Human Resources
McGill places a high value on having outstanding people working at the university. But attracting, recruiting and retaining the best quality, quantity and mix of administrative and support staff is a challenge in today’s environment of rising labour costs and greater competition for top people.
The overall goal of the Human Resources SRI projects at McGill is to improve the University’s performance. In the face of ongoing financial constraints and challenges, several priority initiatives have been accelerated and are now being implemented.
Workforce Planning
One such initiative – Workforce Planning – is ensuring that the University is proactively managing its administrative workforce, encouraging changes in the way we work and in the work we do. The program was launched on May 1st, 2012 and will run for two years.
Consistent with the guidelines of Quebec’s Bill 100 and given its financial constraints, McGill is reducing by voluntary attrition the size of its administrative and support staff.
- As part of Workforce Planning, McGill is also providing enhanced support to managers to assist them in dealing with staff changes and reductions, and to identify ways to accomplish work more eff
ectively and efficiently. Th
e overall goal is to better align staffing to workload requirements and priorities. - You can read much more about the goals and activities of this initiative on Workforce Planning on its website, which includes a tool kit for managers, reference documents and answers to frequently asked questions.
Talent Management
Workforce Planning is part of a broader initiative related to talent management at McGill, which is a university-wide approach to attracting highly skilled employees, welcoming and integrating new staff, and developing and retaining existing employees to meet present and future organizational needs. The Talent Management project – for both academic and non-academic staff – was launched two years ago as part of the SRI. McGill is now introducing and implementing several components of an integrated talent management system:
- A broader array of workshops and professional development opportunities for new and experienced administrative and support staff members. New Lean training workshops on process and problem-solving methodologies are now being offered to staff to use these tools to effect change within their own units.
- The roll-out of a new human resources competency framework and a harmonization of role profiles and job descriptions that will be complete by summer 2013. These changes will lead to a more integrated and consistent approach to managing, developing and promoting McGill staff. They will also result in robust and simplified processes for job postings and evaluation.
- A talent management tool (a technology solution) that captures information related to recruitment, performance planning and evaluation, retention, development, and compensation.
Standardized policy for start and end dates for non-clinical academic staff
Another initiative centers on establishing a clear, standardized policy for start and end dates for non-clinical academic staff. Acknowledging there may be exceptions, the goal is to better manage the resources of the University by aligning start-end dates that are consistent across faculties. For this project, we undertook to regularize the previously diverse practices regarding the start and end dates for non-clinical tenure-track faculty appointments by developing, implementing and validating a new practice regarding appointment start dates, allowing for reasonable start-up time. This initiative is projected to save $99,667 in Fiscal Year 2012 and $122,333 in Fiscal Year 2013.