Human Resources Management

Introduction/Background

Date of last assessment: October 2001

Departmental Overview

Laboratory Mission

The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) is dedicated to experimental and theoretical research in elementary particle physics and in those fields that make use of its synchrotron radiation facilities, including biology, chemistry, geology, material science and electrical engineering.  This includes the development of new techniques in particle acceleration and detection and of synchrotron radiation sources and associated instrumentation.  Stanford University operates the center as a national user facility for the Department of Energy.

Organizational Mission

The Human Resources Department at SLAC enables the scientific and educational mission of the Laboratory by guiding human resource matters with creativity and integrity.  We provide a full range of human resource services to the organization and all of its employees.  We are responsible for administering Stanford University Human Resources Policies within the SLAC environment and for assuring compliance with the Personnel appendix of our contract with the Department of Energy.  The Department includes 20.9 (full-time equivalent) employees in ten functional areas, including Employment, Benefits, Labor Relations, Employee Relations, Workers’ Compensation, Personnel Records, Training & Development, International Services, Housing, and Compensation.  (See the SLAC Human Resources organizational chart in Appendix A.)  This assessment provides information on the provision of those services based on three Performance Criteria mutually agreed upon by SLAC and DOE.

Identification of Self-Assessment Report Staff

Names, titles, affiliations of participants

Lisa Mongetta, Manager, Employment

Karen Lawrence, Manager, Compensation

Lee Lyon, Director, Human Resources

Process Overview

Performance Objective:         1.0       Customer Needs

Human Resources management will monitor employee/customer feedback in order to ensure high quality service to its employees.

Performance Criteria:            1.1

The requirements, expectations, and preferences of customers are collected and addressed.

Performance Measure:         1.1.a                                                   

Based on the analysis of survey data, the Human Resources Department will establish action plans to improve those areas that do not meet customer expectations.

Discussion:

In order to assess customer needs and satisfaction with the Human Resources Department, we randomly selected 350 SLAC staff with e-mail access and 50 SLAC staff without e-mail access.  Both groups were asked to respond to the following questions:

1.  How well does Human Resources respond to your needs?
2. Are you treated respectfully and professionally by Human Resources staff?
3. Rate the overall Human Resources Department performance.

On each one of these three questions responding staff were asked to rate the Department on a 1-5 scale with 1 being outstanding and 5 being unsatisfactory.

In addition, all respondees were also asked to give their written comments to the following two questions:

1. What works well in the Human Resources Department?
2. What would you like to see improved in the Human Resources Department?

These questionnaires were distributed and collected by a non-Human Resources Department staff member who specializes in such matters.  He gathered the data, collated it, and presented anonymous numeric results along with the written responses to the questions to Human Resources Department management.

Performance Objective:   2.0       HR Systems and Processes            

The Laboratory strives to provide efficient HR systems and processes.

Performance Criteria:            2.1

Human Resource systems and processes will optimize the delivery of services with respect to quality and efficiency.

Performance Assumptions:

The system or process reviewed will be characterized in one of three ways:  (1) it currently provides optimal quality and efficiency, (2) it needs improvement and project will be initiated or (3) it needs improvement but it is considered not cost-beneficial to initiate a project.  The Laboratory will identify the status of the system when first reviewed, will report baseline data at that time, and will report the results of either the improvement or the decision to leave the system as is.

Performance Measure:         2.1.a

The laboratory will evaluate HR systems and processes for improvements.

Discussion:

One of the Human Resource processes that has not been as efficient as we would like has been the employment process.  In reviewing this process with the new SLAC employment manager and with selected hiring officers, we concluded that this process needed improvement and initiated steps to do so.  The Employment staff reviewed the process and identified several critical activities that could be improved and contribute to the efficiency of the overall process.

Performance Objective:         3.0       Attraction and Retention of Qualified People

SLAC will attract and retain highly qualified people by having a cost effective total compensation program competitive with the relevant job market and by initiating methodologies to attract and recruit qualified candidates.

