CLIENT FOCUS
What Should We Do with HR?
By Mandy Faber, Client
Services Coordinator
Mandy Faber recently spoke with Laura Terry, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at UVA Darden School Foundation about the Foundations need to figure out how to staff their HR department for the future.
The Foundation manages endowment funds for the benefit of the Darden School, operates the School's top-ranked executive education program and promotes philanthropic support from alumni, friends, and corporations.
Laura saw the need to upgrade the Foundation's HR structure in order to meet the long-term needs of the organization and turned to Titan to perform a Strategic HR Assessment. "Although we knew that our managers and employees could better perform their roles if they had more centralized HR support . . . we felt an important first step was obtaining expert advice in detailing what kind of support we needed."
After an in-depth data gathering phase, Titan developed a detailed plan of action. Titan reccomended key areas to focus on and how to organize and staff the HR function. Titan created job descriptions and a graphic depiction of the suggested organization structure of the department based on industry ratios and best practice research.
Laura believes that "performing a Strategic HR Assessment is useful if an organization knows that it needs to do something more with its Human Resources, but doesn't know exactly how to go about it." She found the assessment useful in educating senior management about the need to invest in the HR of the Foundation to meet the goals and needs of the organization.
Titan is also recruiting HR talent to help Darden School Foundation fill their new HR Director role.