Running head: DECENTRALIZED HIRING AT NIU

An Innovative Evaluation: Does a Decentralized Hiring Process Work Best for NIU?
CAHA 710
Mindy Venners

DECENTRALIZED HIRING AT NIU

The employee hiring process is extremely important at any corporation, but at large
institutions like Northern Illinois University, the process can help or hinder the entire entity.
While working in Human Resources, I have been exposed to the historical and current practices
of hiring all different classifications of employees. I have gradually learned the importance of
exploring the advantages, and possible improvements to be made to these processes, in order to
raise the overall productivity of the stakeholders involved.
The primary stakeholders of the evaluation are current human resource employees,
campus departments, labor unions, and upper administration. The secondary stakeholders are
newly hired employees, prospective employees, the paperwork processors in each department,
and internal and external auditors. There are currently a variety of employee classifications that
make up a large portion of this evaluation. The groups of employees are student employees and
interns, graduate assistants, civil service, extra help, and SPS and faculty positions. The main
purpose of the evaluation is to study the decentralized hiring process currently in place, and
determine if this process is most beneficial for the university. Decentralized hiring is where the
individual departments hire and manage their own employees while only using the guidance and
regulations of the Human Resources department. Furthermore, each department can start a
search for an employee, run an advertisement, interview qualifying candidates, and ultimately
decide the person to be hired, and even their salary, without final consent from the Human
Resources department. Once the person is officially chosen by the department, the required
items are sent to HR to get them entered into the system to start working. The Provosts office
needs to sign off on the hiring forms but will then send them on to be processed by HR I am
going to focus this evaluation on the SPS and faculty hiring process.
There have been numerous advantages and disadvantages brought up regarding this type

of hiring process. I look forward to going more in depth to analyze how long the process has
been in place and if NIU is comparable to other universities and their hiring methods. The
evaluability of the process will consist of observing managers and departments, interviewing
influential people that have part in the process, analyzing archival records to assess historical
data, and collecting information on the impact of the process on the potential and newly hired
employees, as well as existing employees. Another main goal is to gain genuine insight into the
flow of the process and into what the major concerns are for the main stakeholders.
I am selecting this process to be evaluated because I feel it is necessary, especially with
the changes that are being made to the states budget, the increasing number of retirees, and the
various changes that have been made to certain employee classifications. I have also become
centered on the importance of hiring competent and valuable employees to teach our students
and run our administrative and academic departments in the best way possible. I am a firm
believer in the work smarter, not harder philosophy, and there is always room to explore
possible alternatives to the way the hiring process is currently being implemented. It is
important to remember that student success is what should be continually focused on, which is a
concept that seems to get lost in the shuffle sometimes. Two major aspects of Human Resource
processes that need attention are the feelings of disconnect from the rest of the campus due to the
way our departments are structured, and the way in which the processes lack consistency across
the various academic and administrative sectors. All paperwork currently flows through the
Provosts office for approval, but can be altered or held up there based on decisions made behind
the scenes. If we are to promote transparency in higher education institutions, we need to make
sure the main administrative departments are setting the example. Another inconsistent factor
that can exist during the hiring process is the multitude of salaries that are assigned to employees

due to not having a standard scale implemented by Human Resources. Although seniority should
play a part in a persons rank, the sharp differences in salaries can cause conflict within the
institution.
There are a number of challenges that I anticipate during the evaluation. One main
hurdle that I foresee is the length of time that these processes have been in place, and the
resistance to change that certain employees may hold, especially if they have been here longer
than others. The current processes are pretty archaic, in my opinion, and there may be some
resistance to change historical patterns. There is so much physical paperwork in the current
hiring process that space will eventually become too small for storing the documents. Although
physical files are critical to record keeping, storing these documents solely in file cabinets
increases the risk of misplacing or losing information permanently. Electronic documents, even
for back up purposes, may smooth out areas of the current process.
Another obstacle that may arise is a possible disagreement between different academic
and administrative departments. There are quite of few individuals that have continually had
their say in the way we process paperwork. With the restructuring and moving around of these
employees, Human Resources has had to train new employees on these processes. The older
employees need to work with the new employees to make them familiar with the way the
paperwork flows, otherwise we encounter more errors, which in turn, sets our timeline behind.
Other items that may blur the evaluation are the policy changes that cycle through
Human Resources and the University Administration. These policy changes get passed on to us
by the State of Illinois and we often do not know what they entail until they are almost in the
implementation phase. This sometimes causes extra work for employees who process hiring

paperwork, then realize it has to be changed after the fact. Proactive measures could hopefully
limit this type of repetitive processing. Evaluating these processes can be extremely valuable to
the university and to my current position in Human Resources in order to streamline the way
employees are hired and to make the processes a little less time consuming than what is
necessary.

