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Up Close & Personnel: Recruitment and Employment and Training and Career Development
Recruitment and Employment and Training and Career Development, are, in many ways, flip sides of the same coin. With the assistance of the first unit, candidates are found, screened, interviewed and hired; with the latter, they’re coached, trained, mentored and cultivated throughout their tenure. Blending key elements for career success, the two units are designed to work together to provide all UD employees with tools for plotting a seamless career course. But, how do you provide services that meet the many different needs of the University employees? It’s a question that challenges the units’ manager, Richie Holland, repeatedly in the course of any given workweek, and one that perhaps presents him with the biggest hurdles as he oversees the day-to-day processes of recruitment, hiring, orienting, appraising and training. Holland and his colleagues, Employment Coordinator, Cindy Delaney; Administrative Assistant, Diane Pugh; HR Generalist, Erik Bashford; Staff Assistant, Susan Webb; and Customer Service Coordinator, Kim DeShields, coordinate meetings of PAC (the Professional Advisory Council) and SSAC (the Salaried Staff Advisory Council), and oversee the annual United Way campaign, the Bright Ideas program and the service awards luncheons and dinners. Holland also codirects UD’s participation in the American Heart Association’s annual Heart Walk. “The vast majority of my work is interpersonally focused—whether it’s training and development or recruiting and hiring—and that’s what I love about this job,” Holland said. “Since I do a lot of work with special programs—the branch of HR that organizes events such as the service awards lunches and dinners, the United Way campaign and the professional and salaried staff advisory councils—I also get to know employees on a face-to-face basis, which is nice.” Holland, Delaney, Pugh and the other staff in the units spend a significant portion of their time ensuring that employment procedures and protocols are met. Holland said that working on the front lines of the Office of Human Resources can hold its challenges, and these typically are encountered when disappointment—a uniquely human quality—occurs. “One of the most difficult situations I encounter is when someone doesn’t get offered a position for which they feel qualified,” he said. “Everyone thinks he or she is the best-qualified candidate, so we often have to deal with frustration and anger when someone doesn’t get offered a position they feel they should have been offered.” “We have such strong applicant pools—sometimes as many as 80 candidates for a secretarial position—so that not getting a job can be very frustrating for somebody who’s been trying to get into the University for awhile,” Delaney said. At the same time, she said, some of her greatest job satisfaction comes when she’s able to offer a job to a repeat applicant.
Pugh, whose duties include maintaining the minutes from the PAC and SSAC meetings, organizing service award functions and scheduling new employee orientation sessions, also said her greatest moments on the job come from interactions with UD employees. “I have a good mix of duties that allows me to deal with people in all different departments,” she said, “and one of the most satisfying components of my job is when I can do something to help someone.” Pugh said this payoff is often in high evidence at the service awards functions, when employees with long tenure approach her. “Some of our employees, when they’re recognized for their years of service, are very excited,” she said. Good for morale boosting on every front, it’s exactly this kind of programming and feedback that Holland said is reflected and promoted in HR’s “UDeserve Our Best” campaign. Launched in 2003 to give a face and handle to HR’s commitment to employees, the campaign pairs a logo and a look with the efforts of HR staff to meet UD employee needs. It also serves as a constant reminder to everyone within the UD workforce to both give and expect the best. “We’ve always prided ourselves on our level of customer service,” Holland said, “but we wanted to visualize this concept and use our logo as a visual reminder to our staff—and by extension, our HR liaison group—that we are committed to providing the highest level of service that we can to employees.” Holland responds to any e-mails sent to [udeserveourbest@udel.edu], an in-box established for UD employees to ask questions or submit concerns related to their employment, or other concerns related to being an employee at the University. This resource, like the Bright Ideas and Training and Development programs, expand employee horizons, enhance job satisfaction and connect colleagues—key elements to successful employment at the University. “We’re hiring and retaining excellent employees, and one of the reasons for that is because we offer so many resources,” Holland said. “We do a lot of career development work through the training program that encourages long-term success.” Adding that taking advantage of special programs, attending functions and networking on campus are critical for employees who want to move within the University, Holland also said that attending courses is a good way, even for employees not looking to switch job functions, to create a presence for themselves and build a network. “Employees who take advantage of training opportunities and functions, who get out there and network and attend programs and stay involved with the career development program have a very good shot at building a network on campus and getting their faces known,” he said.
Ross said that, although her training in HR is along the lines of what she does daily, the major difference is her audience. “My HR courses aim to improve writing skills and range from a basic grammar course to a course we call writing for professional success,” she said, “but with my HR training, I only work with adults, which is an audience I find very rewarding. They’re more likely to ask questions and hang in until they get the answers they need, and I also find it very satisfying as a teacher to walk away learning things I didn’t know before.” It’s this element of give-and-take, Ross said, that makes the training effective and enjoyable for participants, and she builds on this further by using materials that have both humor and real-world application. “There are all kinds of practical tools I use, so it’s not just me getting up and talking,” she said. “I spice up the classes with examples from the real world, so the focus is work-oriented and interactive and not just academic.” Ross said that success can be measured, too, in the feedback she receives and in the number of employees who decide to take additional training courses. “I think that maybe the best thing I do for a lot of people is convince them that good writing isn’t easy, and so if they struggle over their writing, that’s perfectly normal,” she said. “What’s tremendously satisfying is seeing some of the same faces in course after course, because it means they’ve enjoyed and benefited from what they’ve learned.” Newton trains employees in supervisory, motivational, mentoring, time-management, presentation and assertiveness skills. He, like Ross, strives to focus on practical exercises and real-world application in his classes. He added that the collaborative environment of the courses enhances this thrust. “I think that when you look at the program overall, it gives a real cross section for every employee to do some skill development, whether it’s working on people skills or supervision and management skills,” Newton said. “One of the things that I really find beneficial is that, although we teach all courses in terms of a work environment, people also get personal growth and find skills they can use in their day-to-day lives as well,” he said. “I think another thing that people who take the courses find really helpful is that the learning comes as much from interacting within the group as it does from trainer instruction,” Newton said. “That’s because people bring a wealth of knowledge and information to the table, and so what they typically find—and give—in the sessions are helpful and useful collegial hints.” Echoing Holland and Ross, Newton added that this collaboration breeds its own kind of success. “Employees who meet other employees working on similar issues are able to build a support network and make connections with colleagues across campus,” he said. “That’s the kind of professional development that builds on itself, because even after the session has ended, they can use each other as resources.” Article by Becca Hutchinson Photos by Kathy F. Atkinson To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here. |
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