What do Envisioning Middlebury, financial sustainability, employee engagement, workforce planning and Project Ensemble, have in common? They are all focused on positioning Middlebury for the future.

Our success in positioning the institution for the future will be dependent on the choices we make now – and our discipline to sustain those choices over the long-term. But, before we choose, we must understand our desires because they provide the context for our choices; they frame what we want to achieve or bring forward into our reality.  So, to have the future we want, we not only must make sound choices and demonstrate discipline, but we also must be clear about what we desire.

Defining what we desire

Answering that question “What do we desire?” is the focus of the project teams that are now engaged in the first step of the workforce planning process, which is to define our future state. Before we can determine our workforce needs, we must define what the work is – and that, of course, depends on what we are striving to achieve.  As an institution, we have said we desire to advance in the strategic directions identified through Envisioning Middlebury.  This fall, we will continue to refine our future as we identify specific initiatives to enact our desire.  Simultaneously, through workforce planning, we are asking every department to explore the work required to advance those directions.

For example, independent of our specific focus on place-based experiential learning, generally, what is the body of work we must engage in to support it and what are the outcomes we seek from that work? What are the outcomes we seek from the work we do in pursuit of digital fluency or organizational nimbleness?  The answers to these questions will give us a better sense of where we are heading – and ultimately, help us shape the kind of workforce we will need to get there.

Through discussions about our future state, we give ourselves permission to focus on possibilities. We can open our minds to new ways of thinking, being, and doing and, as a result, create a new sense of meaning and purpose for our work and new ways to measure our success.  By garnering a clear view of our future state, we also can gain focus and guidance to make intentional choices, set priorities, navigate the inevitable obstacles we will encounter along the way, and demonstrate the discipline we will need to stay the course.

Ensuring Middlebury’s future

As we have discussed over the past year, Middlebury cannot continue to operate the way it has been operating. We must work together to become more efficient in order to be more strategic, and more strategic in order to ensure the institution’s future.

We know that times of change can be challenging. You may be feeling nervous and anxious about the future and, indeed, we have some difficult choices to make about every aspect of our organization.  Please know that we are approaching this work with informed decision making in the Middlebury spirit of fairness and compassion.  We hope you will participate in conversations to share your insights about best practices for your department and identify opportunities to contribute to a successful future for Middlebury. Click here for more information in our Frequently Asked Questions.

Thank you for your continued focus and dedication.

-Karen Miller

Workforce Planning Begins

Our workforce planning initiative has begun in earnest with several training sessions this month for the project teams. The project teams include individuals asked by their vice president to lead the workforce planning efforts in their departments. Nearly 70 managers and others who have been identified as having a specific insight into the work of their area received a comprehensive overview of the process, as well as an introduction to the available tools and resources to support their efforts. You should be hearing from a member of the project team in your department with regular updates as our work together unfolds.

What they learned is that workforce planning is an ongoing process of workforce analysis focused on identifying our future needs and developing solutions to address the gaps between our current workforce and those needs. Simply stated, they learned that workforce planning is a process to ensure that we have the right people with the right skills in the right jobs at the right time so that Middlebury can achieve its highest goals and objectives. This is the most important work we can do to ensure Middlebury is on a course for success for the next 50 years.

The process begins with us articulating what outcomes we want for the institution’s future. This is what you will hear your project team and others refer to as our future state. Only when we understand what we are trying to achieve, what we want our future state to be, can we determine the work we need to do in order to achieve those outcomes.

The workforce planning effort comes at a time when Middlebury must also address financial sustainability. This can prompt thinking about how to move forward with less. Workforce planning asks us to shift that thinking. Instead of asking, “How can we do 10 percent less work?” let’s ask, “What work do we need to do for our future, and how much of that can we afford today given our current financial constraints?” By engaging our talented and committed community, we can shift from a mindset of scarcity to one of possibility.

So we invite you to take a moment to dream—what will be the outcomes of your work in the future? How will the institution be better or different? Why is that important to our future? And then look for the opportunities to share your insights with your department’s project team.

We will use MiddPoints and other venues to keep you updated on our progress. In the meantime, you can find out the members of your project team here.

-Karen Miller

The Administration is pleased to announce that Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) Day will be recognized as an official Middlebury holiday, beginning in 2019. This means that all US-based operations will be closed (except for essential services) on MLK Day, in the same manner as operations are closed for the Thanksgiving and Year-End Holiday Breaks, and that benefits-eligible staff employees will be paid “holiday time” for the day.  (Detailed information regarding recording and approving staff time will be provided closer to the holiday. Middlebury faculty will receive information about how the addition of the MLK holiday will affect J-term from the Dean of Faculty’s Office, near the start of the fall term.)  With the addition of this holiday all Middlebury (US) operations are now operating on a unified holiday and floating holiday calendar (see next article for the full FY19 and FY20 holiday schedules.)