Performance Criteria:            3.1       Total Compensation                        

Total compensation is assessed for competitiveness of its tangible and intangible elements.

Performance Assumptions:

SLAC will identify three significant positions from the various job families and benchmark these positions with our surrounding employment market.  The benchmark positions will be compared to a small sample of the relevant market for total compensation that will include average salary, paid leave, holidays, health and welfare, education benefits, retirement benefits, and other intangibles.  The intangibles might include health promotion activities and classes, employee assistance program, availability of childcare, internal employee recognition award programs.

Performance Measure:         3.1.a                                                   

SLAC will compare the total compensation for its benchmark positions to those in the surrounding labor market.

Discussion:

In accordance with this new performance measure, we are attempting to compare SLAC’s total compensation (salary plus benefits) with a sample of relevant competitors.  Three benchmark positions were chosen because they represent a cross section of the Laboratory and are positions that we compete for in the local market:

1. Administrative Associate (nonexempt, working level)
2. Applications Programmer (working level)
3. Senior Engineer

These three positions were surveyed at three local high tech companies that are engineering and research oriented.   We requested data for direct salary, all varieties of paid leave, education and training benefits, contributory retirement programs, and other benefits.    We compared the averages of those areas that were quantifiable to SLAC data, then attempted to quantify the overall results.  This worked well for certain of the areas, but was difficult, if not impossible, for other areas. 

Performance Criteria:            3.2       Attraction and Recruitment Methodologies

HR maximizes the use of attraction/recruitment methodologies to meet critical hiring goals.

Performance Assumptions:

SLAC Employment Services will identify critical positions that are defined as those with a target hire date negotiated between Employment Services and the hiring officer.

Performance Measure:         3.2a                                                    

SLAC Employment Services will utilize methodologies specifically designed to attract and recruit candidates for each critical position, to meet each target date.

Discussion:

Employment Services identified ten critical positions, filled between October 1, 2001 and September 30, 2002, to measure the actual time to hire against a specified target date. The position titles were Administrative Associate, Engineering Physicist, Information Design and Production Specialist, Sr. S&E Associate, Sr. S&E Technician, Deputy Department Head, Sr. Mechanical Designer, Physical Science Research Assistant, Electronic Engineer, and Geo-Environmental Technologist.  As requested, Employment Services’ representatives sourced, advertised, attended job fairs, and interviewed in support of these critical hires.

Performance Objective:         1.0       Customer Needs

Human Resources management will monitor employee/customer feedback in order to ensure high quality service to its employees.

Findings:

Results from our Customer Satisfaction Survey were received from 71 (20%) of our random sample.  The quantitative results of our survey are displayed in Table 1.  As you can see from this table, nearly half of the respondees considered Human Resource customer service to be outstanding in every respect and nearly 85% of the respondees considered the department to be outstanding or good.  Less than 5% of the respondees rated the department as unsatisfactory.   These data strongly indicate that the SLAC Human Resource Department is meeting customer needs and providing service in a respectful, professional and responsive manner.  The mean ratings on all three questions are also very high, with the ratings falling between outstanding and good.  As a comparison, the overall Human Resources Department performance was rated as 2.2 in 1999; 2.5 in 2000; and 2.2 in 2001.  Our rating of 1.9 this year represents a significant increase in customer satisfaction.

 Table 1 

Based on our reading of the qualitative survey data - that is the written comments on what our department does well and what needs improvement, we can make the following summary statements.

The qualitative written comments reinforce the quantitative data that the SLAC Human Resource Department is providing desirable services in a very effective manner to SLAC employees and managers.  Much of this can be attributed to significant improvements in our Employment Services and Employee Relations areas and to significantly reduced turnaround time in our re-classification process.