The evaluation plan for the decentralized hiring process at NIU consists of many
different parts that must mesh together smoothly in order to get the best results. The purpose of
this evaluation is to determine how successful the current hiring processes are, which
stakeholders are most affected by these processes, and who are the key decision makers to
facilitate change if necessary. Some questions that can be asked are: Historically, how long have
the current processes been in place? How can we streamline the hiring process to decrease
workflow? Are there feasible alternatives to the current ways in which we are doing things?
What are the major strengths and weaknesses of our current processes? Are the intended
outcomes consistently being fulfilled? Are the department heads and key administrators
sufficiently trained and prepared to complete these processes? By conducting a thorough
evaluation, these questions can be answered and all parties involved will hopefully have a clearer
idea of the most productive methods to use in the hiring processes at our institution.
Higher education institutions use either centralized or decentralized hiring methods based
mostly on the history and size of the institution. Human Resources is either the main location
where all the hiring processes take place, or the HR department acts as a home location that
outsources some of the hiring procedures to the surrounding departments on campus. While

viewing past research, I found that George Mason University in Virginia utilizes practices very
similar to NIU for recruitment and hiring, by also using the decentralized process (Scherrens &
Stearns, 2011)
I will be using a case study design for my evaluation. Case studies involve in-depth
descriptive data collection and analysis of individuals, groups, systems, processes, or
organizations (Russ-Eft & Preskill, 2009, p. 204). I have chosen this design because of the types
of qualitative and quantitative data that I plan on collecting, and the in-depth analysis of
individuals, current systems, and the unique process that is now in effect for hiring. This type of
design uses more qualitative methods in order to uncover individual beliefs, practices and
experiences, leading to more internal validity of the evaluation. I will also be using one level of
quantitative data involving hiring files and the PeopleSoft system, which will be
discussed later on.
A case study design is particularly useful for this evaluation because the primary goal is
to better understand the stakeholders views of the current process, and to learn possible
alternatives that will lead to improving work efficiency. When interviewing individuals involved
in the evaluation, I can focus on their perspectives and experiences. I can also look at the various
inputs that will affect possible outcomes. This evaluation is somewhat exploratory, so I am not
as concerned with a high level of validity, but I would like to discover some feasible results that
may be used in the future to realistically make the process smoother, faster, and with more
consistency.
One case study that I researched was a review of the non-faculty hiring processes at
Texas A&M University, located in College Station, TX. The review evaluated several areas of

the hiring process to pinpoint what auditors are concerned with when it comes to documentation
of the hiring process. Although Texas A&M uses a centralized hiring model, the review provided
valuable information that helped guide me toward the intended goals of my evaluation. I decided
to concentrate solely on the faculty and SPS hiring process for this evaluation. I have more
knowledge of this area because my full time position at NIU consists of gathering and processing
the paperwork for the employees in this classification for three quarters of the departments on
campus. I work with one or two main contacts for each department to ensure that the correct
documents are collected for each new and existing employee and that they are entered into the
database in a timely manner, while meeting auditing regulations. The roles of
the stakeholders in this evaluation are the department heads work side by side with Human
Resources to get the employees hired, the hired employees are the secondary stakeholders that
rely on information passed down from the hiring parties, at the same time as ensuring that our
paperwork and entire process is meeting the standards for a state university according to legal
and governmental stakeholders. The tertiary stakeholders will be the state of Illinois, and the
external auditors, that visit the university and document steps in the processes to maintain
legality and consistency.
I will start by holding regular focus group meetings with certain individuals within
Human Resources. The focus group will include two representatives from payroll, one
representative from each area of employee classification (SPS/faculty, graduate assistants,
student employees, civil service), one individual from benefits, and the head HR manager. These
meetings will be held on the first Tuesday of every month. Orientation sessions are held on
Monday mornings, but are only mandatory for civil service employees. By holding this focus
group on Tuesday, ideas will be fresh regarding orientation and any new concerns that may be

