To adapt to forthcoming budget cuts, the University has adopted a new hiring process based on selectivity and internal hiring, Chief Human Resources Officer Susan Carkeek said. The change is expected to save the University $170,000.
The majority of the University’s budget is dedicated to paying its employees and benefits, Carkeek said. To account for planned reductions in state funding, the University needs to reduce its workforce size, Carkeek said.
With a “commitment to not balance the budget through layoffs,” University officials are more thoroughly evaluating the necessity of vacant positions, Carkeek said. This new policy of turnover management is already evident in the lower number of available jobs in the University’s academic division, which includes 150 jobs that are now posted, compared to the 300 jobs posted this time last year.
Carkeek said each University vice president and dean is required to create staffing plans to meet budget targets. Part of these staffing plans include evaluating positions and deciding which ones are necessary and which responsibilities can be dispersed among currently filled positions, without hiring new staff members.
“Just because a position is vacant, we don’t necessarily assume it will be replaced,” Carkeek said. “But if [the job] is mission-critical, then we’ll post it.”
Once the position is deemed necessary, it will be posted internally first so that current employees have the first opportunity to view and apply for the jobs, she said.
“It’s a win-win policy for everyone,” Carkeek said, adding that — in times of economic crisis and funding cuts — the policy benefits employees, the University and those managing the University’s budget. The new process offers current employees the opportunity to advance and build a career within the University system, Careek said.
The policy is intended to send a “message of confidence, that [our employees] have potential to help us in new, more responsible ways,” she said. Because expenditure cuts have to be made, the recently adopted hiring process at least helps provide the University with experienced workers already familiar with the institution. Moreover, Carkeek said, officials are able manage their offices’ budget cuts by evaluating the necessity of newly-vacated jobs after employees are promoted.
She said the money that the new process is saving otherwise would have been allocated for external advertising and relocation costs.
Currently, the University employs 14,000 staff members, 8,000 of whom are in the academic division, Carkeek said. The remaining 6,000 work within the University Medical Center.
Medical Center spokesperson Peter Jump said the Medical Center’s new hiring process also places similar priorities for current employees. In the event of a job vacancy, it will be advertised internally first for five days before external applications will be accepted, Jump said.
Jump said internal advertising is “a great opportunity for promotion and career development.”
Positions that involve direct patient care — like nurses, pharmacists and physical therapists — will be simultaneously advertised internally and externally because they are hard to fill and also because “patient care is our main mission,” Jump said. “If you go to an acute care hospital like ours, you need care right away, you don’t want to wait.”
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