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Benefits, Classification & Compensation partners in support of UD employees

Ever wonder what keeps UD running smoothly? Up Close & Personnel, a weekly feature, profiles the employees who keep UD ticking around the clock throughout the year. This week, the focus is on Benefits, Classification & Compensation.

Chris Towers, Karen Smith and Chris Ulrich
5:44 p.m., Jan. 6, 2005--“UDeserve Our Best” are the watchwords of UD’s Office of Human Resources. This is the second in a series of features about the units that comprise HR.

The University offers its employees an impressive range of benefits including retirement plans, health, dental, life, disability and educational benefits. A multi-tasking team of eight in Benefits, Classification & Compensation works to develop, administer and communicate these comprehensive programs as well as provide support to faculty, staff, retirees and their families. The group also works to ensure that positions on campus are accurately described, fairly classified and equitably compensated.

“We are committed to providing employees and retirees with thorough and timely service”, Chris Ulrich, manager, said.

“Much of our work is to ensure that faculty and staff understand and receive the University benefits for which they and their family members are eligible. We pride ourselves in our ability to deliver exceptional service,” Ulrich said. “A major part of this effort is to communicate with faculty, staff and retirees so that they have the resources to make well informed decisions.”

Although team members Erik Bashford, Lynn Brock, Louise Clothier, Bonnie Mitchell, Karen Smith, Chris Towers and Lee Woomer, have different areas of responsibility, their customer service roles often interchange. Cross-training has enabled them to answer or provide direction for a number of HR-related questions members of our campus community might have.

“We don’t ever want someone to contact the office and get the answer, ‘Sorry, the person that handles that area is not in, and we don’t have an answer.’ Benefits are extremely important to employees and issues are often time-sensitive,” Ulrich said. “We thrive in a fast-paced environment where no two days are the same.”

Towers, whose primary responsibility is coordinating retirement benefits through the 403(b), 457(b) and state retirement and pension plans, said the nature of work in the section is sensitive and critically important.

Lee Woomer
“In some form or another, everything that I do affects employees’ money, from the amount they invest in their retirement plans, to increases from promotions received from reclassifications, to reviewing salary surveys,” Towers said. “The best thing about what I do is that I am in a position to help employees. I deal with a tremendous amount of transactions that are time-sensitive. The greatest challenge is prioritizing everything I receive and devoting as much of my time as I can to detail and quality control.”

Towers also organizes benefits presentations and seminars, and holds retirement planning workshops.
“It is enjoyable to take our programs ‘on the road’ to different departments,” Towers said. “We are also constantly learning about the variety of jobs and units on campus when we conduct position audits.”

Woomer, who administers and processes Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA), said she is a people person, so her job is enjoyable, despite the pressure of deadlines and interpreting and understanding federal government regulations on behalf of employees. FSAs are voluntary accounts through which employees can set aside pre-tax dollars to cover out-of-pocket health care and day care expenses.

“The most demanding aspects of my job are meeting the weekly deadlines for FSA claims processing and determining eligibility of expenses for reimbursement within Internal Revenue Service guidelines. Determining eligibility of expenses can be difficult at times because IRS rules can be quite vague,” Woomer said. “I have worked for the University for 16 and a half years. It has been very challenging and rewarding work.”

Smith’s role gives a new meaning to the word “multitasking.” On any given day, Smith may be working with state pension issues, tuition exchange, retirements, annual physical reimbursements or disability applications. “I get satisfaction from helping people, and love the variety, but some days it can be a bit overwhelming,” Smith said.

Clothier typically handles health or dental insurance related matters but also shares generalist responsibilities with Towers and Bashford. “Although we hope that employees receive hassle-free benefits, unfortunately, this is not always the case. I find that one of my primary roles is to act as a liaison and advocate for our employees to help reduce the level of frustration when working to resolve problems,” Clothier said.

Besides providing support to Classification and Compensation, Brock also counsel’s individuals so they can gain a better understanding of their medical and dental coverage. She works tirelessly to make certain that enrollments, changes and retiree insurance premiums are processed accurately.

Louise Clothier and Lynn Brock
Hand in hand with providing assistance and benefits to employees is the job audit and classification process, which can be anxiety provoking for the employee whose position is being reviewed, Ulrich said. The job-audit process involves assessing the value of each position in relation to other positions across campus and establishing its level based on the tasks being performed.

“When conducting a job audit, we try to be empathetic to the situation. Many of us so closely identify our self-worth with our jobs, that the review process can be a bit threatening’” Ulrich said. “Sometimes people think that the process is bureaucratic, but we are simply trying to understand job duties and responsibilities so that jobs are fairly evaluated and classified in the same manner across campus.”

Ulrich said one of the saddest parts of her job, although one of the most rewarding, is in providing benefits and support for family members after the death of an employee or retiree. Administration of long-term disability benefits can also be heart wrenching.

“We have had more than one person become disabled, but not want to leave the University,” Ulrich said. “The employee will say ‘I love the University. I don’t want to go,’ even though their physicians tell them that they can no longer meet the physical demands of their job. It may take time for the person to emotionally come to terms with this type of life change.”

The team also organizes UD’s annual Benefits Fair, which now runs much like clock work, but is like planning for a convention. Benefits continue to develop online services and refine the open enrollment process. The busiest period for the section is the first two weeks in May, the beginning of a period during which employees can enroll or make changes in their flexible benefits.

“In terms of our UD benefits, the vast majority of employees and retirees never experience any difficulty with their enrollment, deductions or interactions with providers. However, when issues do arise, I think of this unit as a silent partner to be there in a supportive role. There are a lot of intrinsic rewards when you are able to help somebody”, said Ulrich.

Photos by Kathy Atkinson

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