Notes from AACII meeting 4/7/2016
AACII membership nominations are due May 5th. AOs and equivalents are eligible. Nominees should have both fiscal and HR responsibilities and a broad perspective.
MIT Learning Center, Jane White, Learning Services Team
The Careers at MIT event will be held May 3rd.
LST Mission is to ensure training services are up to date and meet compliance and performance goals. They provide training support services to other units; EHS is largest client by far.
(Question: Do numbers on slide include students) Number of people trained includes employees and students. Training of students is mostly through the EHS requirements, but they sometimes take regular (training) classes. Faculty take a lot of compliance courses, but not many other classes. Faculty training is being encouraged by Donna Behmer and the Provost’s office.
Learning Center Demo – Via Atlas platform
Some people see only the sexual harassment training under recommended training. Recommendations can be driven by org unit, course membership, and several other ways (typically EHS self-assessment). EHS assessment results in required training courses being identified. Required courses clearly indicate completion, overdue status, and hovering on the ? gives the reason for the requirement. Future dates the course is scheduled to be held is also shown.
Training Groups can be used to identify required or recommended training by a “hand joined” group of individuals. This adds courses to the training needs.
Q: What is the value of you joining a training group? The idea of joining a group is to make it easy to figure out which courses a person should take if they are part of a particular group. Courses that particular cohort should take are identified out of the many hundreds of available courses.
Q: Have people use this tool for administrative people? A pilot with ASO was done a two years ago. It’s going to require some agreement across MIT around what constitutes basics for different roles at MIT. It’s a valuable project to pursue.
Training Partners has a defined learning bundle for those who are associated with training. These are focused on a topic rather than a group. It gathers trainings resources and tools associated with a topic area. It may include Skillsoft classes, book recommendations, web sites, and other types of tools, not just training courses. Completion can be checked off by the user.
It’s possible to build a bundle for various roles at MIT but keeping it up to date requires effort.
Q: Talk more about how an admin bundle would be curated; A: HR would have to launch it, which will hopefully happen in the next year. Then a broad representation of people across MIT would be needed, then these jobs would need to be associated with skills/courses in the catalog. The new job level guide under development is an important part of this.
Comment from Sucharita Ghosh: Sometimes live trainings are not available, so we (Mech E) put together a list of recommended trainings for new people in the support staff. Incorporated student-oriented and basic business stuff. Different units will, of course, need different courses.
Jane: Some areas people are encouraged to take training, other areas are more challenging, we want to give people opportunities that might not be driven by the DLC so there is a level playing field. Good for retention.
Q: Is there a way for a supervisor to recommend a course to an employee? A: Not right now systematically, partly because we don’t track supervisor at MIT. There is a utility that allows limited capability to share a link to a course, which you could email to yourself and put together a list of courses.
Q: Who can create bundles? A: Currently only the training support group, and only requests from training providers are being addressed.
Wouldn’t it be nice to create an “amazon list” type situation for people to recommend training along different tracks.
The current path is to be deliberate about these things and move incrementally to give tools for these concepts. Limitation of staff, capability. Comments/ratings are possible, but limited to summaries to keep it anonymous.
Q: On classroom based courses that are pre-booked, what drives holding a class? A: The number of people who pre-book will instigate a course being scheduled. Notification will be sent to those who are pre-booked when a class is available when it is scheduled, a little earlier than the information is public.
Write to training@mit.edu with questions or comments.
RLE Administrative Excellence
Mary Markel Murphy, Joe Foley, Stephanie Muto, Cathy Bougeois
RLE has a unique mission statement that includes the goal to deliver superior administrative services – put in place by Prof Fink. This includes a list of guiding principles; decisions are driven by data, investing in people, create a learning organization that is also nimble, with an emphasis on system building.
Individual Projects.
Stephanie Muto: Developed a Current & Pending Support report generator using Word’s mail merge function with Excel’s data handling capability. Previously several sources of information need to be gathered and collated. Multiple formats are required for different sponsors. MS Word Mail Merge tools used to create this tool. Uses a master data excel SS to keep data, which is maintained on an ongoing basis by FOs. When a request for a C&P happens, the data is checked against KC then generated by Word. DEMO. Saves lots of time generating the forms.
Q: Does the one spreadsheet have all PIs in it? A: No each PI has their own spreadsheet.
Q: How do you deal with external awards (meaning awards outside RLE where the RLE researcher is PI)? A: We have to ask for the data and enter that, but only once.
Q: how frequently is the list updated? A: Varies, sometimes once a month, other times as the data comes in.
Q: Have you shared this? A: Yes, at the poster session and in a training session on RA.
Group: It would be nice to have tools and resources that we can share/a place to share such things.
Pia: an imagine using this model to apply to other items such as publications list and etc.
Sucharita: Innovation at the grassroots level can’t be captured and shared well at MIT.
Richard: How do you share this file among you; A: On our own server.
Joe Foley
There was difficulty with inconsistencies on purchasing rules, and orienting people starting out. They produced a quick pamphlet for purchasing in RLE. It was handed out to all people in the lab. It includes basic GLs, what’s allowed on the Procard, recommended training classes, atlas links, etc (Pamphlet handed out)
Digital RLE: A system has been designed for electronic upload of receipt images for procard charges. This is custom made software to manage receipts, and includes a justification field. People complied, after some initial turbulence, with always filling in the justification field. This was then instituted for requisitions after it was routine. Outside auditors like this field a lot. The front page of the form entry is printed when the auditor comes to put receipts in context with the end-user’s own words.
