The planning and design team of the recently rolled-out Build a Career | Build a Life website won an Improving Our Workplace Award (IOWA) in the spring of 2017. The website is designed to connect prospective and current employees with local resources, including relocation and housing, transportation, diversity and inclusion, dual-career employment, and children and family resources.
Built to support the important relationship between productive careers and quality personal lives, the website aims to provide one-stop access to resources so as to help recruit and retain employees.
The winning team members are Adam Potter, Angelique Johnson, Dawn Hanna, Diana Kremzar, Diane Finnerty, Hannah Walsh, Keith Becker, and Richard Porter. Team members included staff from the Office of the Provost, University Human Resources, and Information Technology Services.
Finnerty, assistant provost for faculty, led the team as part of an ongoing effort to improve University of Iowa recruitment. The Build a Career | Build a Life project also supports the recently launched Central Midwest Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC), which hosts one of the region’s largest job boards and is designed to attract highly trained and diverse applicants, as well as dual-career couples. The team also developed a one-page recruitment flyer to promote and brand the website and the Central Midwest HERC.
Other winners include Ronald Brus, who led the addition of one mile of pneumatic tubing to the previous eight miles built into the UI Hospitals and Clinics. He also adjusted the pneumatic transfer system for greater efficiency, and these efforts significantly reduced delivery time for the many pathology samples, medications, supplies, and other items that regularly travel the hospital’s pneumatic tubes.
The College of Education Social Committee team was also recognized for consistently planning and hosting events to create a welcoming workplace environment and build positive coworker relationships. Winners include Brian Campbell, Stacy Ervin, Patricia Martin, Andy Goodell, Kevin Ryberg, and Chris Werner.
The Camp Registration Team for the Division of Performing Arts also received the recent IOWA awards. Team members Lisa Krause, Kathy Ford, Rebekah Ahrens, and Kathryn Smith created a new university-wide model for camp registration after developing a new registration system for their summer programming. They worked together with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Information Technology Services, the Office of the General Counsel, the Youth Programs Policy Coordinator, and the Department of Risk Management, Insurance, and Loss Prevention.
Since 1999, the IOWA award recognizes individuals or teams who have had a lasting positive impact on at least one of a variety of criteria, including cost-saving, process improvement, and customer satisfaction. The winner is determined by an inter-unit review committee and the award is given at a special dinner by unit and university leadership.
Nominations are accepted each semester. The IOWA award is funded by the University of Iowa Staff Council, and Organizational Effectiveness coordinates award implementation.