Mundane Monday - Working for BYU HR

In honor of moving into my new office today, I decided to write about my job! But first you must admire my office and the view I have from it! Doesn't the sight of Timpanogos and Squaw Peak just make you want to drool? And then, can't you just imagine the sight I'll have when the first snowfall comes to the valley? I'm already salivating over it.I am an Area HR Consultant. I am assigned over 1/4th of campus. My areas consist of everything under the Advancement Vice President - so Athletics, University Communications, Alumni & External Relations, etc. And then also everything under the Student Life Vice President - so Student Health Center, Residence Life, Dean of Students, Counseling & Career Center, Student Academic & Advisement Services, etc. And then I also have the Harold B. Lee Library. I loooove working with my areas. They are great. It is humbling to work with all the directors and have them call me with questions. That is actually one thing that takes up a lot of my time - helping the directors of each of these areas solve their own HR issues they are facing in their organizations.

A typical day on my job isn't very typical. My weekly schedule is more typical than any given day. All through out the week I may be reviewing job postings and getting them finalized and posted on-line so people can apply. And then I also set starting salaries for the top applicant that the director wants to hire for their vacant job and work out a final salary with them for that applicant. Those are pretty much the little things that fill my days in between all the meetings and bigger responsibilities.

Mondays are generally pretty quiet. This is the day that I usually have time to get some work done.

Tuesdays are pretty full of meetings. On occasion I attend the HRS directors meeting (the four of us consultants are on a rotational schedule to attend). And then there is always devotional - which I almost always sleep through - sadly. (I don't know why! It drives me bonkers.) And then my piano lesson on my lunch hour - I just had to throw that one in there. And our meeting with our Assistant Administrative Vice President over HR.

Wednesdays is when I have to do a lot of reading in preparation for Job Evaluation meeting on Thursday. So I read countless job descriptions for jobs all across campus and try to make a justifiable determination of a pay level so I can go into the meeting prepared. And then I have a couple other meetings that afternoon as well.

Thursday. Oh Thursday. That is when our forever long Job Evaluation meeting is. It's actually a very fascinating meeting. I rarely, if ever, struggle to stay awake in that one even though most weeks it is 3 hours long - from 2 o'clock to 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Why do I not struggle to stay awake in that long of a meeting? Because the conversation is engaging and on occasion we have a pretty good debate going over some of the jobs. It really keeps you on your toes. We determine first whether or not the job should be paid hourly or salaried - did you know that is based on some very strict criteria put forth by the federal government? Yup. And in some cases it is rather hard and very subjective to determine if a job meets those criteria to be salaried. Then we figure out the pay level the job should be based on the content of the job and then we compare it to similar jobs out in the market to see if we are close to it. See. Pretty interesting huh?

Friday. Friday always tends to be the day that I stay late after work. I don't struggle to get everything done on other days of the week - but Friday is different. Friday is the day that I prepare job descriptions for Job Evaluation meeting the following week. I mark up the job description to see how it has changed since the last time we evaluated it and then I prepare a cover letter with the highlights and any "insider" information I know about the job from the department telling me. It doesn't sound like much, but it can take a good couple of hours to prepare one job description so when you add in numerous job descriptions and interruptions... then that adds up to staying late Friday night since I have to turn in those prepared job descriptions by Friday at 5 o'clock or else first thing Monday morning.

And then I have some big projects through out the year. Like the Annual Salary Review - also known as raise time. We help to administer the process to our directors since they have to figure out what their employees should receive percentage wise based on their performance. That takes the whole month of June and first part of July - so currently, we are wrapping it up.

Right now, I am serving on a disaster drill committee for a drill we are having in November of this year. That's kind of fun although it hasn't taken much of my time at all. I hope it takes more because I think that is a cool assignment.