Business Affairs

Business Affairs annual reports detail initiatives and accomplishments that support the university’s commitment to continuous improvement in the following areas:

• Business Process and Service 
• Physical infrastructure 
• Diversity and inclusion
• Cost saving and revenue generating
• Safety and security
• Sustainability

Business Affairs 2021 Annual Report

2021 Survey Results

Prompt: How would you rate the quality of service you received from...

Response Options:
4: very good
3: good
2: poor
1: very poor

Number of Questions: 24, one per department

Actions

Financial Planning, Budget & Analysis

• Created a central email address (fpba@unlv.edu) that is monitored at all times to improve communication and response times.
• Continued Anaplan development to simplify the budget development process and improve account visibility. Improvements are ongoing.
• Developing online training for new account managers on how to interpret and analyze budget reports.

Financial Services

• Updated the Accounts Payable and Travel websites to include comprehensive information about processes and procedures
• Procurement website update in progress.
• Introduced ‘Myths & Legends’ series to address complex policies and improve our communication and feedback loop.
• Continued implementation of Team Dynamix ticketing system for Accounts Payable. Preparing to add service areas.
• Worked with the Office of Accessibility Resources to improve the Procurement process as it relates to accessibility.

Telecommunications

• Improved billing accuracy by auditing and cleaning data. This work is ongoing.
• Implemented a new process using Google Sheets for sharing quotes with customers to establish more accurate costs, especially for large projects.

Parking and Transportation Services

• Replaced all parking meters with Pay-by-Phone spaces.
• Added parking spaces to the Maryland and Shadow Lane campuses:
  • Del Mar Lot: 99 new spaces
  • Tropicana Parking Garage Expansion: 760 new spaces
  • Shadow Lane Campus North redesign is in progress: 187 spaces
  • Lot west of Harmon Auxiliary Building is in the design phase

Customers mentioned concerns about parking costs. Permit fee increases were implemented to meet debt service requirements for development, operations, enforcement, and maintenance. There had only been three increases in the last twelve years. Below is a high level approach to assessing the fee structure and ensuring we support the growth of the university.

• Parking worked with a consultant to implement best practices from universities across the country to respond to these concerns.
• Parking permit fees and UNLV are substantially lower than the majority of our peers and major universities across the country.
• Parking and Transportation Services is a self-funded department.

Risk Management & Safety 

• Created Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) templates for labs that routinely use hazardous substances.
• Introduced a ChemShare program to reduce costs for chemical acquisition and disposal, and promote stewardship of chemicals on our campus.
• Provided monthly training to facility supervisors about safety program requirements, lab safety, and Rebelearn user instructions.
• Reviewed setup and corrected issues before all campus events.

Delivery Services

• Began delivering small parcels to satellite campuses, including Paradise, Gateway, and The School of Medicine.
• Added daily deliveries to satellite campuses.
• Preparing to institute digital mail. This program will provide valuable analytics and decrease the lead time between Mail Center receipt and final delivery to end recipients.

Administration Technology Services

• To enhance the ease of use of the Business Affairs Administration Portal, we are transitioning ticketing platforms while making every attempt to minimize impacts to the customer experience. Once the transition is complete, issues with the portal should be reduced.
• To improve name recognition and transparency about our services we have:
  • Established a web presence.
  • Begun collaborating with departments on process standards.

Work Order Control Unit (WOCU)

• Consolidated the Workday Support help desk into WOCU and added one FTE.
• Transitioned our work order system to Footprints 12. Working with ATS & Telecom to develop a design plan for the transition to TDX.
• Trained help desk personnel to navigate and respond to Workday tickets.
• Collaborating with Human Resources and Financial Services to streamline processes for security role requests.

Facilities Management

• Rebranded and revamped the FM Building Proctor Program to the FM Building Liaison program to strengthen partnerships with colleagues and building occupants across campus.
• Transitioned to a new cleaning service provider for the Las Vegas Medical District, Shadow Lane, and other satellite locations.
• Installed bins in residence halls to collect reusable items.
• Investigating a KOLO™ Smart Restroom Monitoring System to reduce incidences of low paper product levels, improved hygiene, and reduce cross-contamination risk.
• Introduced a custodial services ‘SmartInspect’ quality assurance and inspection program using handheld technology at the Shadow Lane Campus and Maryland Campus satellite buildings.
• Completed initial phases of a Strategic Asset Management Consulting engagement with SEAM Group to enhance FM’s equipment maintenance and repair programs.
• Reduced the number of vacancies by 50% to address work order backlogs.
• Partnered with OIT to modify the process of requesting and issuing new Rebel Cards as part of the One Card program.
• Established a clear process for reassigning work orders between Planning & Construction and Facilities Management to help eliminate delays.
• Rebel Recycling partnered with the Custodial Department to empty the small office desk side bins into larger office bins since our student crewmembers do not have access to individual offices. This initiative will help increase our recycling tonnages, improve customer service, and build on partnerships within the department.