In general, there were many more favorable comments than negative comments regarding the Human Resources Department.  In particular, the Benefits Services area, Training and Development, Employment, and Compensation received numerous positive comments acknowledging the excellent service provided by those areas. In addition, Housing, Employment, and Employee Relations also received a high number of positive comments.  Traditionally, Benefits has been one of the recipients of praise along with the Housing, Personnel Records, and International Services area.  This year Training and Development, Employee Relations, Employment, and Compensation supplanted those areas in receiving the most favorable comments.  Much of this is due to the fact that the Employee Relations and Employment functions have new staff that have invigorated the services they provide to the laboratory.  Compensation, traditionally a source of negative comments, received positive comments this time primarialy because of their dedicated effort to reducing turnaround time on reclassification requests.  In general, all of the areas of Human Resources got a high number of positive comments.

The negative comments, interestingly enough, were also primarily addressed at the Benefits area.  We attribute this to several events.  During this past year, SLAC/Stanford had significant price increases in its health insurance premiums; introduced a new vendor who provided substandard customer service; and had a conversion in retirement plans for our Bargaining Unit staff.  In addition, there were numerous problems among our health carriers.  All of these things contributed to the unusually high number of criticisms of Benefits.  The other area that received an unusually high number of criticisms was the International Services area, in contrast to their accustomed majority of positive comments.  This can be primarily attributed to difficult and sometimes onerous changes in the requirements placed upon visitors and immigrants by the fallout of the 9/11 events.  The employees in this area have had to insist on much more rigorous documentation and procedures then ever.  This has undoubtedly skewed the customers’ view of the area. 

In summary, while there were negative comments about some areas in the department, the sources of those comments are understandable; we will take steps to rectify the causes under our control.  On the positive side, areas that traditionally have not received praise did so in this survey.  Overall, the department received high praise from its customers.

Performance Gradient:

• Unsatisfactory - no customer survey data is collected.
• Marginal - survey data is collected, but no action plans are developed to respond in needed areas.
• Good – action plans are developed that are directly responsive to valid customer feedback or overall customer feedback is between 3 and 3.5 on a 5-point scale.
• Excellent – action plans are implemented and measurable progress or action is taken or overall customer feedback is between 3.5 and 4.0.
• Outstanding – improvements are achieved which directly respond to the survey data or overall customer feedback exceeds 4.0.

Based on the above gradients, Human Resources has earned an Outstanding rating in customer satisfaction.  We clearly made improvements in areas that needed it and our survey results are less than 2 (our scale was reversed, but 2 is comparable to 4).

Performance Objective:         2.0       HR Systems and Processes

The Laboratory strives to provide efficient HR systems and processes.

Findings:

Based on feedback received from our hiring officers, applicants, and other users of the employment process, the Employment Services area identified several process and technical inefficiencies in our system.  Some of these changes have been quantified and some have not.  Based on this analysis, the Employment Services staff initiated the following improvements: 

• Sourcing: Employment Services has increased the sourcing of resumes by attending more Job Fairs and utilizing web based Job Boards for advertising and recruitment. Additional sourcing has increased the quantity and quality of the resumes received for each open Job Requisition.
• Resume Routing Process: Employment Services has changed the process from manual (Inter-Office mail) to automated (email).  This new process has reduced the resume routing time from an average of three days to an average of one day.
• Resume Screening:  Upon request, Employment Services representatives now screen incoming resumes, increasing the quality (or fit) of applicants sent to the hiring manager and saving them substantial review and response time.
• Applicant Evaluation Form: The Applicant Evaluation form has been streamlined, reducing the time required for the hiring manager to document the review of each applicant.
• Job Tracking Board: This new tracking mechanism tracks Job Requisitions through the final Hiring cycle, resulting in faster turn around time from authorizing departments and allowing Employment Services to carefully monitor the process.  The average time from hire request to actual hire for 2001 was 3.9 days.  The goal for 2002 was 3.0 days and the average for 2002 (to date) is 2.6 days.

