Central Service Initiatives
Where the future starts now.
Three initiatives are currently in progress to address organizational need and operational effectiveness.
Health Sciences has been actively involved in succession planning for the last eight years. The implementation
of these initiatives will allow the organization to maintain a high level of administrative support and service for
the growing academic enterprise without having to augment the administrative staff and budget
FACULTY COMPENSATION SERVICE CENTER MODEL
The faculty compensation function is comprised of three primary areas: 1) salary negotiation 2) salary analysis
3) transactional services. Currently Health Sciences has less than 10 FTE performing this function for the
SOM departments. The typical learning curve for this functional area is 3 years. We have encouraged departments to build a depth of bench to address department need in this mission critical area. This past year, the
organization has lost 4 employees due to retirement or layoff in this area. A decision was made to centralize
the transactional component of this function by utilizing best practices found among Health Sciences departments. As of September 2010, we are now providing centralized transactional services to 3 SOM departments.
Recruitment for this new centralized unit was internal and the pool of applicants participated in Faculty Compensation A-Z training. All had experience or familiarity in faculty compensation. In addition, training and
auditing for this function will come from the Dean’s Office and standardized operational procedures will be employed.
ACADEMIC AFFAIRS COST SHARE/IMBEDDED MODEL
Members of the Academic Affairs Unit will be deployed out to departments to provide consulting and training
services to department Academic Personnel contact while performing the Dean’s review function. Departments
will also have the opportunity to cost share subject matter experts to fill operational gaps due to attrition or
layoffs. Dean’s Office and department contacts have been trained on standardized operational procedures that
can be used across Health Sciences departments. Many department experts have participated in our internship
programs and are now able to provide services to multiple departments. This new strategy of imbedding or
cost sharing staff will allow departments to operate with limited resources.
EAST CAMPUS INTEGRATED HR SERVICES MODEL
The East Campus currently has over 2,700 VCHS employees with a projected increase to over 5,000 in the
next 5 years. As a proactive measure to address this growth, members of the Dean’s Office and Medical Center team will work collaboratively to deliver an integrated HR services model to East Campus employees.
Members of the Dean’s Office/Medical Center staff have been cross trained to provide HR services to both
medical center and campus funded employees. This team is comprised of HR generalist/specialists who must
develop a system of service delivery that incorporates a centralized and decentralized model for providing HR
Services. Medical Center HR staff that have participated in A-Z training and will be utilized in the EC HR
unit to cross train campus HR employees in medical center processes. East campus employees can benefit
from a one-stop shop for HR related services. Employees will triage customer needs and assist or refer to the
appropriate resource. The EC unit will also centralize compliance and risk management requirements and
address tracking and reporting functions.