions.

On the Web

Organization Excellence

Shared Service Centers

Earlier coverage

"Amid the anxiety, take care of yourself," Dateline UC Davis (March 11, 2011)

“Efficiencies benefit campus mission,” Dateline UC Davis (Feb. 25, 2011)

"Preparing for success," Dateline UC Davis (Feb. 11, 2011)

“Now the real work begins,” Dateline UC Davis (Jan. 28, 2011)

“Davis campus launches new voluntary separation program,” Dateline UC Davis (Jan. 14, 2011)

“Leaders lay out the groundwork, announce ‘significant change,'" Dateline UC Davis (Oct. 15, 2010)

“Budget crisis leads to major reorganization,” Dateline UC Davis (Oct. 2, 2009)
 

At brown bag meetings and in e-mail updates, the Shared Services Implementation Team is providing answers as quickly as they become available about the shared service center that is now being developed.

The center is a key component of UC Davis’ Organizational Excellence initiative, aimed at gaining efficiencies in the way UC Davis does business — with cost savings that will help the campus address budget reductions.

Several campus departments and divisions are already using a shared service concept, but not on such a large scale. The Shared Services Implementation Team and four work groups are developing a center that will take in selected payroll, finance, human resources and information technology functions for five administrative divisions: Administrative and Resource Management, the Offices of the Chancellor and Provost, Information and Educational Technology, Student Affairs, and University Relations.

At a March 30 brown bag, the first in a monthly series, Associate Vice Chancellor Karen Hull gave an update on the project timeline, which she said now includes a Sept. 8 town hall meeting where Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi and other campus leaders will announce decisions about the center’s design — including the staffing model and the business processes that the center will handle.

The Shared Services Implementation Team and the grass-roots work groups — one each for payroll, finance, human resources and information technology — are hard at work now on the research that is required for the decision-making phase.

The first task is a “current state assessment”: How are we doing business now? What are the processes? How many people are doing the work?

Since coming together in February, the work groups have identified close to 400 processes — and these are now being “mapped,” or broken into step-by-step workflows.

After the current state assessment comes the analysis, leading to the “future state vision”: How can we do the work more efficiently? How many people will be needed, and what skills do they need? And what technological upgrades or new systems do we need?

Over the next couple of months, the work groups will be looking at the process maps with an eye toward reengineering the processes to make them more efficient.

During the brown bag, Hull asked Jeff Bertany, business process analyst on the Shared Services Implementation Team: “Do we have much opportunity for improvement?”

His two-word response: “Oh, yes!”

Hull elaborated: “Many of those things that have been aggravating to you, those are the things that will be improved in this process.”

Hull, who leads Human Resources and the Shared Services Implementation Team, said the current state assessment and future state vision will be available, online, some time this summer — with the campus community invited to review the information and submit comments, all to be taken into consideration as the campus leadership formulates the center’s final design.

Technology update

Hull started last week’s brown bag with an overview of the technological aspects — which she described as “a key element of this project.”

She started by declaring that UC Davis’ Payroll Personnel System (PPS), built in 1982, is ready for replacement. “I know that’s a surprise to many of you who use it,” she joked.

The UC Office of the President announced recently that it had embarked on “an ambitious plan” to deploy a single payroll system and a single human resources system across all 10 campuses and five medical centers.

The goal: Within four years, UC will be able to pay all 180,000 employees from a single, universitywide payroll system that meets the core needs of each location while capturing the efficiencies, improved data and cost savings associated with a unified system. In addition, a common human resources information system will provide tools and a repository for all data related to the efficient management of the university’s work force.

A systemwide project team, with representatives from all 10 campuses, plans to select a vendor by July 1 and roll out the system over four years. “We have asked to be an early adopter,” said Hull, explaining how the new system fits in with the shared service center project.

Hull also described five other technological implementations tied to the shared service center:

• Time and attendance system — Another UC-wide initiative, but the new time and attendance system will not be available until three or four years into UC Davis’ shared service center project, Hull said.

UC Davis cannot wait that long. “We are going to invest now,” said Hull, noting that UC Davis will choose a system that UCOP supports “and which we believe will be part of the long-term solution.”

• Case management system — To keep track of work assignments in the shared service center, allowing employees to note the progress of each inquiry as it makes its way through the shared service center. Then, when another employee picks up the same service request, to handle a different step in the process, the employee will know what work has already been accomplished.

• Knowledge management system — A self-serve database with policies and procedures, labor contracts, health plan information and the like, with a very sophisticated search function.

“This system is for anything that employees refer to, in the course of our daily business,” Hull said, “so that people can answer their own questions, and customer service representatives can give efficient, effective answers.”

She said the knowledge management system will become more intelligent and sophisticated over time — and thus more helpful — as content is added and refined.

• Electronic document management system — For storage organization and retrieval of financial, human resources and other core business documents.

• Automatic Call Distribution and Interactive Voice Response (ACD-IVR) — Telephony systems, mainly for better call routing.

Staffing questions

As the shared service center takes shape, employees in the affected divisions are asking, “When will I know what happens to my position?”

Before campus leaders can answer this, they need the staffing model — which will be part of the future state vision, to be released in draft form this summer. Then the campus leadership will make its decision, to be announced Sept. 8.

In the meantime, the Shared Services Implementation Team provided answers to some questions that are “making the rounds”:

What type of employee is likely to be the most successful in a shared service center environment? — A successful shared service center employee will demonstrate the following attributes:

• High level of technical competence in the business function
• Customer service orientation
• Flexibility, adapts well to changes in processes, practices and technology
• Team orientation
• Ability to be engaged and productive in an environment where work is aligned with service standards
• Confidence in decision-making
• Orientation towards continuous improvement

Will participating in the Shared Service Center certificate series guarantee employment in the SSC? — No. We understand that participation in the series is a significant time commitment by the employees and the supervisors who are providing release time. We believe that the SSC certificate series will help participants stay informed about the project while exploring future career goals and possibilities. However, the university cannot guarantee indefinite employment to any staff groups. More information on the certificate series: "Preparing for Success in a New Service Model."

What about people who already work in consolidated service environments? Do these employees have a guarantee of employment in the SSC? — No. The university cannot guarantee indefinite employment to any staff groups. (This question relates to existing service clusters; for example, the ARM HR-Payroll SSC, the business office in IET and the consolidated business functions in Student Housing.)

Is the new SSC going to be an expanded version of one of the existing “centers”? — No. The new SSC will serve five administrative divisions (ARM, OCP, IET, Student Affairs and University Relations) and will be a new organization, separate and apart from the existing “centers.”

Have other questions? Or comments? Send them to the Shared Services Implementation Team via the feedback link here.