Meeting Notes 

February 20, 2002

 | Program | Old Business | Reports | Concerns | Announcements | Next Meeting |

Attendees
Keith Carter (Housing), Paulette Vining (Audit), Dennis Snyder (Student Financial Services), Bill Vining (Employee Relations), Rebecca Arrington (University Relations), Sandy Layne (Bookstore), Diane Meeker (ITC), Caroline Hoffman (Business Operations), Martin Krebs (Procurement), Jan Seabaugh (EVP-COO), and Antoinette Warfield (Printing Services).

Speakers
Emily Bardeen, U.Va. Employee Career Services

Program
Chair Martin Krebs called the meeting to order at 1:35 p.m. followed by introduction of Council members and guest speaker Emily Bardeen.

Emily began by giving a brief overview of UVA Employee Career Services. It is a division of Human Resources consisting of two Career Consultants (Emily Bardeen, Director and Rick Benner) who help University employees develop their job and career goals. Achieving this requires employees having stated goals and plans.

Two Primary Functions:

  1. Provide career assistance
  2. Provide educational benefits (tuition waivers)

Why is the Employee Career Services Important?

  1. It provides non-biased support to employees.
  2. The average age for UVA employees is 44 and mostly female.
  3. 30% of new hires at UVA are internal.
  4. The implementation of Oracle is good because it give employees the opportunity to advance in their current position or pursue a new career.

Three Stages of Career Planning

  1. Explore - getting to know yourself better (personal interests, abilities and career options).
  2. Think - evaluating your current position, refining your skills, and developing strategic goals.
  3. Act - achieving career goals (write resume, interview process).

Emily emphasized that good career planning should include the 3 steps listed above.

Four Career Paths

  1. Enrich - your current role (such as your current position, but looking for something more).
  2. Advance - to another position.
  3. Transition - to another career/position.
  4. Retire - to another kind of work.

Who do we serve?

  • Staff (classified, wage, and temp) and Faculty
  • Full-time and part-time employees

Services Available to Employees

  1. Individual Career Consulting - a free, confidential service where employees can meet (by appointment) one-on-one with a trained career consultant for about 50 minutes to help with their career and individual development plans.
  2. Workshops - open to faculty and staff each semester on related topics such as career planning, job enrichment, job search process, and supervisors career coaching their employees.
  3. Events - Lunchtime Seminars available to employees around Grounds on career and job topics in addition to doing a great job of career planning, job enrichment, and job searching.
  4. Departmental Consulting - will meet with departmental groups to discuss a variety of career development topics.
  5. Educational Benefits - offered to full-time classified staff and faculty employees.
    • Tuition Assistance/Reimbursement for job-related courses at UVA or other institutions.
    • Tuition Waiver for job related or non-job related courses at UVA .

As a final note, Emily commented that with present and future challenges facing the University, the Employee Career Service program could become a beneficial resource for employees interested in refining their skills in a current position or exploring other career options for advancement. It lets people know who you are, where you are, and how you plan to get there.

Three points Bill shared from Emily's discussion:

  1. He commented that 40% of the vacant positions at the University are filled from promotions occurring within the University and added that he is interested to see where this number is presently. Emily mentioned that since the implementation of the New Pay Plan, approximately 50% of University employees have received in-band pay increases.
  2. He commented that too often people sell themselves short when believing they cannot get higher paying jobs at the University. Former mail services employees for instance received higher paying jobs than they previously had when their positions were terminated.
  3. He noticed that the people most frustrated in their current positions have not taken the initiative to help themselves.

Old Business 
January minutes were approved.

Monthly Reports

Report from Jan Seabaugh (substituting for Megan Lowe on maternity leave)

  • Office of Governmental Relations hosted town meetings yesterday at Newcomb Hall Ballroom and Facilities Management to help University employees get a better understanding of the state budget and its impact on the University.
  • Both the House and Senate are trying to come up with a resolution to compensate State Employees in light of the State's revenue shortfall.
  • Ed Howell was hired as the new CEO for the Medical Center.
  • The Baseball team opened the season in their renovated stadium (work still in progress).
  • The Colorado State football game will be played on Thursday night (August 22, 2002).
  • The basketball arena is moving forward and scheduled to open in the Fall of 2006.

Report from Bill Vining
Bill emphasized that the University is a stable employer and expressed reassurance that UVA employees will not lose their jobs. He pointed out that the 700 layoffs announced by Governor Warner in the newspaper would affect primarily the smaller state agencies with very little impact on larger state agencies like UVA because of its size and diversity.

New Employee Orientation Program (NEO)
This event will be held on April 17, 2002 at 2:00 p.m. in the Newcomb Hall Theater. Members of senior management will be introduced followed by the guest speaker (typically President Casteen or Leonard Sandridge). About 50 services will be represented and food will be served. Bill encouraged council member to share this information with their constituents to attend since the event is considered "work time" and will not be charged to leave.

Service Awards
The Service Awards ceremony for 10,15,20 year employees will be held at Cabell Hall on May 21, 2002. President Casteen or Leonard will be the keynote speaker with refreshments served afterwards.

The Service Awards Banquet for 25-50 year employees will be held at the Omni Hotel on June 13, 2002. In addition, the recipients of the Outstanding Contribution Awards will be recognized at this event.

Outstanding Contribution Awards
Bill handed out the nomination forms to council members. He emphasized the forms must be received in Human Resources no later than March 31, 2002. On average, the Committee receives approximately 60-75 nominations. The recipients selected by the Committee will receive recognition at the annual Service Awards Banquet and through news media.

Rebecca asked if the nomination forms were ready for publication. Bill said yes.

Concerns

Rebecca raised the question concerning the potential outcome of the VSDP since it appears that the House and Senate are in agreement to reopen enrollment into the plan. As a result, employees must either stay in or opt out of the plan. Bill commented that it is too early to tell and we must wait and see what happens.

Dennis from Student Financial Services commented that one of his colleagues attending the meeting was upset with the University's decision to increase parking fees and health insurance premiums since employees are not receiving pay raises. On the Healthcare issue, Bill commented that the increase in premiums could be attributed to the costs of prescription drugs going up across the country. He added that the UVA Health Plan compared to the State Plan is better. For instance, the UVA Health Plan has an eye and dental plan whereas the State Plan does not.

Paulette asked if UVA has a contract for claims rejected by Southern Health. Bill suggested contacting Anne Goodsman (Healthcare Ombudsman) for answers to this question or Margaret Marsh if Anne could not be reached.

Martin asked if the referral process has changed. Bill said No.

Rebecca asked when the contract with Southern Health is up for negotiation. Bill said it is up for negotiation annually in the fall.

Martin was asked by one of his constituents if UVA could offer as a benefit to employees a discounted membership to ACAC. Bill said that the University's position on this matter is not to favor one service provider over another. However, he added that the University would not object to ACAC offering the benefit to employees if they wanted to do so. Bill suggested to Martin that his colleague contact the Benefits Committee to pursue the matter further if necessary.

Announcements

Rebecca announced that employees interested in receiving headline news at UVA via e-mail could contact her at rpa@virginia.edu.

Jim Jokl from ITC has expressed an interest in speaking at one of our Council meetings.

The meeting adjourned at 3:15 p.m.

Next Meeting

The next meeting is scheduled for March 20, 2002 with the guest speaker TBA.

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