After months of recommendations and revisions, the Human Resources Design Project will release a new plan designed to improve the University of Wisconsin’s personnel system to become more competitive with other world-class universities.
According to UW Director of Human Resources Robert Lavigna, the university is currently utilizing a plan designed by the state governmental personnel system for state agencies. As UW has very different purposes than state agencies do, there was a need for change, Lavigna said.
“The Wisconsin Idea is that we are to engage in the state, nation and world, and to produce knowledge to enhance that state, nation and world,” Lavigna said. “So we have a very different mission than that of state agencies.”
Lavigna said the new plan has been developed to fit the individual needs of UW, specifically with the vision of retaining UW’s status as a world-class research university.
According to Lavigna, to keep this status, UW would need a personalized plan in regard to recruitment of faulty members.
“We need to be in the best possible position to attract the most talented staff in order to provide the best education for our students,” Lavigna said.
Gary Sandefur, Dean of the College of Letters and Science and chair of the project’s advisory committee, said the new plan will restructure the personnel system to allow the university to recruit and provide compensation to faculty members who perform their tasks well.
Sandefur added the new plan gives HR a new recruiting and hiring method to promote the hiring of high-quality faculty members, helping UW retain its reputation as a world-class university in both research and education for students.
“The primary reason [for the new plan] is that we’re competing internationally with other world-class institutions, so we need to be able to recruit, retain and reward individuals at UW that are the best,” Sandefur said.
Lavigna said the process of creating this new plan included more than 50 public campus events, translated into every necessary language, to ensure everyone at UW who had a recommendation to share regarding the plan was able to.
According to Lavigna, more than 7,000 members of the UW community were involved in developing the plan, including Associated Students of Madison members and other representatives of UW students.
“The development [of the plan] has been a tremendous opportunity, but also a tremendous challenge,” Lavigna said. “That challenge has been engaging the entire campus in this process.”
Sandefur said the next step will be to inform the UW community of the plan’s workings through public discussions before bringing the new plan before the Board of Regents.
He added if the Board of Regents approves of the plan, it will need to go through the Wisconsin State Legislature’s Joint Committee on Employment Relations if it is to be put in place on the planned implementation date, July 1, 2013.
According to Sandefur, students should inform themselves on the plan’s components because promoting it will promote even better education.
“[The plan] will indirectly make the lives of students better by rewarding good teachers and helping our university compete with other international institutions,” Sandefur said.
