HR Colleagues Talk Fundamentals

Kim Harris, director of academic human resources services, has worked at Duke for 33 years, but after a half-day training session with leaders from Duke Human Resources, she said she learned a few new things."Disciplines and fields change so much over time," Harris said. "So it was nice to have a consolidated presentation about all the services Human Resources offers and how we can work together."Harris coordinated with Kyle Cavanaugh, vice president for administration, to host the session called "HR Fundamentals" for about 30 human resources representatives from the Duke's schools, institutes and other administrative areas under the provost."Universities are very decentralized places," Cavanaugh said. "This type of environment allows us to be more nimble, but it also presents us with some challenges."Cavanaugh said that when a federal agency conducts a review, it does not review just an individual department or school; it looks at Duke as one institution. "So it's important that we are closely aligned across Duke in our human resource practice to mitigate risks and ensure the most efficient decision making and process," he said. Duke has 34,000 employees, more than 60,000 individuals covered by its health plans, and about 13,000 applicants per month seeking jobs. "We have tens of thousands of transactions taking place across this institution, and we want to make sure they go as smoothly as possible," Cavanaugh said. The session focused on the functional areas of Duke Human Resources and the support for managing the employment lifecycle: classifying a job, recruiting candidates, orienting new hires, managing performance, and supporting faculty and staff through benefits and other programs.Cavanaugh said that he hopes to coordinate similar sessions with human resources colleagues working in the School of Medicine and Duke University Health System. "This is a great learning opportunity for us as well," he said.