Planning and Construction and Real Estate

• Developed and refined campus communications to clarify service lines compared to services provided by other Business Affairs units.
• Adjusting service center rates for larger scope projects to support service capacity expansion.
• Undertaking an extensive amount of recruitments to support service capacity expansion.
• Pursuing, making progress on and completing a variety of property acquisitions, leases, facility use agreements, public-private partnership developments, capital projects and other items to expand campus space and facilities.
• Expanding the implementation of Visual Lease to enhance space lease management and tracking.

Human Resources

• Launched the Search Advocate Pilot Program designed to support the search and hire process for academic and administrative units.
  • Hired a search advocate coach/associate program director
• Led the execution of organization-wide professional development and training strategies for supervisors and emerging leaders, including the following programs that were delivered virtually due to COVID-19:
  • Management Training Academy (MTA)
  • HR Professional Development (HRPD) series
  • Leadership Coaching Program (LCP)
• Co-created the year-long curriculum for UNLV’s Leadership Experience and President’s Fellows Program, reaching 29 leaders and emerging leaders on campus.
• Implemented UNLV’s inaugural, enterprise-wide learning management system (LMS), REBELearn.
  • Since implementation, compliance increased for Preventing Harassment and Discrimination, Cybersecurity Awareness, and General Workplace Safety have all increased substantially. There are currently 77 training sessions in REBELearn.
• Developed guidelines for hiring letter of appointments (LOAs) to ensure compliance with Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requirements. Eliminated the LOA agreement.
• Partnered with a number of departments to create career ladders that offer promotional opportunities for department staff.
• Developed best practice on auto-progressions for specific classified specifications.
• Provided recommendations to the Division of Human Resources Management (DHRM) on occupational studies.
• Created a verbal job offer checklist for hiring managers.
• Created and executed UNLV’s wellness program, Rebel Reset, which offers no-cost wellness programming to UNLV campuses.
• Faculty/Staff Wellness
  • Partnered with campus to identify resources available to faculty/staff
  • Redesigned webpage for easier navigation
• Created and revamped multiple HR webpages including:
  • Refined the HR classification and compensation webpage for better navigation by employee type
  • Developed webpages for hiring student employees and being a student employee (which replaced outdated Student Employment Handbook)
  • Redesigned the Benefits page for ease of use
  • Developed webpages for FMLA and Time Away
  • Reviewed and remediated or removed inaccessible documents from HR webpages increasing accessibility score to 91.5%
• Student Employment
  • Hired a dedicated HR student employment specialist
  • Established the Student Employment Advisory Council – a coalition of student supervisors who meet monthly to review web content, training materials, and share resources.
• Grant-In-Aid - Implemented OnBase for reporting and processing simplifying the process for the end user.
• Benefits Education - Partnered with vendors to provide 40 benefits and retirement workshops, including two retirement fairs.
• Implemented i2Verify for employment and wage verifications and public service loan forgiveness requests.
• Workday Wins - collaborated with NSHE to improve and streamline Workday processes. Examples:
  • Period Activity Pay (PAP) - Implemented PAPs for residential assistants to eliminate manual time entry.
  • Add attachments at Initiate Offer - Added an "add attachment" option at the offer step that allows managers to add pertinent documents.
  • Offer Text Block Update for Position Information - Revised offer/contract text blocks to identify position information, status, compensation grade, and pay type providing clarifying information for candidates
  • Manage Attachments Business Process:Hire/Onboarding - HR partners can now remove attached Personal Identifiable Information (PII) documents from the Hire, Onboarding, and Name Change business processes.
  • Work Study Optimization - Made extensive updates to the Hire business process to ensure students are assigned to the correct organization and the correct department accounts are being charged. This resulted in campus-level and SCS efficiencies for work study eligible students.
  • Assign Roles Routing Errors - Reduced overpayments by recommending changes to the Assign Roles step of multiple business processes.
  • Email Terminated Workers with Former Worker Login Information - Added a step to the Termination business process that sends an email to the former employee’s personal email address with information about how to login to Workday to retrieve tax documents.
  • Change Job business process Update to allow administrative assistants the ability to edit - Gave administrative assistants the security role necessary for them to update employee types (i.e., from temporary, fixed term to regular or student, fixed-term to regular, etc.).
  • 'Zombie PAP' identified and fixed - Modified the period activity pay integration to reduce overpayments.
  • Update security of the SSN Integration to decrease duplicate records - Updated the social security number integration to search for existing employee records throughout the entire NSHE instead of within an institution.This resulted in less duplicate records in the system.
  • COVID Vaccine Tracking Custom Object - Developed a solution to track compliance with the COVID-19 employee vaccine mandate. Created multiple reports to respond to requests from the state.
  • New Functionality: End Jobs - Added a new functionality to simplify managing employees with multiple jobs. It allows users to select which jobs to end, terminate and/or switch the primary job.