How are Advance Team members preparing for The Upgrade?

An HR Operations Leader for the Academic Health Center (AHC), Shannon Luloff is also on one of The Upgrade’s Advance Teams, the HR Stars, where she is supporting her colleagues in preparing for The Upgrade. This interview reveals how an exemplary performer does her thing! 



How are Advance Team members preparing for The Upgrade?

I am absorbing all of the information I can: completing trainings, reading The Upgrade Newsletter, checking The Upgrade website for changes, participating in meetings, and reading the minutes and slides.

I treat my role on the advance team as a project, tracking all to-dos, and working with self-assigned goals and deadlines. I view it as my responsibility to be available for and promote idea sharing among the AHC HR leadership group and the HR STARs. This role and project viewpoint has helped me focus on getting our area ready for the systems upgrade, which will also affect many of our business processes.

Also, I found a smaller group of SMEs that were actively involved from the beginning and can quickly answer questions. They are really helpful, especially given how swamped the project teams are right now.

How will you help people during the Upgrade process?

I’m developing an internal structure for AHC for pre and post Go Live support. My team is serving as centralized support for AHC because many of them were SMEs who worked on user acceptance testing. In addition, we work with HR STARs in other areas and in AHC colleges (Medical School, School of Dentistry, School of Public Health, College of Pharmacy, School of Nursing, and College of Veterinary Medicine).

We are supplementing The Upgrade communications and change management aspects by leveraging resources, such as the posters, trainings and monthly HR STARs homework, and adding our own personal touch and face-to-face support.

How are your supervisors supporting you?

I really appreciate that my supervisor, Dorothy Cottrell, allotted time for me to focus on the Upgrade (this has meant an increased workload for her as well as our whole team - thank you!). Having this dedicated time to directly support the AHC Shared Units and to provide indirect support to other AHC colleges has helped immensely. I also have a great deal of support from fellow AHC representatives on the HRMS Functional Steering Committee, especially in raising concerns and identifying priorities.

Any final tips for people preparing for The Upgrade?

I think people need pay attention to the information shared by their Advance Teams, and on The Upgrade website, and get training. And it’s important to be supportive and flexible because technology can sometimes be unpredictable.