Ask SLT - July 2023

“Ask John” is now “Ask SLT,” and IT staff are invited to anonymously share a question, challenge, or opportunity with IT’s Senior Leadership Team. Responses to recently submitted questions from the last IT Town Hall appear below:

How are those with physical disabilities being supported who need to work from home? Where is the form to work 100% remote?

The Human Resource team supports physical disabilities for all Yale employees. The university’s Accessibility website has a section that covers workplace accommodations. You can also find helpful details on the Staff Accommodations program including eligibility, process, and the online intake form on It’s Your Yale.

Also, has HR considered walking around and seeing how women and minorities are impacted in the workplace and why young people may not want to come back into 25SP ?

Our goal is to ensure employees feel connected to the Yale community. Yale IT is committed to a diverse and inclusive community, and we fully support our early career employees, women, and minorities. We encourage any employees to visit the “Belonging at Yale” website to access DEI and Belonging resources. There are also IT initiatives such as the upcoming D&I workshop - Foundations of Gender & Sexuality- for all ITS Staff on Wednesday, July 19, from 9-11:30 a.m. You can always speak to your manager or the human resources team to share your thoughts or concerns. We will continue to look for ways to improve your employee experience here.

PPM as a tracking tool doesn’t seem granular enough to be useful for data. Is there a larger picture leadership sees?

The PPM tool is a useful resource data that allows IT teams to maintain consistency when tracking their time. In addition, it can be used for service resource allocation, which is a key partnership between IT Finance and service owners. Right now, we are exploring other ways to provide greater insight into resource capacity and allocation, and how to avoid hour-by-hour time entry stamps. There is also an ongoing effort to improve incident categorizations in ServiceNow. This will eventually result in better dashboards and provide much needed insight into team level of effort at a team and executive level.

With the focus on adding new talent to Yale IT, is there a similar focus on keeping current talent at Yale from leaving either their current roles or leaving the university?

ITS has a defined methodology in how we hire new talent. According to our statistics, we hire 8-10% of new roles annually. We start by filling entry-level junior roles with new talent, creating upward mobility for senior staff to advance to higher positions as they become available. There is also substantial investment in training and mentoring programs to ensure current employees are encouraged to remain here. More importantly, we clearly outline a career trajectory and promotion pathways, so all employees have avenues for learning and development to advance their careers.

How valuable is the institutional knowledge of current employees?

Retention is a critical priority for us. We value a variety of perspectives and respect all our employees. Yale IT networks, computing, and communications infrastructure are intricately complex to ensure we provide sophisticated services and innovation for university programs. We actively support initiatives across various areas, including academic, administrative, foundational, research, clinical, and cultural heritage. To fulfill our organizational priorities, we rely on a diversified workforce, with a mix of early career and highly experienced individuals.

As we anticipate substantive increases in workload for FY24, what considerations (financial, remote, etc.) will be given to supporting the staff with flexibility to enable these new duties to be performed adequately without working additional hours?

We fully acknowledge we have a planned workload in the coming year to ensure we meet our organizational goals and fully support the Yale community. Our goal is to find the best and most efficient way to work for IT employees and we strive for a reasonable balanced workload. If you find you are consistently working beyond your workload, please raise your hand. We can get you more support or resources to help you better manage your responsibilities.

Thank you for an awesome IT party at Lighthouse Park… When can we do it again? It was fun seeing everyone from different departments.

We are encouraged to hear employees had a wonderful time. We know we enjoyed spending time with you all outside the office. Historically prior to the COVID pandemic, we typically had at least two major employees’ events in each calendar year. We plan to continue these activities to ensure our IT communities - both hybrid and remote - can engage and interact in person. We also have an end of year/holiday event planned for December. In addition, there are also regularly planned activities coordinated by each IT department for their team members. Be sure to check with your individual teams and be available to participate in those events.

What initiatives (new or old) are in place to support that we are Workplace of Choice?

There are major initiatives devoted to this organizational goal, both IT specific and university wide. The FlexPlace Work categories giving employees access to flexible work arrangements is a good example. ITS has significant learning and development resources such as the mentoring program to develop career, professional and leadership skills. The Job Family Redesign is another initiative to maintain equity and competitive salaries in compensation across all IT departments. Our new learning initiative also provides clear professional development pathways and training support across IT roles to complement the job family redesign. The Learning Council are also working to modernize training processes and systems across Yale. There are even significant Yale Signature Benefits to support personal and financial wellness for all Yale employees.

Can John say more about the IT conference planned for the fall?

Planning is currently in progress, and we will share information as it becomes available.