have come up. Not only will we have the perspectives of the individuals holding the orientation
training, but the new employees can offer the focus group different perspectives based on the
questions asked in the session. The focus group will be a way for these individuals to brainstorm
ideas or talk about any glitches they have discovered during the hiring process. We can discuss
payroll issues that are prevalent to the way we are currently processing paperwork, and
collaborate ideas to minimize systematic error. I think it is important for us to meet as a group to
discuss any policy changes or issues involved since we do not currently have meetings like this
in place, and we wait for the changes to trickle down by word of mouth from upper management
to members of the department. This small factor can hinder the efficiency and competence of the
entire Human Resources team.
Another data collection method I will use is the observation of other departments and
their internal handling of the hiring process. I will observe two campus departments a month, for
one hour each, to witness the ease or difficulty in the origination of employee hiring documents.
I believe this can be an effective method to collect information because these departments are
originally taught by Human Resources to fulfill the correct requirements and this will be a way to
ensure that the departments are implementing what they were taught or if more training should
take place. Historically, Human Resources employees would hold training sessions at the
departmental locations, but in recent years, this training has ceased. There are no longer specific
HR employees hired to hold these trainings, and when the turnover increases in other
departments due to retirements and employees leaving the institution, this can cause a large
obstacle in the overall process. Without sufficient training, and without Human Resources
knowing all the details of when employees are changing roles, departments can start functioning
incorrectly when processing these necessary items.

I also plan to hold phone interviews with the key contacts of each department that I work
with. There are currently 118 administrative departments, and 50 academic departments that fall
under seven colleges. I personally process hiring paperwork for 127 of these departments, and
work with four out of the seven academic colleges. I will use purposive sampling and create a
short questionnaire to assess their opinion of the current process and what improvements or
suggestions could be made. These questions will be consistent across all departments. The
questions I will use for my phone interviews can be found in the Appendix section. I will also try
to use snowball sampling to learn about any concerns that new employees may voice directly to
their department instead of Human Resources. According to Russ-Eft and Preskill (2009),
conducting interviews with certain individuals in order to find out details about other people
involved can constitute this type of sampling method. The rationale behind using this method is
to hear about any issues that new employees may face through the hiring process that HR may be
unaware of. Lastly, I will ask if there is anything that the interviewee would like to add to our
discussion, to collect any extra qualitative data that I may have missed in my questionnaire. I
predict the validity to be fairly accurate with these interviews because of the level of trust and
communication that I have with the main contacts in the departments, and the frustrations that
have been previously voiced within the process. I feel that these individuals exhibit a high
degree of honesty with me because our concerns are rarely shared with the higher administrators,
which also might be interpreted as a weakness within the management of the program. I will
ensure the participants that their answers will remain anonymous, unless they choose to consent
otherwise, or would prefer the information to be shared.
There are currently 668 tenured/tenure track employees, 518 temporary instructional
faculty members, and 897 supportive professional staff (SPS)/administrators that are working at

the university. Another step in my evaluation plan is to look through archival data to find out the
number of documents that are in the physical files that do not match the information stored in the
PeopleSoft database. This can be quantitatively measured to find out the level of accuracy that
exists within these files. I will take a random sample of our active employee files and compare
their employment screens in the database to the paper documents that are stored within. My
rationale for a random sample is to save time, as well as being able to better generalize the data
by not choosing specific employees. I will also be counting the number of faculty and SPS
employees that attend our Monday orientation sessions. Like I mentioned earlier, these
employees are not required to attend these sessions, but it is extremely important that their home
departments give the employees this information and direct through the direct channels. Since
the hiring paperwork is not completed with the employees at the Human Resources building, we
rely on the departments to supply the correct information. I also plan on using convenience
sampling to investigate the percentage of newly hired employees that voice concerns to HR
about issues after being hired. This could indicate a lack of direction from the department, which
in turn could be evidence that the processors in the department need better training, or the
employee is not aware of the necessary contacts within their department. I will track this by
phone calls and emails that I receive directly from the new employees, and select specific
employees based on if they came here from out of state or not. The reason for this is to assess
the quality of the reputation that NIU holds, and if the hiring process is working to successfully
recruit a large scope of employees. Hopefully by using these types of data collection, I can work
toward a needs assessment analysis at the end of the evaluation.

