Your Ideas Matter

Required Training for Financial System Access

Melissa Stewart and Dana Goble noticed that new hires often struggled with financial systems because there wasn’t a consistent training process in place. Each supervisor handled training differently, which led to confusion, mistakes, and extra work for the Help Desk. A lot of the questions we were getting could have been answered in training if everyone had gone through the same program.

To fix this, the team decided to create a streamlined training program for new hires. The training is tailored to their job roles and is now offered every week instead of every two weeks. An email with quick tips and training resources is sent out to new users to make sure they know about the resources and encourage them to attend training sessions. We’re also working on refresher training to address system updates and common issues. 

So far, the changes have made a big difference. New users are more prepared, the number of questions coming to the Help Desk has gone down, and 5 out of 6 new users have attended training. It’s been a great step toward making the system easier for everyone to use.

Fellow Change Agents: Hunter Rabe, Nolan Haire, Dawn Kilburn, Melissa Stewart, Colette Gillespie, Caitlin Wedel, Ramia Whitecotton

Impact of idea:

These changes will enhance the user experience, reducing the need for Help Desk interventions and saving valuable time and resources in the long run.

Reduce Capital Asset Entry Errors

Wendy Reese started to see an increase in errors for transactions being recognized as a Capitalized Asset.  When transactions are not recorded appropriately, the corrections are extremely time consuming for all parties involved. It is better for the organization to record them right the first time. Through her research, she found most transactions could be avoided with improved training tools and follow-ups. She partnered with Annie Rajaei in KUCR Financial Services to mimic their Capital Asset Training tipsheet to share with the Share Service Centers.

In addition to the tipsheet, when transactions are improperly recorded, she takes the opportunity to make all individuals in the approval workflow aware to catch the errors in the future.  These two steps will help provide the educational tools for our teams to succeed and improve the accountability of all workflow steps to catch errors before they are approved.

Fellow Change Agents: Annie Rajaei

Impact of idea:

$2,500 annually in efficiency savings with 50% reduction in correction entries

Revised KU Bookstore Purchasing Guidelines

Alex Todd was noticing how our previous KU Bookstore transaction limits of $200 on University Procurement cards was causing difficulties for their customers and training new employees.  Alex worked with KU partners to revise our guidance on purchases in the KU Bookstore to have no limit on KU/KUCR procurement cards.  The only limitation is for technology purchases which should always be done through a purchase order.  Because Alex and the Kansas Memorial Union team was willing to bring up an old policy and procedure for review, we made changes to improve our campus partners shopping experience.  

Fellow Change Agents: Katrina Yoakum, Heather Blanck, Mike Ayres, Jack Kredo

Impact of idea:

This change should lead to a smoother shopping experience for our campus partners to buy from our local KU Bookstore.

Transparent Plan for Addressing Salary Inequities

Sam Evans was frustrated with the lack of a clear plan for addressing the significantly lower than market wages. Executive leadership was in agreement with Sam's assessment and is working to regularly address and update our campus partners on the effort to bring competitive wages to our Faculty and Staff.

Fellow Change Agents: Jeff DeWitt

Impact of idea:

When there is a clear plan to address critical components to employee satisfaction, we can build trust with our Faculty and Staff.

Provide Standard Service Now Training to New IT Hires

Ben Brassart began to notice not all new hires were getting consistent training on Service Now when they joined the team.  Once he surfaced this idea, IT has developed and deployed some up to date Service Now training to their new employees.  In addition, they have a plan to help address the new employees and refresher trainings in the future to keep everyone on equal footing.

Fellow Change Agents: Tom Roderick and Tom Johnson

Impact of idea:

A better equipped IT staff who can utilize Service Now to its fullest capacity will result in better service to our campus customers.