By Liz Budzik
The Business Services team in HR consists of Liz Budzik, director; Elba Quezada, Nelly Crespo and Marilyn Sommer. We provide administrative support to UIC HR. Such activities as budget and finance management, leave of absence coordination, academic professional search coordination, UIC HR operations management, oversight of special programs for campus, and University of Illinois Hospital metrics reporting are among the many things we do!
I am in charge of creating the unit budgets and the overall budget. There are 26 different accounts in HR such as the unit state accounts, temporary services, fingerprinting, and charitable fund drive. Elba reconciles all these accounts, and makes sure the charges are in the correct account and are for the correct amount. My office handles the contracts and 16 standing purchase orders each year.
Nelly and Elba handle purchases for their respective units in each building. This includes office supplies, employee reimbursements, and vendor payments.
Nelly supports Organizational Effectiveness with ordering food and training supplies, reconciling and charging units for attendees, and general administration activities for leadership essentials training.
Both Elba and Nelly put in the work orders for the building (Elba has a lot more fun with HRB!) as well as any changes to the telephones. All construction projects and improvements to the building are managed in my area. In addition, any office moves are put into the space planning system and coordinated through me.
I process academic professional appointments for HR employees, and manage the academic professional searches for the office. I input salary increases into salary planner once a year, and also collect, or process, all the required forms such as Report of Non-University Activities, Activity Reporting, FICAA, and many more. All changes to appointments in HR go through my office for approval. Also, any requests for leaves of absence such as Family Medical Leave are submitted through me.
The area that seems to make the most people happy is the party planning that happens in business services! I work with volunteers to put together parties for employee retirements, good byes, holidays, and just for fun teambuilding!
Another area that falls under business services is the coordination and management of the election of civil service employees to the State University Civil Service Committee. Whenever someone retires or has finished a term, an election is held. The last election was on June 19th.
I also oversee Special Programs. As of right now this consists only of Marilyn, and we are looking to fill the Special Events Facilitator position this coming month! Special Programs is in charge of the Employee Recognition Program and Ceremony, the Retirement Luncheon, Retirement Planning Conference and the Charitable Fund Drive for the campus. As you all know, these events are quite involved and there are many details that make up a successful event!
One other project I complete every month is the compilation of the metrics report for the Hospital.
We hope this provides some insight into what we do in Business Services.
