Recruitment process improvements underway by Kris Racina

July 2, 2012

Marmian Grimes

Photo by Todd Paris
Photo by Todd Paris


Vice Chancellor Pat Pitney emailed a customer satisfaction survey a few weeks ago on the hiring process at UAF. We are seeking data guide process improvements and we encourage you to share your feedback. If you’d like to share your feedback, but haven’t yet, please see the survey link below.

Re-engineering processes is labor intensive and organizations frequently fail at it. I’d like to give you some background on our current efforts and what we are doing to ensure success.

We currently have two UAF teams working on process improvements with help of trained facilitators from Administrative Services and the Registrar’s Office. We’ve given our teams the training, tools and leadership support to map processes, to identify “rubs,”(complaints or constraints), and then to systematically go about eliminating constraints creating smoother, more efficient process, with as few touches as necessary.

One of our working groups is the HIRED team consisting of members Margo Griffith, Derek Bastille, Inna Conner, Shelly Hall, and Donna Laiti, along with Facilitators Julie Larweth and Libby Eddy. They are working to improve the recruitment process. As the group mapped the process, it became clear that the task needed to be broken down into smaller pieces. Thus the group is addressing the pre-recruitment process first. Pre-recruitment is from the time the department determines a hiring need to the time the position is posted online and accepting application in UAKJobs. The HIRED group plans to address other parts of the process in future efforts.

The information gathered through the survey is an important step in helping the UAF HIRED team to identify what parts of the current process are working well or need to be revised, which in turn will ensure that we accurately identify ways to make the hiring process more efficient, timely and effective. The HIRED team is also conducting interviews with stakeholders.

HIRED will gather information through the survey, interviews, and other forms of data collection. If you would like to help, please pass on the survey to those involved in the recruitment process and contact HIRED through their website link below to find out more,  or to schedule an interview if you'd like to contribute data. I can assure you that there is a high level of commitment from management, the steering committee and the HIRED group to see these efforts succeed, but the team needs good data to support their work.

Thanks in advance for helping us to improve this process at UAF.

Take the survey.

For more information about the UAF Recruitment Process Improvement initiative email the group at uaf-hired@alaska.edu or visit the process improvement website.