PEOPLE FIRST CHANGE REVIEW BOARD
MEETING NOTES
Date: July 18, 2006
Time: 10:00 AM – 12:00 Noon
Location: 4040 Esplanade Way, Room 225F
Members in attendance:
Lee Ann Korst DMS Dave Pepper State Courts
Ralph Kiessig DOC Dennis King DMS
Mark Helms DCA Phil Spooner AWI
David DiSalvo DCF Dave Tepper DOS
Lane Fenner CVG Paul Nichols LEG
John Bennett DFS Rene Knight DHSMV
David Faulkenberry DMS
Non-Members in attendance:
Cathy Jones AUD Libby Farmer DMS
Members not in attendance:
JoAnne Leznoff OPB Cathy Christensen DLA
Chris Emerick CVG Elaine Cooper DACS
Steven Ferst DMS Linda Lieblong FSU
Follow-Up Business -
LeeAnn opened the meeting and there was no follow-up business from the previous Board meeting indicated by the participants.
10-21-06 Release Update -
Dennis distributed a project plan with the scheduled releases. The August 5 releases are primarily dealing with open enrollment issues. The October 21 release focuses more on law enforcement agencies but some issues affect all agencies.
People First has had a series of releases over the past months (5/13, 5/26, 7/1) and have the upcoming releases scheduled for 8/5 and 10/21. The team is looking beyond the October release to determine what issues need to be addressed. Also being considered is developing an established schedule of releases. Dennis stated that the future releases need to take into consideration the data warehouse impact – the release needs to be deployed with the data warehouse readiness.
To date, no serious issues have been reported resulting from the changes made in the July 1 release. During the last few weeks, two additional tracking modules have been deployed: performance management and training. Jan Russo has been coordinating with the personnel officers to do mass a load of data to the performance management tool. HSMV was the only agency who has taken advantage of the mass load of the performance management information.
The PAR “dual hire” issue is tentatively scheduled for the end of year. The business requirements are currently under development and should be completed this week. There is a meeting scheduled for the week after next, with Convergys, to go over those requirements. After Convergys reviews the requirements, and discusses with the team, Convergys can determine the expected roll out date.
Some personnel officers met with Secretary Lewis on the dual hire issue. Secretary Lewis has asked the People First team to develop a better descriptor to use for these situations. The group suggested “Inter-Agency Move” as a possible descriptor.
Also included in the 10/21 release is the removal of the military leave balance from employees leave balance summary.
Training for the releases will be handled in the same manner as it has been during the last few releases. The group concurred that the training plan deployed has been very effective. The group was asked to review the proposed project plan to see if they had any issues or concerns. The group concurred with the proposal.
üLane was asked to provide a descriptor for each of the items in the 8/5 and 10/21 releases by next Tuesday, July 25th.
David Tepper asked if there was a way to update the employee pay history screen with any salary corrections that were processed through the BOSP on-demand system. He explained that People First indicates the gross pay, but if a warrant was cancelled and issued under the on demand system, then PF does not record that adjustment transaction. Mr. Tepper stated that a historical repository of pay data is needed for auditing purposes. Dennis stated this was not an easy fix but that he would ask Jimmy Cox to look into this problem. üThis issue will be added to the MANTIS issues list.
The 10/1 mass load of pay increases will be recorded in People First. The PF team is looking into ways to go back and record previous year’s pay increases handled by mass load.
Any questions regarding the release project plan should be addressed with Dennis King.
Phil Spooner commented that overall, things are getting better. The group reiterated that they agree with the methodology of breaking down the issues in pieces and not trying to handle all of them at one time. Lee Ann concurred and stated that DMS is well aware that the data warehouse and the PAR are identified as HIGH priority for all.
Electronic Personnel File -
During his meeting with several POs, Secretary Lewis made it clear that he views the electronic personnel file issue as instrumental to fully deploying an employee self-service system. Lee Ann asked the group for ideas on how DMS can make this happen.
· David DiSalvo has suggested establishing a date from which that date forward all documents go to PFSC for scanning and indexing. Once that is in place, we can step back and strategize what to do with the previously scanned files. The group strongly voiced their preference to have one centralized location for all personnel documents.
· David Tepper requested that Convergys allow access to the previously scanned and indexed employee personnel files by the personnel office only.
Lee Ann stated that the functionality for viewing the personnel files is available therefore we need to figure out a way to move forward. The group stated that Convergys should be doing the scanning out of the Tallahassee Service Center.
· A discussion regarding the group’s concerns of how the documents were indexed ensued and what could be done to improve the quality of the indexing. There are concerns over the currently indexed personnel files: the quality of the files given to Convergys to scan and the quality of the indexing that occurred. At the time of the initial scanning, no instructions were provided on how to prepare the files for scanning and the positions assigned that function in the personnel offices had been reduced. David Faulkenberry stated that the current process is much different than the process in place used to get all the documents scanned due to the volume at hand.
