Project Updates

Project Update: Nov. 20, 2019

Overview:

Organization:

• Organization and staffing activities for Shared Services are in full swing. The shared services center is expected to employee between 130-140 employees when it opens in early 2020. Our workforce may grow after the center becomes operational and services are added; however, any additional headcount in the center would not occur for at least twelve months.

• The size of the service center workforce was determined after a full review of positions across campus was completed during the summer. The review process included multiple meetings with colleges, schools and other units to determine the types of activities performed by academic support personnel in the units and the positions currently handling these activities.

• In late July, we notified employees whose jobs were transitioning into Shared Services. Individual meetings were held with each employee to discuss the impact to their current position and the opportunities available to them within the Shared Services organization. These meetings were conducted in partnership with Talent and Culture and the Shared Services leadership team.
  
  Note: Due to the reduction of FTEs in these type of activities during the last few years, there are more positions available within Shared Services than individuals impacted.

• In August, approximately 108 Shared Services positions were posted to WVU Hire to be hired and filled as part of the project. The positions initially were posted and available only to internal WVU or WVU Research Corp. applicants.

• There also are approximately 26 individuals who are transitioning to Shared Services via a “lift-and-shift” process for their roles. These positions primarily are from central administrative units (e.g., Talent and Culture and the Division of Finance) where 100% of a position’s responsibilities were deemed to move to the Shared Services.

• The Shared Services leadership team (director-level positions) is almost complete with the exception of the director of Financial Management. All other leaders either are hired or have been identified to lift and shift into new roles. A search was conducted for the director of Financial Management throughout the last few months; however, a candidate was not identified. The search for this position has been reopened.

Facilities:

• Renovations are underway on the third floor of One Waterfront Place to house the primary location of the shared services center. Half of the floor will be completed by mid-December, and the other half will be ready for staff move-in by mid-February.

• Three locations were determined to be storefront locations for the shared services center:

• The ground floor of the Mountainlair on the Downtown Campus.
• The first floor of the National Research Center for Coal and Energy building on the Evansdale Campus.
• The ground floor of the Health Sciences South building.

• The storefronts will be staffed with Customer Care team members to provide in-person support to faculty, staff and student employees. The Health Sciences storefront will be slightly larger than the other locations and will offer expanded services to support needs specific to Health Sciences (e.g., dual employment and clinical activities). Renovations on all three storefront locations are underway.

• The shared services center will serve our divisional campuses by providing customer service through technology and consistent processes. Defined storefront locations on the divisional campuses are not currently planned.

Technology:

• Technology is a vital part of the Shared Services project. In fact, we even built technology into our vision statement, which states:
  
  The Shared Services Center is a redesign of business support activities with the infusion of technology and data accuracy to empower our workforce resulting in trusted and timely customer service.

• Using the Salesforce case management and knowledge-base tools, employees will have one place to go when they need assistance.

• The Salesforce technology build is quickly progressing. We are using an agile approach to implementation, which allows our team to continuously adapt/make improvements to the technology.

• Full testing of the technology began the first week of November. After testing and acceptance is completed, training will begin for shared services center team members. We also will develop training materials to share with the broader University.

• As a part of the implementation, an enterprise framework guide has been developed to assist in expanding use of the Salesforce platform for other areas of the University. Our goal is to improve technological capabilities while reducing the technological support footprint at the same time.

• Another technology that will be implemented as a part of the Shared Services project is the Taleo Onboarding system. This system is a cloud-based solution that provides automation of information in transitioning job applicants to new hires. The system also eliminates the need of keying benefits and payroll info into our financial system.

• Taleo Onboarding will be implemented in two phases:

• Phase One will go live in January 2020, and will include electronic onboarding for faculty and staff positions that currently are hired using the Taleo Recruiting System (WVU Hire).
• Phase Two is expected to be in place later in calendar year 2020. This phase will enable electronic onboarding to adjunct or "per course" faculty hires, graduate assistants, undergraduate student workers and other types of new hires.

Project Update: Sept. 25, 2019

Organization:

Operations:

• Appirio (our Salesforce implementation partner) has been on site twice to conduct discovery sessions and establish a common understanding of the solution, deliverables and ensure alignment.

• The Shared Services team is working with Information Technology Services to build, test and deploy the Salesforce Community platform by the end of January 2020. Shared Services has begun training and outreach.

• Construction activities for the Shared Services Center recently kicked off in One Waterfront Place.

• Construction initially will focus on the third and fourth floor (river side) of the building, and this work is expected to be complete by the end of October.

• The mailroom and the lactation room on the third floor will move into renovated locations on the first floor.

• The other side of the third floor will be renovated beginning in November, and this construction is schedule to be complete in January.
  
  Note: Conference rooms on the third floor of One Waterfront Place will remain available during the construction.

• The Shared Services storefronts will be located on:
  
  • The ground floor of the Mountainlair on the Downtown Campus.
  • The first floor of the National Research Center for Coal and Energy building on the Evansdale Campus.
  • The ground floor of the Health Sciences South building.
  
  These locations primarily will be staffed with customer care support and will provide walk-up/in-person support for faculty, staff or student employees.
  
  The Health Sciences storefront will be larger and offer expanded processing services (similar to the Shared Services Center at One Waterfront Place).
  
