HUMAN RESOURCES

The purpose of a self-study is to organize your materials to provide the review group with information so that they fully understand the purpose, function, organization, processes of your unit.

A succinct example of a self-study can be found in the Malcolm Baldrige Quality assessment process. The Organizational Profile, a document limited to five pages, provides a starting point for self-assessment. It will provide a snapshot of your organization, department, or unit and should include the influences of how you operate and the key challenges you face.

Your Organizational Profile answers the questions and issues raised below. If you already have documentation or files which answer these questions, consider editing them into a 4-5 page format. This will help you focus your self-study. If you need to create any documents, these questions should help you organize your materials.

Organizational Profile Elements

Describe your unit/program environment and your key relationships with customers, suppliers(if applicable), and other partners. The following needs to be included:

• Organizational Environment
  • Overview of the Unit
    • What are your main products or services? How are they delivered to customers?
    • Relationship of the unit to its larger division and/or to the University as a whole - Include your mission, vision, values or other documents which describe your culture or context to the larger organization/university.
    • Describe your successes and how they contribute to the University.
  • Brief summary of duties of each member of the unit staff. Include educational levels, workforce and job diversity, bargaining units, use of contract employees, and any special safety requirements as necessary. Be sure to include:
    • Person's name
    • Position title/classification
    • Primary responsibilities
    • Secondary Responsibilities
  • Organizational Structure of unit in chart form
  • Include the major technologies, equipment, and facilities necessary to complete your work.
  • What is the legal and/or regulatory environment under which your organization operates? (if applicable)
  • Describe specific processes or transactions completed by your unit. Include copies of forms, directions, reference materials, University operations manual, documentation, other policy or legal references, web site info, and other details used by staff and customers.
  • Departmental reviews will include commentary about unit climate and actions taken to ensure respect among all unit members, including those taken to prevent sexual harassment and violence.
• Organizational Relationships
  • Who are your key customers and stakeholder groups? What do they expect from your programs or services? Who are your suppliers - other departments on campus, external organizations, others, or some combination of all of these?
  • How do you communicate with these customers and suppliers?
• Organizational Challenges
  • What are your goals/areas of emphasis and major accomplishments with in the last 2-3 years? Detail goals and their location in the strategic plan. Provide information regarding actions taken to meet those goals and provide examples of items in progress, completed, and those needing further exploration.
  • Include promotional and training materials used to familiarize faculty, staff, students and/or others with your services.
  • Include information about opportunities and challenges faced by your unit/department and how you have dealt with them. Consider future challenges and opportunities and how you expect to deal with them.
• Performance Improvement System
  • Provide any recent assessments such as surveys, focus groups, peer reviews, accreditation, or other measures.
  • Determine how well you unit has met measures determined by the FUS and University strategic plans.

If you are interested you can obtain further information on the Baldrige process; the web site address is http://www.quality.nist.gov/.

The 1998 FUS Self-Study is found on Finance and Operations web site at: http://www.bo.uiowa.edu/Reports/FUS_1998Review_SelfStudy.pdf

• Select a chair from outside the unit being reviewed
• Select 4-6 other members from
  • Customers on campus
  • Members of similar units on campus, if applicable
  • Additional faculty, staff, or students as necessary
  • Other constituents

• The Criteria for Institutional Enhancement and Reduction is found on the Provost's web page and can be viewed at http://www.uiowa.edu/~provost/docs/criteria.htm
• Non academic units need to address the following primary criteria:
  • Essential relationship of the unit being reviewed to FO and the University's role and mission--- Describe the relationship of the unit to the larger department or division within FO, to FO as a whole, and define this relationship to the University as a whole. Provide examples of what the unit does well and how this impacts the role and mission of the University.
  • Quality of the unit ---One approach is to survey or use focus groups to determine the quality of the unit as perceived by its customers (customer satisfaction). Or you might want to use some other measure, if more appropriate.
  • Value Offered by the unit ---Value refers to the relationship between cost and the quality of a unit's services or products. It might be appropriate to compare the perceived satisfaction to the number of FTE's in your unit over time. If automation or new software has been implemented, this might be another way to measure value.   It might be appropriate to review processes performed by the unit. Do they work as intended? Could they be improved? Have they recently been reviewed and improved? Are there measures in place to show effectiveness?
• Committee and Chair prepare a report detailing findings and proposed recommendations.
  • Include copies of data gathered via survey, focus groups, interviews, or other collection methods.
  • Provide examples of what the unit does well. Include any recent improvements and recognize excellence.
  • Note any resources needed to implement recommendations.
  • Provide an approximate timeline for implementation of recommendations
• Committee presents final "draft" to Unit Leader for verification of factual accuracy and to clarify any areas of confusion.
• Committee presents final report to Department Head and copies Unit Leader. At this point, the committee's job is done.

• Unit Leader completes a factual review of information presented in the report prepared by the review committee.
• Unit Leader presents findings of the Review Committee to the Department Head along with plan for implementation of recommendations.
• Unit Leader/Department Head contacts Jan Ricklefs to schedule time on the Finance and Operations Leadership Group agenda to present review.
• Department Head will discuss with Unit Leader(s) how and when to make report to Finance and Operations Leadership Group, then make contact with Jan to schedule the presentation.

• Unit Leader reviews updates and recommendations with Department Head. This might include process improvements that the unit has implemented as a result of the review or it might include information on why certain recommendations could not be implemented.
• Unit leader prepares a one page summary of recommendations and actions to date for presentation to Finance and Operations Leadership Group and shares with Department Head. Presentation to be 5-10 minutes in length.
• After consultation with Department Head, Unit Leader contacts Jan Ricklefs to get on the Finance and Operations Leadership Group agenda.