Annals of Reengineering

MIT’s earliest Reengineering projects focused on improving Physical Plant services, consolidating external suppliers to reduce costs, and preparing to install a new financial system. Streamlining the ways we deliver administrative services to our students was the next major initiative. The latest new effort relates to MIT’s human resource practices, and since this team now has five projects underway, it seems like a good time to update the faculty on this work.

President Vest articulated the importance of reviewing MIT’s human resource practices when he wrote the following to the community in July 1997: "As one of the most vigorous research universities in the world, MIT’s continued success will depend on its ability to attract and retain not only the brightest faculty and students, but also the best staff. A number of forces - changing demographics, rapidly evolving advances in technology, an increasingly competitive labor market, and difficulties in juggling personal and professional commitments - have contributed to making our work lives more complex. For that reason, in June 1996 we convened the Human Resource Practices Design (HRPD) team to look into the issues and challenges of our changing work environment."

Vice President for Human Resources Joan F. Rice is HRPD’s sponsor, and she views the team as a temporary, de facto research arm of MIT’s Personnel Department. The 11-member design team began its work by identifying areas of common concern across the Institute through broad outreach to many in the community, including faculty, administrative and support staff, and senior management. Like other Reengineering teams, HRPD also did extensive research on the best practices at other universities and research organizations.

Nine basic elements of human resource practices formed the basis for the study. These included: career paths; career planning; classification; compensation, recognition, and other rewards; hiring; individual and team development; job design; planning and appraisal; and succession planning.

After presenting their findings to the Reengineering Steering Committee in fall 1996, the HRPD team members returned to their home offices. The Steering Committee considered the report thoroughly, and Joan Rice reviewed the team’s recommendations with the Academic Council in December 1996. She then asked the HRPD team to schedule meetings with the five academic School Councils in order to get their feedback on the recommendations. This process brought out a number of important issues and concerns, which were reflected in the final report.

In July 1997, the full design report was issued on the Web at <http://web.mit.edu/reeng/www/hrpd/> and was excerpted as a pull-out section in Tech Talk. The implementation process then began with a smaller team formed to further develop the recommendations and help the Institute evolve the new practices. Patricia Brady, formerly associate director of the Center for Real Estate, has led both the design and the development phases of HRPD’s work.

Five focus areas were initially selected, and project teams of HRPD were formed and began their work in October 1997. The 35 members of the project teams come from 11 different academic departments, two interdisciplinary research areas, and nine administrative offices. The employees are on loan from their home departments and are spending 20 percent of their time on these short-term projects. The teams are focusing on the following areas: Generic Roles and Competencies, Orientation at MIT, Performance Management, Recognition and Rewards, and Training Policies and Administration. Since some of these titles may sound like jargon, an explanation and examples may be helpful.

This team is exploring ways to improve hiring and job mobility within MIT. The team is defining "generic roles" for several positions across MIT by meeting with individuals who do the work and developing a template detailing the skills and knowledge required for each position. The templates can then be used to help build job descriptions. For example, the team helped to develop a generic role for an "Administrative Assistant, Personnel" in the Administrative Services Organization (ASO) in the School of Engineering. When Physical Plant needed to hire an "Administrative Assistant, Personnel" they requested and used ASO’s generic role as a starting point to build the job description for the Physical Plant position. This saved time and energy, and worked very well.

"Competencies" are the underlying behavioral characteristics (like a person’s style of working) that cause or predict success in a particular job. For example, "flexibility" and "collaboration" might be among the appropriate competencies for a support staff position that involves working with several faculty members. Resumes, of course, provide an overview of an applicant’s skills and experience, but interviewers can also be trained to look for the behavioral traits that are less obvious but often critical to job performance and satisfaction. The end result should be a better fit between the candidate and the job.

Theoretically, competencies will also provide a helpful structure for improving an employee’s performance. For example, employees who are hired using competencies as part of the selection criteria will also be assessed - by themselves and others - on how their work measures up to the relevant competencies. Since employees will know what is expected of them, they will be better able to determine whether they need additional training or experience in certain areas.

If competency models were publicly available (perhaps in an on-line database), individuals could match not only the skills on their resumes but also their personal strengths to positions that would best suit them, and/or they could work on developing the competencies needed for a position they want to hold in the future. Matching strengths to job requirements is a win/win situation for the employee and for the organization.

The project team is developing an MIT-specific competency reference guide that will assist in evaluating what behavioral traits are critical to success in jobs at the Institute.

This project team is responsible for developing a comprehensive orientation program for new employees. The program would not replace "local" orientation efforts in departments nor the presentation by the Benefits Office. Instead, the program will aim to help new employees understand MIT’s organizational structure, culture, and resources. The team will explore a variety of options for delivering the information, such as the Web, CD-ROM, and more traditional training sessions, notebooks, and other paper-based approaches.

"Performance management" is a process of improving employee job performance while continuing to build capabilities and skills. Supervisors and employees share responsibility for planning, monitoring, and developing expected results and behaviors throughout the year. When clear expectations and goals are established and progress is monitored, there is a direct link between the employee’s performance and the success of the organization. The objective of the Performance Management team is to provide employees, supervisors, and managers with concrete tools and proven methods to assist with this process.

The team is looking at departments and organizations (at MIT and externally) that practice performance management well. The team will conduct surveys, interviews, and focus groups on topics such as planning and goal setting, the coaching style of communication, and the actual appraisal event. Building on MIT’s existing performance appraisal process, the team will learn what currently works and what could be improved.

The goal of this project team is to develop a basket of creative options that could be used to reward and recognize employees. (The team thinks of a "reward" as something tangible and "recognition" as an acknowledgment.) They are surveying managers and supervisors as well as other administrative and support staff about what is currently being done at the Institute. In addition, they are collecting data on how other organizations reward employees. After the team completes its research, they will come up with options and then present those to focus groups for their reactions.

This team was formed to look at how MIT can create and maintain a highly skilled and well-trained workforce. The goals are to create policies that provide equitable access to training and development opportunities and to define administrative procedures for delivering training in a clear and consistent way.

So far, the team has researched the current formalized training practices and policies at MIT and they are developing surveys to collect more data. After the team has studied the best training practices in higher education and industry, they will formulate recommendations for MIT.

As Patricia Brady often says, a human resources program is a fabric of practices, policies, and resources that needs to be woven tightly enough to support the whole organization, but structured loosely enough to yield to changes, stresses, and "local" needs. Consequently, there is a great deal of overlap and coordination among the work of these project teams, especially Generic Roles and Competencies, Performance Management, and Training Policies and Administration. Coordination comes through formal and informal communications among teams and is reinforced by sound project management approaches.

Ideas and options from all of the project teams are regularly presented to the community. Faculty reactions and input have been extremely valuable to this work, and are welcome at any time. The project teams can be reached through Ms. Brady, 258-5983, room N52-493C, e-mail: pabrady@mit.edu.