The Administration is pleased to announce that Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) Day will be recognized as an official Middlebury holiday, beginning in 2019. This means that all US-based operations will be closed (except for essential services) on MLK Day, in the same manner as operations are closed for the Thanksgiving and Year-End Holiday Breaks, and that benefits-eligible staff employees will be paid “holiday time” for the day.  (Detailed information regarding recording and approving staff time will be provided closer to the holiday. Middlebury faculty will receive information about how the addition of the MLK holiday will affect J-term from the Dean of Faculty’s Office, near the start of the fall term.)  With the addition of this holiday all Middlebury (US) operations are now operating on a unified holiday and floating holiday calendar (see next article for the full FY19 and FY20 holiday schedules.)

Early last spring, during a series of open meetings on financial sustainability, the community was introduced to the concept of a “private health exchange”, which Middlebury had planned to implement in 2019. As a reminder, under a private exchange our current one-size-fits-all medical plan will be augmented by at least two new medical plan options, giving employees the ability to select a plan that best meets their needs. In addition, a private exchange will likely include an optional employer-funded health reimbursement account or a health savings account* (both quite popular with employees), as well as additional dental and vision options and new voluntary benefit choices. Implementing a private exchange will allow Middlebury to continue to improve our excellent health benefits while at the same time managing ever-rising healthcare costs.

Our update today is that this benefit change will be postponed until January 1, 2020. The reason for the change in timing is that the institution needs to prioritize the implementation of the Oracle ERP (Enterprise Resource Platform) project—Project Ensemble. That work is underway and is going well, but will extend through the spring of 2019.

While the delay is unfortunate, it has the upside of allowing Human Resources more time to work with our Green Mountain Higher Education Consortium partners to design a program that will best meet the diverse needs and preferences of our community and ensure that we have the support needed to minimize uncertainty and anxiety that often accompany changes of this kind.

For example, as we learn more about best practices we are strongly leaning toward a set of tiered plans that will cover the identical services, procedures, and prescription medicines, with the difference being in the share of the cost covered within the chosen tier. This model reduces the complexity of decision-making and concerns about equity between tiers of coverage.

Even with a simplified tier approach we remain acutely aware that adding multiple benefit plan options will require comprehensive support for employee decision making. The GMHEC partners have continued to explore sophisticated software options that are available to help employees navigate the benefit selection process. In addition, we have learned that the newly emerging best practice is to employ not only software, but to contract with a benefits consulting company to provide a team of highly trained professionals to temporarily supplement the employer’s benefits department during the critical decision-making period. In this way the institution can ensure that anyone who wants one-on-one support will be able to get a timely appointment. Our thinking, at this point, is that such a model could be highly useful, especially during the first year of the private exchange.

As we look forward toward the private exchange, we want to emphasize one important institutional commitment: regardless of the composition of the benefits program, Middlebury will continue to maintain its income-sensitive approach to employee contributions in which lower-compensated employees pay a significantly lower percentage of the premium cost.

Because the private exchange implementation is now over a year and a half away, we do not anticipate having large open meetings over the next few months. However, HR remains committed to keeping the community apprised of the project status and to that end has recently visited Senior Leadership Group, Staff Council, and met with representatives from Faculty Council to provide in-person updates.  As we get closer to January 2020 you can expect communication and engagement efforts to intensify. In the meantime, we are happy to meet with other stakeholder groups who may be interested in learning more about our current thinking on private exchange design and support of the new program.  Please email questions or invitations to cmullins@middlebury.edu.

–Karen Miller

–Cheryl Mullins

The annual performance evaluation process for staff members takes place between January 1 and March 31 of each year.  The APS form for 2018 remains the same as in previous years.

Below, please find a link to the form, helpful tools and guides to support the APS process, and an on-line audio training presentation that will help you prepare whether you are a supervisor or individual contributor.

http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/business/hr/staffandfaculty/evals

For those who have attended the training sessions offered in past years, you may find the recorded presentation to be a convenient refresher.  In addition to the on-line tools, we are offering two APS workshops for new employees and supervisors undergoing the APS process for the first time:

Tuesday, February 6 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. (Mitchell Green Lounge)

Thursday, February 22 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. (Mitchell Green Lounge)

For those who have already attended a live or recorded workshop, additional question & answer sessions are available to provide support for supervisors, managers and staff as you prepare your performance documentation:

Wednesday, February 14 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. (Marble Works)

Tuesday, March 6 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. (Marble Works)

Thursday, March 9 from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. (Marble Works)

Please email lcaroten@middlebury.edu or call x2012 to register.

In addition, individual support is available to staff and supervisors and department specific training and consultation is available upon request.  Feel free to call the Human Resources APS answer line with any questions – extension 5465, option 1.