Congratulations to the Fall 2024 HR Pillar Award winners!

Category: Customer Experience

Alex Jeter exemplifies the qualities of a model HR employee through his unwavering dedication, innovative spirit, and compassionate approach to his work and colleagues. Nominated for both Customer Experience and Innovation, Alex embodies the use of innovative practices in optimizing the customer experience. Here's a summary of his impactful contributions:

• A Helping Hand: Alex is always the first to offer assistance, volunteering for initiatives, even the challenging ones, where he believes he can make a significant impact. His positive outlook and belief in the potential of people and projects are truly inspiring.
• Collaborative Spirit: Eager to collaborate, Alex maintains active collaboration groups beyond the technology team, injecting fresh ideas and fostering innovation. His work with the Learning Team on improving HR documentation practices has led to significant advancements in the HR Solution Center.
• Innovative and Efficient Solutions: Alex recently transformed a laborious Talent Support Health System clearance process into an efficient and time-saving online tool. His continued engagement with the team ensures ongoing improvements and satisfaction with the final product. In 2023, Alex spearheaded numerous automation and process improvement projects, saving hundreds, if not thousands, of hours. His relentless pursuit of efficiency and excellence has had a profound impact on our organization.
• Continuous Improvement: Alex challenges the status quo with his bright ideas and relentless pursuit of opportunities for improvement. His leadership in configuring Workday Assistant and improving the HR Microsoft Teams environment highlights his commitment to leveraging technology for better outcomes.

Alex Jeter is a hardworking, upbeat individual who actively seeks to make a difference for everyone. His contributions have lifted the entire team, and he truly embodies the characteristics of a model HR employee. 

Hear Travis Dews's testimonial on Alex here.

Category: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Tim White, HR Immigration Services Manager, has impacted the lives of thousands of foreign nationals, many of which are now permanent residents. His valuable strategies to assist foreign nationals with their immigration status continues to enhance UVA’s standard of care for the international community.

1. Comprehensive Support: Tim's mission is for every foreign national and every UVA department to have the information needed to understand immigration complexities. His outstanding care includes being on call by phone or zoom at any time and traveling in person to international recruiting events, which offers confidence to all in navigating the immigration process.
2. Kindness and Empathy: Tim’s exceptional immigration expertise makes everyone feel assured that they are cared for and understood. His kindness and empathy towards foreign nationals reduces their anxiety and ensures that everyone feels welcomed and part of the University of Virginia community. In 2023, Tim personally met with nearly 200 foreign nationals, many of whom were new to Charlottesville or the U.S. 
3. Broad Outreach: Tim is the liaison for green card cases that are outsourced to outside law firms. He maintains constant communication and monitoring between departments, foreign nationals, and law firms. Tim also facilitates the hiring of Canadian nurses and has traveled to Canada alongside UVA nurse recruiters as UVA’s immigration expert. He provides comprehensive information about visa categories and pathways to permanent residency, promoting inclusion and diversity within the nursing staff.

Tim White’s exceptional leadership and dedication to immigration services have made a tremendous impact on the University’s diversity, equity, and inclusion. His efforts have created a welcoming environment for foreign nationals, making him a deserving candidate for the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion category of the HR Pillar Award.

Hear Tania Sanchez-Sanchez's testimonial on Tim here.

Category: Community, Health, & Wellness

Dominique McLaughlin's indomitable spirit and dedication to wellness extends well beyond her role as a consultant for the Faculty and Employee Assistance Program (FEAP). She has demonstrated a deep commitment to supporting various community groups and encouraging others to contribute to these efforts, which enhance local health, wellness, and resilience. Her proactive approach and passion for community service have made a significant impact.

• Community Outreach: Dominique shares updates on local and area events so FEAP can support these efforts and share them with its clients. This includes the SPARC walk/run for Suicide Awareness, the All Blessings Flow group that helps in caregiver and elderly support services, and CIT training for local police groups in mental health awareness training, among other events she actively participates in.
• Building Community Wellness, Health and Resilience: Dominique is not only passionate about supporting several surrounding community groups, she brings this energy into improving the lives of others in a joyful way. She facilitates a caregiver support group through FEAP that often does not receive a lot of attention in the community yet is increasingly vital as a growing number of adults are required to find support for parents and loved ones. By facilitating this group, her efforts reach not only the caregivers but those receiving their care as the caregivers will be less stressed and more able to provide quality support. 
• Racial Sensitivity and Awareness: Dominique has also engaged in the sport of pickleball, where she not only engaged in surface conversations but in racial sensitivity and awareness. Through her FEAP training in this area, she delivers information to her pickleball friends in a way that conveys how important and vital this sensitivity and awareness is to the wellness of our surrounding community and society.
• Bringing Joy to Service: Her dedication to community service is evident in her joyful approach to improving others' lives. Dominique's efforts create a ripple effect, enhancing the overall wellness, health, and resilience of the community.

