Press Release

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 7, 2018

University of California, Irvine’s Human Resources Team Receives CUPA-HR’s HR Innovation Award

                         UC Irvine Human Resources 

University of California, Irvine’s human resources team has received the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR) 2018 HR Innovation Award. Thanks to the generous support of PageUp, CUPA-HR is pleased to offer a $5,000 contribution to UC Irvine’s endowment or a scholarship fund of the HR team’s choice.

UC Irvine’s HR team received the award for the creation and implementation of a new HR business model which provides for streamlined and consistent processes and procedures and the alignment of resources across the university’s three HR organizations — campus, medical center and health sciences. Outcomes of the new HR model have included:

  • The creation of executive director positions for each of the three HR organizations;
  • The Partnership for Strategy and Innovation — a subset of HR consisting of four individuals with expertise in workforce planning, communications, organizational effectiveness and workforce relations who lead enterprise-level initiatives;
  • The elimination of annual performance reviews and the implementation of goal-setting and quarterly one-on-one meetings between supervisors and employees;
  • Implementation of campus-wide merit-based salary increases;
  • The opportunity for HR personnel to complete training to become certified HR business partners;
  • The elevation of HR to a strategic business partner and cabinet-level contributor; and
  • A more engaged campus community.

Says Ramona Agrela, UC Irvine’s associate chancellor and chief HR executive, “The new HR model respects the individuality of each of the university’s HR organizations while aligning resources across the enterprise into an even more efficient, responsive and client-centric team and enables us to optimize across common strategic goals, planning, practices and unmet organizational needs.”

About CUPA-HR
CUPA-HR is higher ed HR. We serve higher education by providing the knowledge, resources, advocacy and connections to achieve organizational and workforce excellence. Headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, and serving more than 25,000 HR professionals and other campus leaders at more than 2,000 member organizations around the country and abroad, the association offers learning and professional development programs, higher education salary and benefits data, extensive online resources and just-in-time regulatory and legislative information.

CUPA-HR’s annual Higher Education Human Resource Awards honor excellence in higher education human resources and recognize service and commitment to CUPA-HR and innovation in the profession.

Contact: Missy Kline, Content Manager – Communications and Marketing
Phone: 877-287-247
E-mail: [email protected]