These actions have dramatically increased the satisfaction and decreased the time involved in the hiring of new employees at SLAC.  We believe these processes will hold us in particular good stead when the employment market becomes more challenging.  We will continue to evaluate the employment process for improvements, particularly as we move our Human Resources’ systems from Peoplesoft version 7.5 to Peoplesoft version 8 – a web based software application. 

Performance Gradients:       

• Unsatisfactory:  little or no effort has been demonstrated towards achievement of the performance measure.
• Marginal:  some effort is demonstrated, but the results fall short of the expectations for “good” gradient.
• Good:  one or two major systems or processes are identified for review, baseline data has been taken, and, if action is initiated, there is measurable progress toward improvement.
• Excellent:  if action was initiated, analysis against baseline data for the system or process improvement shows clear improvement or the system is streamlined, enhanced or eliminated or baseline data and the review show the systems meet our expectations.
• Outstanding:  in addition to the significant improvements in “excellent”, the completion of the project is ahead of schedule and the expected results are achieved or analysis against baseline data indicates the systems are excellent.

Based on the gradients above, Human Resources has earned an  Outstanding rating.  Baseline data were established and the measured results significantly improved upon the baseline.  

Performance Objective:         3.0       Attraction and Retention of Qualified People

SLAC will attract and retain highly qualified people by having a cost effective total compensation program competitive with the relevant job market and by initiating methodologies to attract and recruit qualified candidates.

Performance Criteria:            3.1       Total Compensation

Discussion:

As one can see from the information in Appendix B, SLAC average salaries for the chosen positions are competitive.  We are definitely in a solid mid-market salary position relative to these three competitors.  On average we lead them about 3.5% for the Administrative Associate and about 3.3% for the Applications Programmer; senior Engineers are split – we lead 4.3% for Mechanical Engineers, but are about even (lag of 0.3%) for the Electrical Engineer.  On the average we lead the market in salaries for these positions by about 3.3%.                   

We found that benefit comparisons were very difficult, since clear comparability was often not attainable. We quantified the contributory retirement programs and the paid leave time, but were only able to make broad observations on Education benefits, Health Plans, and several miscellaneous benefits (See Appendix C).

The SLAC/Stanford contributory retirement program appears to be about 6.7% higher than the average of the three companies.  This is due primarily to our stronger matching funds policy.

SLAC provides about 5% more paid time off.  The difference is primarily due to SLAC’s more generous vacation accrual policies.

SLAC provides an average of about $1800 less per year in support for college degree programs (although SLAC does reimburse up to 90% of the tuition above the $5,250 for some work related degrees, so this is difficult to compare).   We appear to be comparable to the other companies in support for work related training classes, workshops, etc.  If one includes Stanford’s unique college tuition reimbursement program for children of staff, then we clearly offer higher overall education benefits, but this general education/training area is not one than we can confidently quantify.

In the areas that we could not reliably quantify, we make the following observations.  It appears than SLAC/Stanford pays more of the employee premium for medical coverage (at least for single employee coverage) than do the other three organizations.  SLAC/Stanford has an employee assistance program (called the Help Center) and so do two of the other organizations, so there is no real difference in this dimension.  SLAC also offers a child care subsidy program of up to $5,000 a year per family (depending on family income level); none of the other organizations offer any similar program.  In contrast, two of the other companies offer profit sharing to their employees.  This can be quite lucrative in strong economic times and amount to nothing (as it does now) in slow economic times. 

Taking the areas we can quantify, SLAC appears overall to offer about 14% higher total compensation package the other local organizations.

Performance Gradient:

• Unsatisfactory – benchmark positions are not identified or are not compared to the market.
• Marginal – total compensation is not within 20% of the average market for the benchmarks. 
• Good – total compensation is within 10% of the local market. 
• Excellent – total compensation is within 5-10% of the local market. 
• Outstanding – total compensation is within 5% of the local market. 