Dominique McLaughlin's dedication to expanding her work with FEAP beyond UVA's walls is not only commendable and impactful, but her ability to inspire others to contribute have significantly enhanced local health, wellness, and resilience. Her proactive and compassionate approach makes her a valuable asset to the UVA community and beyond.

Hear Adele Logan O'Keefe's testimonial on Dominique here.

Category: Innovative Practices

Laura Brown, HR Benefits and Leave counselor, consistently looks for ways to streamline and improve the Leave team's processes, thereby improving the customer experience for all employees at UVA. One example of this is the University Medical Center PTO payout process, which exemplifies her process improvement strategy:

1. Detailing the Problem: Calculating Medical Center PTO payouts for terminations and transfers is a long, manual, and tedious process. This involves a member of the Leave team taking a full working day each biweekly pay cycle to manually calculate all MC PTO payouts for those in the University Medical Center who have terminated employment, transferred to a different entity, or transferred to a non-benefited position within a pay period. Laura meticulously detailed the issue with this process and delivered the problem statement to the Workday team to analyze. She also detailed a similar issue with Academic Division side payouts, which is under review.
2. Team Collaboration: Laura worked diligently with the Workday Analyst, Absence & Time Tracking team to solve the problem, which was able to automate the PTO payout process for terminations and transfers, saving the Leave team many hours of manual calculations each University Medical Center pay period. 
3. Genuine Support and Leadership: Laura is always available for questions and guidance on complex leave issues. She looks at ways to streamline and improve not only the leave processes but also templates for communicating the most up to date and accurate information to employees. She trains all new leave specialists, utilizing PowerPoint decks she created for each Academic Division leave type and leave of absence, which are valuable reference documents.

Laura Brown is an exceptional team lead on the Benefits and Leave team, proactively searching for innovative ways to improve the leave process not only for her team but also for employees and team members across Grounds.

Hear Amy Grubb's testimonial on Laura here.

Category: Exceptional Execution (team category)

The Grandfathered Job Profiles project at the University of Virginia (UVA) represents a significant milestone in the institution's HR transformation journey. This initiative, led by a dedicated team (Brett Eubank, Debbie Glass, Jeremiah Stevens, Marcia Jackson, McLean Schoonover, Shane Moran, Tim Capezzone), aimed to decommission outdated job profiles and streamline HR processes, ultimately enhancing efficiency and reporting capabilities. The team's innovative approach and collaborative efforts have set a new standard for HR practices at UVA.

1. Identifying Legacy Issues: The team committed to employees moving from a grandfathered job profile to a non-grandfathered job profile and "remaining whole" or receiving no harm from the change. Four areas were identified as possible risks. The team ensured that employees would remain unaffected by the changes, particularly focusing on benefits categories and PTO accruals.
2. Collaborative Analysis: The Technology and Compensation teams rigorously analyzed the attributes of the grandfathered job profiles. They ensured that transitioning employees to standard profiles would not negatively impact their benefits or status.
3. Proposed and Implemented Changes: The team took a couple of weeks to deconstruct the technical puzzle of the job profile project, detail the risk areas, and propose viable solutions to mitigate the risk for each area. The solutions were approved by leadership and implemented without any major issues, which is the goal during any administrative change. Outlier issues were quickly resolved.
4. Focusing on the Employee: Although the original driver of this work was to complete it in advance of a bigger go-live to reduce technical and functional complexity at that time, the team kept the employee at the center during every single conversation. The impact upstream and downstream, both actual and perceived, was looked at from every angle the team could think of to increase chances of success and minimize disruption.
5. Alignment With the UVA 2030 Plan: The project aligns with UVA's 2030 Strategic Plan, which aims to enable students, faculty, and staff to perform their best work. The changes reduce system complexity, increase efficiency, and ensure inclusive treatment of former Grandfathered employees. It also ensures that the former grandfathered employees are being treated inclusively in the broader Career Journeys effort, reducing the perception of major differences caused by the Job Profile (or related benefits category) itself.

The sub-group's commitment to wonder "what if" and think proactively led to successfully inactivating 250 grandfathered job profiles and updating 64 non-grandfathered job profiles without disruption to employees across the University. The team's dedication to improving HR processes at UVA has not only resolved a long-standing issue but also set a positive precedent for future initiatives. Their efforts have significantly contributed to the institution's strategic goals, making them deserving candidates for the HR Pillar Award.

Hear Nicole Meneveau's testimonial on the Job Profile Remediation team here.