· Anna Gray sent out a listing of the approved personnel documents for review. The team was asked for their assistance in developing a comprehensive list of personnel file documents. It was suggested that the comprehensive list be sorted into several major indexing ‘buckets’ categories: Attendance and Leave, Benefits, Corrective Actions, Correspondence, Personnel Actions, Performance Evaluations; New Hire forms, and Other.
· To assist the Service Center in indexing documents, several suggestions were discussed including; that agencies modify their forms to denote the category in which the form would eventually be stored; personnel office add a cover sheet to documents specifying where they need to be filed; personnel office adding a number on the top of the document which correlates to the appropriate category.
üLane and Be were asked to help coordinate a meeting next week for the group to visit the Service Center and see the scanning operation so that they get a better understanding of the process and better assist in developing a solution.
· The personnel officers stated that they had little confidence in the current electronic personnel file system. Part of the discussion has to take into consideration quality control since the POs do not have the staff to be reviewing the scanned documents. The agencies requested that the system allow personnel offices to move documents from one index category to another.
· Deploying the viewing of the scanned personnel files should be phased in allowing time to educate employees on the process. The group suggested to Lane that the Service Center needed to be prepared for an increase in the number of calls from employees.
· Phil Spooner stated that the process also needs to address chain of custody issues. He stated that a process for accessing files for terminated employees or employees moving from one agency to another needs to be developed.
· ü The group was asked to develop questions with issues that need to be discussed and/or considered for this process to move forward and submit those questions to Be Whitfield [ by next Thursday, July 27th.
Issues List Prioritization -
· The MANTIS issues list was distributed with the input received from the group (an “X” in the last column denotes a high priority). All concur that the PAR and the data warehouse are the top issues to resolve. ü The list will be sent out and the group was asked to review the issues by category and rank the top 5 issues in each category in order of priority (5 being the highest). Send responses to Dennis King by Wednesday, July 26th.
· Dennis stated that the Data Team is hosting weekly meetings with Convergys staff to work through some of the data warehouse issues. It was stated by the CRB members that the data warehouse is the only segment where little progress is being made. ü It was suggested that DMS establish focus group meetings consisting of agency SMEs, Convergys representative and Data Team to help identify problems and address solutions.
User-Friendly vs. Utilitarian –
The Secretary has tasked the People First team to make the system more user-friendly. Lee Ann asked the group to help define “user-friendly”. “Example” responses were:
· Navigation – “Back” button functionality
· Warning messages should be intuitive
· Buttons should be more descriptive of action
· Linkage between the position and employee segments
The group suggested that DMS establish several focus groups consisting of an employee group; a supervisory group and a group of HR professionals to get input on what changes would be helpful. As a starting point, DMS should consider most frequently visited screens and try to improve upon those.
Lee Ann congratulated and thanked the group for their efforts to reduce the number of missing timesheets. All agencies did a great job in reducing this number by the end of the fiscal year. The group complimented Jimmy Cox, the change management team and Convergys’ team in contributing towards this effort.
Disaster Preparedness –
Dennis stated that DMS would follow the same procedures that were done last year. In case of an emergency a call –in number would be set up as the mechanism to share and disseminate information. The group felt that this was very effective last year.
Lee Ann stated that procedures are in place for Secretary Lewis to delegate the agency head the authority to grant administrative leave during an office closure or on a case by case basis once an Executive Order is issued.
CRB Elections –
Dennis reviewed old minutes and found reference that indicated that the 3 member board would serve one year terms but that the process had not been finalized. He proposed keeping the same structure until March 2007. Rene Knight moved the motion, Mark Helms seconded the motion and no one was opposed.
System Stabilization –
LeeAnn stated that one of the goals of Secretary Lewis and the People First team was to stabilize the system. She asked the group to define ‘stabilized’.
· Correcting flex schedules made a big difference
· System does what you want it to
· Increased accuracy
· Reduced number of work-arounds
· Increased confidence
· System is logical, rational and reasonable
The group stated that benefits segment is not stable – employees are still being dropped. They are optimistic that correcting the inter agency move PARs will correct that problem.
Rene stated that the finger pointing that occurs between DSGI and the Convergys benefit team leaves employees stuck in the middle. They need an ombudsman to turn to when they cannot get assistance from these groups.
Org Management Lead –
The People First team is looking for someone to fill the Org Management Lead position. They have looked internally and do not have a suitable candidate. Dennis asked the group for suggestions of anyone that could fill that position. The position requires a good working knowledge of the People First system and human resource management. It also requires someone who understands the issues and can translate the solution into business requirements then be able to test the solution to ensure it is working as intended. He will be posting a job announcement within the next several weeks.
Other business –
User role code – the business requirement was sent to Convergys for review. We are waiting for Convergys to determine an implementation schedule.
Dave Tepper asked what about the timesheet issue that he addressed in the last meeting. The system allows employees to edit timesheets that have already been approved by the manager. David Faulkenberry stated that the newly submitted timesheet still goes through the edits and approval process but Mr. Tepper still thought that such transactions should be approved through the reject timesheet process. ü He proposed a motion that a business requirement to lock the system be developed. Phil Spooner seconded the motion and all were in favor.
Meeting adjourned at 12:09 p.m.
ü Indicates follow up action required.