2022 VCA Annual Report - BRS Central Services

BRS Central Services supports the efforts of all BRS regions and the campus with services for New Berkeley Employee Onboarding; Records Management; Visas; and process and logistical support.

The BRS Central Services team is under the leadership of Director Janet Speer.

FY21

The BRS Central Services Team continues to have many successes with enhancing their Robotic Process Automation “bots”:

  • For faculty summer salary processing, this included processing 600 hires in less than eight (8) hours with zero errors; plus implementing mass uploading of funding entries which were processed each month within two (2) days of submission by UCPath Center, also with zero errors. This enabled faculty to be paid on time for their summer appointments.
  • The team also piloted mass uploads of summer session hiring with the SHARE Region which enabled the processing of 236 concurrent hires, or 36% of the total concurrent hires, within two (2) days of submission by the UCPath Center, also with zero errors.
  • One of the most exciting automation successes involved creating a reappointment request function on the Regional Portal tool and successfully piloted this feature with the College of Chemistry, with plans for a wider rollout to other departments/units.

As COVID-19 continued to be at the forefront in FY21-22:

  • In partnership with University Health Services and People & Culture, BRS Central Services implemented the UC COVID Vaccine Policy for reporting and employee compliance.
  • They also helped to implement the UC Influenza Immunization Policy, providing attestation ability on the Regional Portal tool, supported several COVID compliances in person outreach sessions, and implemented the Campus Access Badge in support of the reopening of campus.

BRS Central Services also supports/manages campus personnel records and Visas:

  • Records requests increased 61% over the prior year, driven by record low interest rates which caused increased numbers of people refinancing their home mortgages and needing records verifications. The team also successfully transitioned historical retirement records to a more stable platform. 
  • The Visa Team saw a 16% increase in H-1B requests.
  • Additionally, due to the pandemic (embassy delays, travel restrictions, etc.), many J-1 scholars had to defer their visit dates, creating a significant workload increase with each incoming J-1 scholar case.

FY22

Automation will still drive a majority of the improvements BRS Central Services is working on for FY22. With the successful Regional Portal pilot of the Reappointment Request Function with the College of Chemistry, there are plans for a wider rollout in FY21 and these efforts are currently underway and has been rolled out in Molecular and Cell Biology (MCB) and a few others already in the queue.

The team will continue transitioning new employee onboarding work to the remaining BRS regions. There will also be a concentrated focus on the work to partner with an external service provider to who will begin providing fingerprinting services as part of background checks that are required for new Berkeley employees being hired for certain appointment types. This work began in FY21 and the implementation live date is scheduled to occur at the end of March, 2022. This effort will culminate with fingerprinting services being moved out of the UC Police Department, though they will still support a couple affiliate groups. 

BRS Central Services Team leads the Work Authorizations Quality Assurance (WAQA) working group and they will continue to address work authorization compliance, issues, policies and procedures in the ever-changing campus and community landscape and pivot accordingly.

Image of Cal, CA and US flags flying

Photo credit: Steve McConnell/UC Berkeley