Progress Report: Staff Recruitment, Mentoring and Advancement

Executive Leadership: Vice President for Finance and Administration

Unit Leadership: Human Resources

Published November 16, 2023

Summary of Progress:

DEI and Search Committee Efforts:

  • Ongoing - The recommendation of an HR UDO position and development of a DEI Advocate pool of Search Committee volunteers.
  • Completed - Campus-wide guidelines for the composition of Search Committees. Additional vetting of these guidelines is necessary along with the development of methodologies for initial and ongoing renewal of search committee training.

Talent Acquisition:

  • Ongoing – a) expansion of job description templates and processes, b) diversity of applicant pools through expansive advertising on job board aggregators focused on diversity-specific sources and c) sourcing of candidates in a more systematic way.

Classified Employees:

  • Ongoing - HR agrees with strong efforts to reduce recruitment barriers for classified employees. An HR leader serves on a state-wide board and has argued in the best interests of UB and all SUNY organization. Recently SUNY has announced new efforts to reinvigorate online civil service testing including a civil service testing center in Buffalo.

Training and Development:

  • Completed - HR facilitated content-owner partnerships and prepared 6-hour trainings for our custodians and in partnership with Facility Operations leaders also initiated supervisory training for new Janitorial and Trades Supervisors.  This model was also used to create content in collaboration with Student Life HR to train all Student Life supervisors in 2023 – trained approximately 100 over 4 sessions.
  • Completed – 2 HR staff members have been nationally certified as wellbeing coaches by the Catalyst Coaching Institute.  1 HR Leader received their certification in Leadership Coaching through the School of Management.
  • Ongoing - Additional efforts are necessary, including leadership development training and coaching and HR is committed to building additional training as part of refreshed HR resource and strategic planning efforts.

Staff Awards:

  • Ongoing - The development and operationalization of renewed staff award structure and a cross-campus committee focused on employee nominations with individual and team awardees focused on often behind the scenes work committed to excellence, rising stars, unsung heroes, and inclusive excellence putting UB’s values into action and creating a climate where all employees belong, thrive and succeed.  

UB Workforce Trends:

  • Completed  - UB engaged EAB in an analysis of university workforce trends, applicant outreach, and candidate expectations that will contribute to the ongoing effort of developing a distinctive and compelling value proposition to attract and retain faculty and staff.
Progress on all recommendations

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