System News

              A Quarterly Publication of the State
Universities Civil Service System
Open Forums Convey
Some Common
Themes
By Tom Morelock
The System Office routinely visits each
campus and employment location for
various business purposes throughout the
year. Most recently, the System Office has
been invited to participate in a couple of
civil service open forums held at Southern
Illinois University, Carbondale, on
September 24 and at Northern Illinois
University, DeKalb, on December 12.
These campus open forums provided an
opportunity for the System Office to detail
many of their new initiatives and
programs related to the management of
the classification and examination
management system. Most importantly,
these forums also presented an
opportunity for the campus civil service
staff and councils to submit questions and
actively interact with the Executive
Director and his staff.
In each instance, the presentation was
sponsored by the local civil service
council, SIUC represented by Jay Brooks
and NIU represented by Sara Clayton.
Each forum began with a short presentation,
offered by Tom Morelock (Executive
Director), Dennis Smith (Deputy Director),
and Jeff Brownfield (Assistant Director)
from the System Office. The presentation
included a brief overview of the System
Office and a description of goals and
initiatives. A significant amount of time
was set aside for campus civil service staff to
pose questions and actively exchange ideas
and discuss various topics.
These campus forums were well attended
by both employees and administrators. As
expected, there were some common themes
expressed in the open question and answer
exchange between employees and the
System Office staff. Following are some of
the most common topics discussed.
One general topic of many questions
evolved around the many rules and
procedures related to the classification plan
management system. There were many
questions specifically related to the long
term objectives associated with the
classification structure and the specific
opportunities for career advancement
through the classification structure. The
System Office conveyed the overall
objective to create efficiencies and reduce
redundancy in the classification plan
management system through a
comprehensive review of classifications by
operational unit. This approach provides
for the review of several closely related
classifications at the same time,
hopefully leading to some major
consolidation of classes through the
simple elimination of redundancy
across class specifications. An
additional employee benefit from this
classification review approach is an
increase of opportunities for each
individual employee. Naturally, such
multi-class reviews may take some
additional time to complete, but the
benefits in terms of efficiency are much
greater. The System
Office has already
initiated reviews for the
Human Resource,
Printing Services, Food
Services, Library
Services, and IT
operational units.
On a related topic,
there were several
questions surrounding the
use of the Pilot Program,
particularly related to the
addition of some new
Information Technology (IT) classifications
under this program. These questions
centered around the potential consolidation
of the many current IT classifications under
one of the three new IT classifications to be
added to the Pilot Program. As related to
these IT classes, the System Office
conveyed the overall objective to create a
more flexible employment arena allowing
employers to clearly define their position
requirements and develop an overall
business plan for their IT operations.
Understanding that such a major transition
may take some significant time, the
consolidation and transition of the many
current IT classes is expected to be done
over a significant period of time. It was
also conveyed that some current non-civil
service IT positions may also be converted
in this process. Overall, the response to this
initiative was very positive.
Another general topic of several questions
related to seniority and the procedures
associated with the administration of the
layoff process. There were many basic
questions on seniority rights and the
movement of employees within and outside
the promotional line during layoff
situations. Many of these questions were
simple basic procedural inquiries and were
addressed through a presentation of
January 2004 Volume 2, Issue 1
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
2 EAC MESSAGE
3 MERIT BOARD
MEETS
4 WHAT’S NEW
5 CLASSIFICATION
PLAN
The System News
Illinois’ Public University System Support
Resource and Advocate
SIUC Employee Advisory Committee Representative Jay
Brooks, shown left, with Executive Director Morelock, right.
Sara Clayton, NIU
Employee Advisory
Committee Rep.
— Continued on Page 2 —