AS ACADEMIC Professional positions are reviewed and some reclassified as Civil
Service, new education modules will help employees better understand the
purpose of the Civil Service system on the UIC campus.
“CIVIL SERVICE is a type of objective personnel management system. It is designed to
ensure fairness and equity,” said Assistant Vice President for Human Resources Robert Crouch. “Civil Service provides that the employment process is fair so that
individuals have an equal opportunity to compete for job openings.” Employees
in the Civil Service classification run the gamut from entry level to the most
professional, from clerical to managerial.
“THE MAJORITY of my career has been in a Civil Service environment, where people were
very professional and conscientious,” Crouch said. “My experience within a
Civil Service environment has been great. Everyone worked side-by-side and you
couldn’t tell the difference between Academic Professional and Civil Service:
work standards and benefits were the same. To me, Civil Service has always been
an honorable employment classification.”
THE CAMPUS has established a meaningful partnership with the State Universities
Civil Service System (SUCSS), to create awareness about what Civil Service
means as a personnel management system at UIC. “As part of a continuous
learning process, it is critically important to increase awareness of what
Civil Service is,” Crouch said.
A SERIES of educational
modules are being developed to help inform the campus about the structure and
guidelines within the Civil Service system. More than 50 employees in the UIC
HR unit were the first to experience a customer service module recently
presented jointly by UIC HR and SUCSS. A future module is targeted at college
and departmental level HR. Another module under development is geared toward
senior level managers.
“IN ACADEMIA we understand the importance
of education,” Crouch said. “We want to eliminate misunderstandings about Civil
Service. We are working collaboratively with the SUCSS office to provide
opportunities to better understand Civil Service on the UIC campus. The strong
partnership we have developed with SUCSS will help us to more effectively
acquire the best talent.”
Flexible System
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of the State Universities Civil Service System Tom Morelock has been working directly
with UIC HR staff, and is scheduled to present in the upcoming training
modules.
“FIRST AND foremost, it is
important to understand that every large organization needs a personnel
management system,” Morelock said. “In these modules, we want to demonstrate
how delivery of this comprehensive personnel plan incorporates state-of-the-art
management of personnel and human capital. Our end goal is to demonstrate there
is a lot of flexibility in this system.”
MORELOCK STATED that while the law is built on regulations and statutes, these do not
govern every step in the Civil Service hiring process. “Only one or two rules
and regulations are involved, and the rest of the process revolves around local
policies and procedures,” he said. “You can get through [the hiring process]
more quickly if you manage these other steps. It simply takes too long to hire
someone now, but the vast majority of that timeframe is from local policies and
not statewide regulations. They can be changed or upgraded. These modules are intended to give a common
foundation about the system and local policy.”
HE NOTED that the
veterinary school is changing its job classification structure to assist the
delivery of their customer service module.
“The system allows for relatively quick changes like this,” Morelock
said. “It is reactive to operational
needs.”
CURRENTLY, MISPERCEPTIONS about Civil Service hiring do exist, acknowledged
Director of Organizational Effectiveness for UIC HR Kim Morris-Lee. “Hiring
managers have a sense that hiring Civil Service takes forever,” she said. “And, if they don’t work out, it takes
forever to remove them.”
THREE MORE planned education
modules will show how this isn’t the case.
“THERE ARE lots of positives
of Civil Service,” Morris-Lee said.
Additional Modules Slated
THE MODULE planned for
November roll-out is aimed at campus employees who function as conduits between
a unit or college and the university Human Resources office, such as the human
resources coordinator in an administrative unit or college who processes hiring
forms and related tasks.
“THIS MODULE explains the kinds of things they need to know to get talent in their
unit or college, what actions they need to take,” Morris-Lee said. “Things that
allow them to be flexible, but guided by certain policies and procedures to
move the process forward. We want our customers to understand that the actions
for the requisition process work well and get talent in place quickly.”
A THIRD module created
for Vice Presidents, Deans, and Directors is slated for late January 2013 and
will explain how Civil Service gets needed talent efficiently and without
service gaps.
A FOURTH module, planned
for March 2013, will be for individuals functioning in Civil Service roles on
campus. Content will include how to move a career forward at UIC. It will be scheduled on a monthly basis.
FOR MORE information, call
(312) 355-5230.
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