There were lots of questions, and lots of people use inconsistent GL accounts and misused certain aspects. Mark Wiklund turned a PP presentation into an online training video. Keeps it simple, on RLE web site.
Q: Is this developed for RLE? A: Yes, CSAILs never went institute wide. Buy-Pay sidetracked it.
Robin: The CSAIL system was going to be used, but the new Buy-Pay system also has that ability and hopefully it will be helpful and capable and people will like it.
Joe: This is different from the Buy2Pay system. Expense approval allows search by Dollar amount and several other fields. It allows justification of purchase and attaching files that support the purchase, including PowerPoint slides or image files. Gives more flexibility to justify and document expenses.
B2P is going to be “open source” (meaning anyone can submit a purchase on any cost object). This will make justifications a challenge. Will it be good for everyone at MIT to be able to charge any account? Tracing charges to individuals is time consuming and problematic. This seems to be a limitation of the software chosen for the B2P program. Making justification mandatory would be a good step.
Robin: B2P system is not totally “open” since it still requires approval routing to get a purchase order.
Cathy Bourgeois
Cathy is the training coordinator for RLE admin assistants, a program called RLE LEAP. There are regular monthly training classes for the newest people and to help those who need a refresher. RLE is very diverse and identifying the core needs is a challenge. 18-20 people come every month, completing nine trainings awards the AA a certificate. 7-9 people receive certificates every year. Topics include communications, Procurement, SAP, Travel, Tenure process.
There’s also a computer skills brown bag series on topics like Webex. Opportunity for AAs to meet and network, get information, share best practices and find out who the area experts are. AAs sometimes deliver training. Makes people feel valued for their contribution. There are about 25 AAs in total. Many AAs support multiple PIs with large research groups. There was no training available at MIT. PIs had to recommend courses. Frustrating experience. Mark Wikland prepared a web site that allows AAs to go directly to online training courses recommended by RLE. Every department that has helped with this program have been willing to come and train. Fabrication training is one available training. PIs feel more supported. PIs surveyed annually for improvement metrics and commentary. AAs who take training also give feedback. AAs given privileges such as direct entry of RA appointments.
Q: how will 2015 Curriculum be rolled over to 2016? A: Program is very similar year to year. Core training is the same. Focus on basics then Prof Development and computer courses are supplemental. PIs notice fewer errors and performance improvements.
Q: Is feedback consistent between existing and new admin assistants? A: When RLE first introduced the justifications on uploads, there was resistance, but experienced people grew in this program from reluctant to interested in new learning. Existing/long service AAs become equipped to mentor new AAs.
Q: this clearly takes time to develop and formalize the program. Time is a big constraint. Are there any lessons that might help to overcome time crunch reluctance. A: We are very team based and motivated to make things work more smoothly. We also have a volunteer advisory team and review the materials. All material is posted online in Yammer. Forum heavily used for questions. (Mary Markel Murphy) these are stretch assignments and the people involved are very dedicated. Workload is shared among participants and others at MIT. IT group can help standardize some practices. IS&T (Mark Wiklund) available to help with some parts. Volunteers are encouraged to contribute and come up with ideas and help develop materials. The Director is quite motivated to push for improvement. Constant improvement has become part of culture.
AO Breakfast after-action report;
Make the networking time frame clearer. People arrived at 9am thinking that was the networking time.
Some people want to avoid St Patrick’s day. It is a holiday in some counties (Evacuation Day in Suffolk County).
Richard: Teamwork made the Breakfast more effective. Participants were engaged. One minor issue; the Provost and Associate Provost did not have printed a name tag.
We’ve been asked to share slides, no objections.
Feedback: E-survey. Response rate lower than paper. QR code cards put on table at end of the event. Emailed to attendees. 28 responses.
Survey results: Topic was very relevant
Networking: Some dissatisfaction about this (15%)
Was there enough time for networking - 15% said no
Timing: 85% said keep breakfast time frame
Length: Most said it was about right
Likelihood of re-visit event: 75% extremely likely to come again.
Comment review
PDF of survey to be shared.
Table Results
Summary of table results; AOs are charged with helping people a lot both going and coming. Info to help with people is needed. Also need help with entities. Contracts are a big area, but seem understaffed (in central offices) for the volume. Access to information is an issue. Info is not coordinated or organized. People want to know where and how to begin. Maybe an all institute session like poster session on international offices presenting/some similar format. Really detailed suggestions about financial reporting needs. A General outreach and education effort is desired, particularly need to clarify the ICC and role and the roles of other programs/offices.
A documentation gap seems to exist both in gathering existing info and adding to it. Perhaps the Policies and Procedures group could meet with a small representative part of AACII to review these results.
Sherene: Next year she suggests that all AACII members and speakers be added to registration list up front. That’s how the Provost did not get a name tag. Generally it was not clear to the speakers that they should register. Of course they should not have to.
Next meeting May 12th for nominations.
Adjourned.
