HigherEd HR Blog

The escalating standoff between the Congressional Democrats, their Republicans counterparts and the White House has left Congress unable to accomplish much beyond naming the local post office (depending on your perspective, this may be a good thing). While the press has made much of the high-profile bills being dragged down by the current face-off (SCHIP, the Farm Bill, etc.), few have paid attention to the other casualties, including the Presidential nominees and the agencies they run. Take the NLRB for instance. By the end of the year, the Board will only have two of its five members, leaving it unable to issue any significant decisions (again, some of you may find this a positive outcome).

Presidents can usually temporarily bypass stand-offs over nominees by appointing candidates when the Senate is in recess. Recess appointees only serve limited time (it generally works out to about a year - the exact duration is calculated on a convoluted equation based on the date of the appointments and when Congress adjourns for the session). The Senate Dems, however, are planning on denying Bush the opportunity for recess appointment this time around by keeping the Senate open over the holiday recess.

Do not be confused - no Senators will actually be there (kind of like that statistics class 3 p.m. on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving). The Department of Labor may also suffer with nominees for key positions, including the Deputy Secretary, Wage and Hour Administrator and Solicitor of Labor. And the EEOC also hangs in the balance.

(Posted by Josh Ulman, chief government relations officer, CUPA-HR)

As most of you know, I am frequently on the road to present at our national, regional and chapter meetings and to help new chapters get started. I am also fortunate that many other higher ed associations and affiliated organizations are interesting in hearing our message regarding the importance of HR and the significant role that we could and should be playing. This means that I get to spend a lot of "quality time" in airports and on airplanes. Those of you who know me know that I am not one to while away the hours staring aimlessly out of the window! Here are some interesting things I've read about during the last few days:

I am sure that many of you have read recent articles about workforce engagement and the abysmally low percentage of employees who are fully engaged in the work of their employer. In a new global workforce study published by Towers Perrin, only 21% of employees indicated that they are truly engaged in the work of their employer while 38% are partially or fully disengaged. If we presented information like this to our campus CEO, he or she might look at us and tell us to fix the problem. You and I know that this is not an "HR problem" and that it is in almost every situation linked directly to the immediate supervisor. We could talk about that topic for hours! The bottom line for HR is that we can talk with our CEOs and other campus leaders about the types of things that can help our employees feel more engaged in the work of our institution.

Something I found very interesting about this study is that Towers and Perrin actually targeted 40 companies and, using a regression analysis, correlated financial performance with the employee engagement data. Employers with the highest percentage of engaged employees increased operating income by 19%! Those employers with the lowest percentage of engaged employees saw year-to-year revenue declines of 33%! Talk about our employees impacting the bottom line! I challenge you to share this or similar information with your senior leadership and have a dialog about your employees and the impact that greater engagement can have for your bottom line ... and more importantly for the experience of those students who choose to spend their time and $$$ at your institution.

(Posted by Andy Brantley, CUPA-HR CEO)

I spent Thursday morning with a great group of 35 HEHR professionals in the NYC area. Priscilla Rogers, Josh Ulman and I met with this energetic group to discuss public policy issues, higher ed and higher ed HR issues, and the creation of a chapter for NYC area colleges and universities.

Following our discussion and presentations, Priscilla was approached by FIFTEEN colleagues who volunteered to be a part of the steering committee to get the chapter started! Suffice it to say that we were very, very pleased with the response. We also had a great time getting to know new colleagues and reconnecting with others ? including several who joined us last week for our national conference in Baltimore (sorry no crabcakes for lunch at the NYC meeting). Great people, high energy and enthusiasm. Priscilla and I look forward to helping this group get started!

Thanks to our colleagues at Columbia University for hosting us and to our colleagues at TIAA-CREF, Fidelity, AIG VALIC and Sibson Consulting for sponsoring the event. We could not have done this without your help and support.

