UAW Classification Audit Committee Report

1
UAW Classification Audit Committee Report

• Committee Members
• Sherry Saarinen, Cathy Banfield, Barb Ruotsala,
  Mike Abbott, Paula Zenner, Sharron Paris
• Becky Christianson, Facilitator

2
Charge to the committee

• Make form more user friendly
• Make sure categories are weighted correctly
• Dealing with anomalies where it perceived the
  tool doesnt fit
• Address changing technology
• Coming up with better ways to define what
  positions do
• What value does the tool/process bring to MTU?

3
How we got to where we are now

• Decided that it would be important to ask office
  professionals and supervisors what they
  wanted/needed in an audit tool
• Offered 5 focus group times to supervisors and 7
  times to office professionals
• Conducted focus groups during December
• Compiled results and took back to the committee

4
What we learned from OP

• Current tool was frustrating to complete (what do
  they want to know???)
• Concerns about not being upgraded
• People had lost faith in the process
• Hard to write down what people do
• There must be magic words to get an upgrade
• Lists of duties vary from department to
  department

5
What we learned from supervisors

• Current tool is intimidating
• What are the right words needed to complete an
  audit form?
• Need to reduce the fear factor around the
  process
• Person and position are difficult to separate
• Want fairness in the process
• Budget issues around upgrades

6
Proceeding from focus groups

• Needed to re-examine categories and weight of
  each
• Improve tool to make more user-friendly
• Discussed creating guide for Office Professionals
  and what to include
• Added list of Action Verbs to guide
• Have audit tool and guide available on the web

7
Next Steps

• Decided to integrate check boxes into the form
• Examined current form for appropriateness
• How have positions changed since the current form
  was created?
• What categories have changed since the current
  form was created?
• Original plan was to roll out the new form in
  mid February

8
Benchmarking

• Web search resulted in at least 15 forms to
  benchmark
• Forms ranged from 2 to 17 pages
• Good ideas/wording to incorporate into our form
  (obtained permission from schools)
• Pre-audit information
• Office Professional guide
• Stuff available on the web

9
Energizer bunnies

• Almost finished with the OP guide when it was
  decided to add a supervisor guide
• Examined and changed distribution of categories
  to reflect current positions
• Developed FAQ sections for each guide from focus
  group questions/comments
• Finalized form check boxes
• Tested new audit form with recent auditees
• Took tool and guides back to focus group
  participants for comments and suggestions

10
Issues still out there

• Position not upgraded after audit position was
  correctly classified is not a reflection on the
  person in the position
• Is not a template for a level 4 or level 5
  positions vary too much across campus
• Difficult to separate person from the position
• Need to use tool to evaluate postings to ensure
  consistency

11
Final Products

• Pre-audit information
• Office Professional Audit Form (Microsoft Word
  document with check and text boxes can be
  saved)
• Office Professional Audit Form Guide
• Supervisor Guide
• All will be available on web