Mark Solda

Business Process Improvement • Project Management • Stakeholder Management • Project Scope Development​

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While working at in the administration of a campus of Columbia University, the Director of Administration assigned me to observe the Human Resources department and come back with a proposal for office automation.  The department had no electronic records. Personnel files were kept in filing cabinets and the record of accounts charged for an employee's payroll were recorded on four by six index cards in a box.

 

For two weeks, I sat in the Human Resources Department, at the desk of a part-time employee (when she was not there) and continued my own work, while observing the activity within the office.

It became apparent that most of the activity, particularly in response to calls to the office, was centered on the payroll records, the four by six cards in a box.  And listening to the requests other administrative employees made to the department personnel, reports on payroll account assignments were so routine, the office personnel didn't seem them as a high priority.

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Non-administrative employees on the campus were supported through research grants.  This could mean a research scientist, graduate student, or research engineer could be supported by multiple research grants during a single period of time. And those grants could from different funding agencies.  This could mean a report on an agency's funding supporting payroll was a manual process of looking through the cards of all active employees.

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After a final consultation with the Human Resources Manager, I submitted a proposal to the Directory of Administration that the payroll records should be stored electronically.  She told me at the time that this was not what she had expected my proposal to be, but agreed to allocating the resources to the project after going over the proposal.

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After collecting metadata on the payroll records, I designed a database schema and front-end for the payroll data.  The process of entering historical and program refinements lead to easier and faster reporting, even allowing secure data access to authorized administrative personnel outside the Human Resources Department.   

Once the project ended, the Human Resources Department handled more requests for reporting faster and in more customized formats.  With remote access, the department ended up handling fewer requests.  The time savings was considerable.