(Posted by Andy Brantley, CUPA-HR CEO)

Each year the Veterans Day National Ceremony is held on November 11 at 11:00 a.m. at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.  Since our conference this year was so close in time and proximity to that ceremony, it seemed only fitting that we recognize the members of our association and their families who have honorably served in the armed forces.  Patrick Rhoton prepared a moving video featured pictures of service members in action from each branch of service.  All veterans were invited to stand while their service song was played.  Thunderous rounds of applause as each song was played conveyed sincere gratitude to our veterans. Numerous conference participants commented that they appreciated this opportunity to publicly honor those in our association who have served in the armed forces.

(Posted by Kirk Beyer, President-Elect of CUPA-HR)

Here are the answers for the three questions from Thursday's post.

What percentage of Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 have a tattoo?  33%

What is an L. A. T. couple?  Living Apart Together

When men increase their contribution to household chores, their wives find them more attractive.  Actually, from my experience, I thought the answer would be "more chores"!

On Friday, Dr. Jac Fitz-enz, the acknowledged "father" of human capital performance benchmarking was our keynote speaker.  Dr. Jac started his presentation by running a short video that provided us with some thought-provoking trends about the speed of change.  For example, higher education is currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist.  The increase in the pace of change has been so dramatic, that by the time a college student is engaged in the third year of education, half of what the student learned in their first year of college is obsolete.

Benchmarking compares historical data.  Therefore, it is know as a lagging indicator.  When organizations didn't have much change, this was a useful measure.  However, in our current environment of rapid change, exploding knowledge production, and  organizations becoming more and more dissimilar, benchmarking is no longer a meaningful measure.  What organizations now need are predictive indicators. 

It is possible to turn lagging indicators into leading indicators which are predictive.  Take turnover for example.  Turnover reports what has already happened.  However, we know that a high level of turnover is disruptive, costly, and will most likely foreshadow an increase in customer dissatisfaction.  Human resource professionals can provide valuable strategic information to the organization by thoughtfully converting historical information into predictions.

(Posted by Kirk Beyer, President-Elect of CUPA-HR)

What percentage of Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 have a tattoo What is an L.A.T. couple? When men increase their contribution to household chores, their wives find them more ____? Attendees at the Newcomers, New Members, and International Members' Reception know the answers to these and other questions used as icebreakers.

The 2007 National Conference officially opened by welcoming approximately 250 newcomers, new members, and international members at a reception sponsored by SunGard Higher Education. Since making professional connections is an important part of the National Conference, first-time attendees were encouraged to mingle with CUPA-HR National Board members to network and exchange business cards during the conference and to stay in touch after the conference!

This was one of the largest newcomer receptions to date. International and off-shore attendees from Australia, Lebanon, Mexico, the Marshall Islands, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Singapore, Uganda, and the United Kingdom also participated, testifying to the fact that CUPA-HR is the recognized global leader in higher education human resources.

Check back tomorrow and I'll provide you with the "correct" answers to the above three questions as well as some insights from the keynote by Jac Fitz-enz.

(Posted by Kirk Beyer, President-Elect of CUPA-HR)

It's the Pre-Conference Workshop day and all is smooth sailing in Baltimore. Each of  the sessions is filled to the max, and everyone seems pleased to be here ... a lot of reconnecting going on, but after all ... we're CUPA_HR and ... that's what we do!

Baltimore is beautiful in a blustery sort of way, and the hotel's location on the harbor is exquisite ... lots of places to walk and things to see. What a great conference start!

(Posted by CUPA-HR member Mary Maher)

We've created short-term blogs in the past, primarily to cover events such as the CUPA-HR National Conference and Expo.

But more and more, we find ourselves with information to share that's ideally suited to the blog format -- buzz from CEO Andy Brantley's travels to CUPA-HR and other meetings, a heads up on policy issues from Josh Ulman in D.C., an interesting link or piece of information unearthed by Ken Tagawa in his quest to bring content to the Knowledge Center, and, yes, firsthand accounts from the national conference.

Most of the office staff is headed to Baltimore next week for what promises to be an outstanding conference. If you aren't able to attend, we hope you'll join us virtually through the blog!