Refining and improving the hiring process at the College of Pharmacy

This spring, UFHR introduced new inclusive hiring resources to provide faculty and staff with support and guidance at each stage of the hiring process. As part of these resources, the Inclusive Hiring Badge program was launched that featured education on the topics of inclusion, diversity, equity and access in the workplace.

UF College of Pharmacy HR Generalist II Kim Lewerenz is one of the first participants to receive the Inclusive Hiring Badge. We sat down with Kim to discuss her experience with the program and how she is incorporating inclusive hiring practices in her work.

What motivated you to participate in the Inclusive Hiring Badge program?

I am part of the HR team at the College of Pharmacy. It is vital to our role that we are constantly learning and growing in all areas of HR. At the College of Pharmacy, we strive to stimulate a culture that promotes diversity and inclusion and this program was the perfect opportunity for me to grow in my knowledge to further support this culture.

How will the program resources, such as the Inclusive Hiring Toolkit, elevate your department’s recruiting practices?

We have been revaluating our hiring practices and revising the process to ensure we are utilizing inclusive hiring practices for all of our TEAMS and Faculty recruitments.

What are some inclusive hiring strategies your unit is considering implementing?

First, we encourage our hiring teams to complete Inclusive Hiring training to understand best practices for recruitments. At the beginning of each recruitment, we assist the hiring team in establishing preferred qualifications to be used as a tool as part of an assessment matrix. We also help determine interview questions that will be relevant to candidate qualifications for established criteria. At the end of each interview, we send out a Qualtrics form allowing the interview team to evaluate the candidate based on the key competencies established. These are just some of the few practices we have implemented.

What program resources have you found most helpful and why?

Learning about our hidden biases was really important, particularly during the recruitment process. We all have biases and sometimes we don’t realize it. I think it’s something we always have to be mindful of.

What strategies will you use to help faculty and staff implement inclusive hiring practices in future searches?

We have already implemented quite a few strategies including the use of equity advisors, interview committee requirements even for staff recruitments, screening rubrics, interview rubrics and evaluation tools in Qualtrics. These strategies combined with some training requirements have really helped our hiring teams achieve positive results from recruitments. We plan to survey our committees who have already used these tools soon to further refine and improve our processes and support our hiring teams.

Which of the core competencies did you find most valuable for your professional development?

All of the core competencies are so vital for my role in HR. Communication and building relationships are definitely strengths of mine. Effective communication is so important, as well as building trust with our College of Pharmacy employees.

To learn more about UFHR’s inclusive hiring resources and how you can participate in the Inclusive Hiring Badge program, visit the UFHR Inclusive Hiring Hub.