Based on the gradients above, Human Resources has earned a Good rating.  This is due to the fact that our total compensation program higher than our local comparing organizations.  We believe that this above market total compensation program is to our definite benefit in recruiting, retention, and reputation.  We therefore believe that the gradients need to be renegotiated, but, given the agreed upon gradient, this is the rating indicated.

Performance Criteria:            3.2       Attraction and Recruitment Methodologies

Discussion:

The critical positions identified by Employment are shown in Table 2.  The data show that Employment Services working closely with the Hiring Managers achieved the following results; the average number of calendar days from Job Requisition Posting Date to Hire Date was 33.  As a comparison, the Average for Non-Target Date positions for the same period was 119 days to hire.

Among the ten positions, the hire took place an average of 6 days after the target date with a range of 21 days prior and 19 days after.                        

Performance Gradient:

• Unsatisfactory – no activity is undertaken at all to meet the negotiated target date.
• Needs Improvement – actions are initiated by Employment Services but critical positions on the average are hired more than one month beyond the target date.
• Good – actions are initiated and critical positions on the average are hired between 3 weeks and one month after the targeted date.
• Excellent – actions are initiated and critical positions on the average are hired within one week after the target date.
• Outstanding – actions are initiated by Employment Services and critical positions on the average are hired before the target date.

Based on the gradient above, Human Resources has earned an Excellent rating.  On the average, our critical hires were made within six days after the target date. 

2002 Customer Satisfaction Action Plan Results:

Based on the input received from our customers last year, we established the following goals:

During the 2001 self assessment, we committed to 3 actions plans during the last year:

1. We set a goal to reduce the response time from 3.9 to 3 days for the time it takes from a hiring officer’s request to hire a person to the time the offer letter leaves the Employment Services area.  A sampling of our hires indicates we reduced the time to 2.6 days.
2. We also continue to work on our reclassification turnaround time.  We committed our goal of an average of 60 days for this action plan and we are very pleased that our turnaround has been reduced to 48 days.
3. We committed to the Employee Relations and Training area to develop a supervisory program for newly appointed supervisors.  During the last year we have done the following:
   • Instituted a supervisors’ roundtable – a discussion group not only for new supervisors but for all supervisors – that covers a variety of topics.  During the past year we have presented six roundtables. 
   • In addition, we have produced twelve other classes oriented towards new and current supervisors. 
   • Our program targeted at new supervisors kicked-off in mid September 2002.  This is a nine course program that will lead to a Certificate in Supervision.  New supervisors are mandated to attend 4 of the 9 classes and we anticipate that most will attend all the classes.  In addition, we have made the program available to any current supervisors who wish to upgrade their skill sets.  As of this writing, 90 supervisors have enrolled in the certificate program.

FY 2003 Customer Satisfaction Goals:

Based on the customer survey feedback this year, the only areas receiving significant negative feedback were Benefits and International Services.  As we explained earlier, both of these areas have traditional been very favorably viewed by our customer base; the negative feedback this year in both areas was due to unusual events.  We do not believe that this year will initiate a downward trend for either service area.  For that reason, our only customer service goal will be to focus on our communication to our customers in these areas to be certain they are aware of the uncontrollable events (at least by SLAC Human Resources) that impact them negatively. 

Summary:

In general, we believe this is a very positive self assessment: by all measures and anecdotal feedback, the Human Resources Department has improved significantly during this past year.  The Department received the most favorable customer feedback it has ever had.  On our performance measures, we received an Outstanding in the Performance measure weighted 32%; an Excellent in the measure weighted 34%; and a Good to Marginal in one of the measures (and we would argue that we did not establish a good gradient for this measure) weighted 17% and an Excellent in the other.  Based on this information, we rate ourselves as Excellent. 

SLAC | BIS  |BSD

For Questions or comments, Please contact Ziba Mahdavi, Last Updated 10/30/02