In conducting my data collection for the evaluation, I used the previously mentioned
methods to gather as much information possible for the analysis of the success, and suggested
improvements, of the faculty and SPS hiring process at NIU. Although there was not adequate
time to schedule the Human Resources focus group for a time that worked for all participants, I
was able to speak about some of the key factors with a few of the designated employees.
I organized a meeting with the Payroll manager, and not only heard specific concerns
from the Payroll department, but also learned some important information in regards to future
changes. The entire payroll department experiences frustration because of the large amount of
late timesheets and benefit usage reports being turned in by the department heads. The payroll
employees are forced to track down these forms from the departments and cannot run their
processes until these are received. Payroll calendars are posted on the Human Resources website
to keep the departments informed of these deadlines, but depending on the training that the
departments have had, the calendars are not always utilized. Also, the payroll calendar that is
only visible to Human Resources, which uses a more specific deadline date, makes things
confusing for the other departments especially if they realize a discrepancy in dates from what
they see on the posted calendar. The Payroll manager also informed me of some history of the
processes, stating that NIU once had a centralized hiring process but was changed before she
began working at the university, approximately 28 years ago. In regards to the idea of electronic
processing for paperwork and timesheets, I discovered some astonishing information. NIU has
already purchased the components for the electronic processing system, but has not yet had
available stakeholders to launch the program. Hopefully, there will be an action team that
assembles within the next fiscal year, to begin a soft launch of these valuable pieces. I was also

able to conduct short interviews with the main paperwork processors from many of the
departments. The phone interviews allowed me to ask important questions and uncover any
concerns that exist on a daily basis. One common concern is that the departments and their
employees do not have knowledge of the exact timeframe of when paperwork gets entered into
the Peoplesoft system. Reports are generated on the Human Resources side, as well as the
departmental side, but these reports do not always indicate the precise date of entry. The date of
entry of the documents is most important because these documents are what determine when an
employee will get a paycheck. And if there is any error in the documents along the way, such as
incorrect amounts or wrong funding account sources, this creates an even longer waiting period
for the correct pay to be generated. One main theme that seemed to be prevalent in my data
collection is that the paperwork does not always get processed through the main contact person,
so there tends to be too many hands in the pot. This can create confusion between department
employees, and even with the provost or deans. Streamlining the process within every step
makes things much smoother for the primary contacts involved. Lastly, while administering the
interview questions, departments expressed a strong desire for more extensive trainings from
Human Resources, and on a more regular basis. Our main website seems to be a good resource,
but the information is often vague, and can be somewhat confusing to use without guidance.
One recommendation I might suggest would be to create a training regimen for departments,
whether they are new, or just need to be refreshed about the hiring process and any policy
updates there may be.
I did not have the time or ability to initiate site visits to the departments due to my full
time job requirements and work hours, but I realized that with some assistance, Human
Resources could create a few new positions to satisfy the need for site visits and for any extra

training sessions that departments might need. These employees could be designated trainers
that would hold regularly scheduled trainings at each departmental location to prevent confusion
for any new employees, and to make sure that each department is following the correct hiring
procedures. Indeed this will require more funding dollars to be able to hire two or three extra
employees, but with some restructuring, Human Resources can delegate extra duties to current
employees to allow for these changes.
In my research of archival data and Peoplesoft records, I was able to view data entry
reports to see any errors that needed correcting in the database. With these reports, I located the
physical files to find where the error occurred. In my original data collection method, I pulled 20
random faculty and SPS employee files to find the percentage of files that were missing
documents. After pulling these files, I only located two missing items, one was a transcript that
was not in the file because the employee was transferred from another employee classification
that did not require this document, so this was not required at the time. The only other
discrepancy that I found was a missing update to an I-9 document that was accidently stapled to
another persons information. Human Resources utilizes student workers to file paperwork, so
these errors can happen if there is a lack of quality time being given to the filing process.
Lastly, I visited two orientation sessions to find out the percentage of faculty and SPS
employees that attended these sessions. Like I had stated before, these orientations are not
mandatory for this employment classification, but are regularly held for civil service employees
and all employees are welcome to attend. To my surprise, about 20% of the attendees were
faculty and SPS employees at each session. This evidence shows that new employees would like
to stay informed regarding their benefits, payroll, and expectations, even though it is currently
not a requirement. I also went through my past emails and kept a log of my phone call

