Initiative VIII – Professional Staff

People Power

Initiative VIII asks UTech to closely examine the team division-wide and how CWRU attracts and retains highly effective employees. It is critical to UTech’s success to ensure that people come first. There are many examples of how that happens at UTech—these are just a few:

• UTech welcomed 30 new employees to the division since the beginning of 2018. This represents a diverse group of staff, both in experience and ethnic background.
• UTech fosters a teamwork environment, hosting “All Hands” meetings to share the latest challenges and opportunities within the division. At the last meeting, Professor Anant Madabhushi, Director of the Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics, gave a presentation revealing how Research Computing and Cyberinfrastructure and the division in general helps advance research in medical fields.
• Many employee recognition programs exist for both service honorees and star performers, including acknowledgment in the [U]Tech Connect e-newsletter and on digital signage in Crawford Hall.
• In an effort to continue to improve work productivity, teamwork and communication, UTech provides opportunities to participate in the DiSC (Dominance. Influence. Steadiness. Conscientiousness.) training program. This program helps employees understand different work styles and learn techniques and communications skills for interacting with coworkers.
• UTech received the “Best Places to Work in IT” Award from Digital Edge 50 for being an organization with digital transformation initiatives that have significant, measurable business impact.
• Many staff-developed “Communities of Interest” exist within UTech, like the web developers group, to help exchange information, obtain answers to questions or problems, improve understanding of a subject and to share common passions.
• In a continuing effort to promote talent from within and encourage internal mobility, UTech provides announcements to the staff concerning internal job opportunities.
• The [U]Tech Spirit eStore was launched during the holidays to provide employees the opportunity to purchase branded apparel and other items.
• UTech on-boards employees by using a buddy system—89% of recent participants indicated that the buddy system helped them understand the culture of their department and of the larger organization.
• Professional development is a win-win for our partners across the university and UTech staff. UTech leverages professional development to continue to build a strong, motivated team of professionals that are able to more quickly meet the needs of the university and provide improved services.
• This year, UTech partnered with Weatherhead Executive Education to provide over 80 days of training to the UTech team.

Success Stories