  WVU Tech and WVU Potomac State College also will be equipped with technology to operate as storefronts and assist faculty, staff and student employees working in these locations.
  
  Note: After the Shared Services Center is operational, other locations may be identified where walk-up support could be provided.
  

Project Update: May 29, 2019

Operations:

Late last week, the Shared Services team announced the location for the service center and the selection of Salesforce as their case-management software for tracking incidents and service requests.

The service center will be located on the third floor of One Waterfront Place (OWP). The area will be totally redesigned beginning later this summer to create an innovative workspace to promote collaboration among service center employees. Renderings of the new space will be shared soon.

The functions that currently reside on the third floor of OWP will be moving to temporary locations in the coming months to accommodate the build out of the service center.

Salesforce will serve an important role in the success of the shared services center by:

• Providing the means to track customer service.
• Providing information to customers through a knowledge base.
• Producing data for metrics.
• Allowing for improvements based on review of those metrics. 

• A portal to support customer inquiry into the service center.
• Case management technology to track, respond to and resolve customer inquiries.
• A knowledge base to serve as an online resource to provide answers to common customer questions.

Salesforce will be implemented over several months with training for users to begin in late fall.

Project Update: May 7, 2019

Personnel Announcement:

West Virginia University Shared Services is excited to welcome two new members to our team, effective this week:

• Sheila Seccurro has been selected as the director of Workforce Administration for Shared Services. In this role, she will oversee the team responsible for providing full life-cycle administrative human resources support in the areas of talent acquisition, onboarding, compensation, benefits administration, training, employee records and offboarding processes within the shared services center.
  
  Sheila is a seasoned human resources professional and leader with a proven track record in the higher education, healthcare and natural gas industries.
  
  Most recently, Sheila served as director of HR Strategic Projects within Talent and Culture, where she oversaw several cross-functional and broad-based projects and initiatives aligned with the mission and vision of West Virginia University.
  
  Prior to her project management role, Sheila served as executive director of Compensation Administration at the University. In this role, she developed and implemented a new market-competitive and nationally-recognized compensation plan for non-faculty positions. She also identified and implemented creative compensation solutions to facilitate the recruitment and retention of key talent among other accomplishments.
  
  Sheila began her career as a compensation analyst at West Virginia University. She spent several years in various compensation and human resources roles at Consolidated Natural Gas Transmission, Corp., and the Monongalia Health System before returning to the University in 2007.
  
  Sheila holds bachelor’s degrees in psychology and business administration with a specialization in human resources, both from West Virginia University.
  
  
• Rich Cortellini also is joining the Shared Services team and will serve as director of Operational Excellence. In this role, he will oversee the continuous improvement of operations within the shared services center.
  
  Rich’s primary responsibilities will include the day-to-day management and support of continuous improvement operations staff, developing relationships with customer groups, reporting on service center metrics developed for internal and external use and maintaining the technology required to support the center.
  
  Rich has nearly 20 years’ experience in the fields of training and process improvement and engineering.
  
  Most recently, he served as a training specialist at Mylan, where he managed the training and quality compliance needs of more than 300 management and non-management production employees. He also oversaw the compliance of process systems and standard operating procedures within Mylan’s Morgantown plant.
  
  Prior to his time at Mylan, Rich served as the assistant director of Chi Alpha Campus Ministries at Fairmont State University, where he managed an organization of more than 100 students.
  
  Rich also previously served as an industrial engineer, Six Sigma Black Belt, at Swanson Industries, Inc., and a lean continuous improvement coordinator, Six Sigma Black Belt, at L&W Engineering Co. in Belleville, Michigan.
  
  He holds a bachelor’s degree in operations and information systems management from The Pennsylvania State University, and a master’s certificate in human resources management from Villanova University.

Please join us in welcoming Sheila and Rich to the Shared Services team and wishing them the best in their new roles.

Project Update: Jan. 28, 2019

Organization:

• Throughout fall 2018, project team members and representatives from Talent and Culture conducted a series of workshops with leaders of colleges, schools and units to discuss activities/responsibilities within their areas that potentially could transition to the shared services organization.

• The project team currently is reviewing the output from these discussions and again will be meeting with leaders of colleges, schools and units in the coming weeks to finalize the shared services organizational design and discuss a transition schedule.

• Leadership opportunities within the WVU Shared Services organization have been posted, including a customer service director position and an operational excellence director position. Both of these roles will be critical in building out the University's  shared services capabilities and operationalizing the shared services center.
• The customer service director will oversee customer service operations within the WVU shared services center. Primary responsibilities include day-to-day management and support of customer service staff and operations as well as issue resolution. This position also will be responsible for using data from both the case-management system and customer interactions to consistently improve customer service within the center.
• The operational excellence director will oversee the continuous improvement of operations within the service center. Primary responsibilities will include day-to-day management and support of continuous improvement operations staff, developing relationships with customer groups, reporting on service center metrics developed for internal and external use and maintaining the technology required to support the center.
  
     Visit the WVU Careers website for more information on these opportunities.


Operations:

• A request for proposal (RFP) was released by the WVU Procurement team on Jan.15, to identify a robust case-management system and knowledge base to support the customer service goals of the shared services center. Responses to the RFP from vendors are due by Friday, Feb. 8.



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