conversations with new and current faculty and SPS employees. These employees had reached
out to me with questions and concerns that their department supervisor was not equipped or
available to answer for them. I realized that I receive approximately 3-4 phone calls a week, and
even less emails, around two on average per week, coming directly from these employees. The
departments that I work with have become quite knowledgeable about the hiring process, but
even more important than that, they practice autonomy as much as possible to prevent the extra
work on the Human Resources side. Certain situations can only be resolved on my end, but the
department stakeholders have made strides to try to resolve them to the best of their ability.
Throughout the evaluation, I have come up with a list of recommendations from both the
individual departments and key stakeholders within Human Resources. The following
recommendations resulted from the research I conducted: 1) More consistent salaries for nonunion instructors. 2) Strong desire for an electronic tracking process for hiring paperwork. 3)
Payroll deadlines need to be followed sooner and more precisely. 4) Mandatory orientation for
faculty and SPS employees. 5) Better training needed for new department heads. 6) A
handbook that explains the hiring process in detail. 7) More open and transparent line of
communication with managers and upper administration. 8) More guidance when beginning the
employee search/recruiting process and advertising positions. 9) New employees should report
to HR to fill out their hiring documents in person, and at a central location. 10) Mass emails to
main department contacts to provide updates on policy or procedural changes. All the
recommendations mentioned may not happen all at once, but hopefully after conducting further
research, these recommendations may become clearer through more preliminary data collection.

At the conclusion of my pilot evaluation of the decentralized hiring process at NIU, I

discovered many things that surprised me, along with a few difficulties I encountered during data
collection. The outcomes proved to be indicative of the fact that there are various stakeholders
involved in the hiring process that hold both positive and negative views of the current way in
which we operate at our university.
One thing I learned through my interviews is that Northern Illinois University has already
purchased an electronic tracking system and an automatic payroll and benefits reporting tool that
has yet to be utilized. These programs were purchased over two years ago, but they have not
been implemented due to a lack of team members to initiate the process. This fact thoroughly
surprised me because of the technological advances that other universities have made that
streamline their processes, and the ease of workload that could result from utilizing these types
of tools. The costs associated with these programs are also high, so quicker implementation is
ideal for receiving the largest return on investment.
Another realization that I made was that large scale evaluations require many
stakeholders to be involved in order to conduct adequate research and data collection. It is very
difficult to conduct any evaluation alone or in a small group. It is also a major task to be able to
collect enough data and assess all factors without enough individuals to carry out the methods.
Although it takes more time and money to carry out evaluation methods when numerous
stakeholder groups take part, it is a necessary step to ensure that all areas are evaluated and
assessed. It is very difficult to administer changes of any kind in a large organization unless
there is a strong team of decision makers present. Unfortunately, changes in daily operations is
not feasible without the agreeance of the upper administration, and often these processes are not

understood or implemented by employees in these positions. This may hinder large changes
from happening unless there is ample support backing the new ideas.
An eye-opening fact I also learned about the majority of employees working in HR is the
traditional mentality that exists within the hiring operations staff. As technology urges us toward
more innovative ways of doing things, one of the most noticeable common threads of the Human
Resources department is the long-term resistance to change. There is not a large amount of
turnover within HR, which contributes to the vast amount of archaic processes that the
employees have been utilizing for years. The HR department uses a triple-checking method
when checking for human error. The triple-check system is extremely valuable, and through my
data collection and file research, proved to be quite successful in ensuring a high level of
accuracy. As outdated as the paperwork process might be, NIU employees have worked
diligently to perfect the highest level of accuracy possible with the resources they have been
given. Even the reports that are generated to catch errors are tedious and inefficient when
calculating detailed information due to a basic layout that does not include all the fields required
to cross reference data. Employees in HR often have to create their own queries to locate the
information they need in order to assess data accuracy.
One example of something I would do differently in the evaluation process is I would
want to gather more information from other colleges and universities to get comparison data and
see if they have more technologically advanced operating procedures than we currently have. I
would be interested to observe their processes to see if they are similar to ours, or if there are
things that work well for them that we many have not considered in the past. Lastly, I would like
to raise more awareness of issues to a larger number of important stakeholders to get every
possible key player involved in the evaluation. My circle of influence is smaller than I feel is

necessary to promote necessary change, especially long-lasting strategies that can efficiently
benefit the university for decades to come.