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Duke Hiring Heats Up Over Summer

An average of about 600 new employees join Duke each June, July and August

Anthony Keller, right, explains an online hiring form to Ph.D. student Paul Sommerfeld. Keller uses the summer as a time to finalize student hires from the spring and prepare for another influx in the fall. Photo by Bryan Roth.
Anthony Keller, right, explains an online hiring form to Ph.D. student Paul Sommerfeld. Keller uses the summer as a time to finalize student hires from the spring and prepare for another influx in the fall. Photo by Bryan Roth.

Contrary to popular belief, summer on a college campus is most certainly time on, not time off.

As construction continues across West Campus, there is just as much work being done in offices where fiscal years must be closed and opened, housing requests for students are filled and research proposals for the next academic year are being prepared. Amongst all this, summer also acts as an annual time of growth for Duke’s employee population.

Every summer, Duke sees a drastic uptick in hiring between June and August, with a variety of positions being filled, from seasonal jobs with Duke Recreation and Physical Education to program coordinators in Student Affairs to new faculty.

In the past five years, Duke has had an average of 597 new hires in the three summer months, about twice as many as the average during the other nine months over the five-year time period. (See chart below for details)

While the academic year may be over, many employees stay busy helping to onboard or process new employees and assist with a variety of questions surrounding employee benefits.

“The hiring may increase as much as 20 percent for each of our staff over the summer, but they’re still focusing on a high level of customer service for everyone that comes to Duke,” said Denise Motley, director of Duke Recruitment and Staffing. “There’s an increase of applicants and onboarding not just from the recruitment space, but also partnering with HR departments across Duke.”

Anthony Keller, a human resources manager at the Fuqua School of Business, uses June and July as a proactive time to finalize hires from the spring and prep for the influx of the fall.

He’ll coordinate the hiring process with Fuqua students filling roles as research and teaching assistants or staff in their admissions office. He’ll also begin removing one-by-one 300 to 400 former student employees from Fuqua’s payroll system after graduation. 

“I’ve already started receiving emails from faculty and departments for students they’ve selected to work for them,” said Keller, adding  “it’s constant maintenance because April through the summer is a busy time. It’s a matter of dealing with the volume.” 

That’s something with which the staff at the Human Resources Information Center (HRIC) can relate.

Maria Gregory, a specialist with Duke's Human Resources Information Center, talks with a caller about benefits-related questions. Along with her coworkers, Gregory handles thousands of cases each month. Photo by Bryan Roth.
Maria Gregory, a specialist with Duke's Human Resources Information Center, talks with a caller about benefits-related questions. Along with her coworkers, Gregory handles thousands of cases each month. Photo by Bryan Roth.

Throughout the year, a dozen staff average about 5,200 total cases a month from phone calls with questions surrounding health, retirement and disability benefits. Outside of October and January – the two months impacted by the start of Open Enrollment and beginning of new benefit periods – June, July and August are the busiest months of the year for HRIC staff as more employees join Duke and want to get help finalizing their benefits.

For some of the HRIC staff, the summer months could mean handling around 100 calls a day from staff faculty or the public.

“We’ve gone through enough cycles to expect an uptick in phone calls and the workload that comes with it,” said Jacky Kendrick, assistant director of the HRIC. “Duke is growing all the time and it’s our responsibility to make sure we can serve all the people who have questions, no matter what that number might be.”

 Duke Human Resources.
Figures include average hires per month from 2010 to 2014 between Duke University and Health System. Source: Duke Human Resources.