Bazzell: All are welcome to attend HR Design meetings

Here is a statement from Darrell Bazzell, University of Wisconsin–Madison vice chancellor for administration, regarding meetings of the HR Design project:

“The historic opportunity to redesign UW–Madison’s personnel system is an inclusive process that has been open to members of our campus community right from the beginning.

“This project is organized into an advisory committee and 11 work teams that represent stakeholders from across the campus, including faculty and staff, labor organizations and students. This diversity is allowing a wide range of perspectives to be represented. More than 150 members of the campus community are on these work teams, drafting initial recommendations to reform our personnel system. Part of their responsibility is to share information about the teams’ progress with their constituent groups.

“It has been the policy of the advisory committee and 11 work teams involved in the HR Design project to allow visitors to attend meetings. To our knowledge, no one who has asked to attend has been turned away.

“Although we stand by our position that these meetings involving members of the campus community do not trigger the open meetings law, I want to make it clear that going forward any interested person is welcome to attend all meetings of the advisory committee and work teams. In addition, we will make sure that the campus community is aware that the meetings are taking place.

“Let’s be clear that the product of these work teams is only an initial step in the process of restructuring our personnel system. Following preliminary recommendations from the work teams, there will be campus engagement events to gather more feedback. The first of these feedback sessions are scheduled for April 17 and 19. Feedback can also be given to project leaders through Web chats scheduled for April 11 and 12, or at any time via email at hrdesign@news.wisc.edu.

“These engagement events are only the latest in a series of opportunities members of the campus community have had to voice their opinions on their human resources system.

“Nearly 500 campus employees attended forums on Feb. 28 and 29. More than 400 took part in Web chats about the HR Design project in February. Last week, nearly 300 attended engagement events on campus that allowed employees to give input directly to work team members as the teams moved toward drafting their initial recommendations. We are pleased and gratified by this extraordinary level of involvement. More information on the project is available at hrdesign.wisc.edu.

“As I have said before, the opportunity to refine a human resources system to meet the unique needs of a world-class research and teaching institution doesn’t come along often: we need to make sure we get it right. A spirit of openness has been a cornerstone of this project from the beginning and has helped to make the project successful.

“We plan to build on that spirit and are encouraging all members of the campus community to become involved in this open and collaborative design project.”