Staff Award for Excellence - Billie Norman

Billie Norman (second from left) with family

Business Manager - Division of Hematology/Oncology

Nominator, Dorothy Schroeder -  "Billie continually excels in all aspects of her role. She maintains a positive attitude, is supportive of her team, dedicated to our divisions and aspires to be objective and fair in all situations no matter how challenging. She is someone who is always willing to help, maintains professionalism and is compassionate and considerate to the faculty and the administrative team. It's truly an honor to be nominating her for this service excellence award." 

 

Work Performance

Throughout these unprecedented years due to COVID, Billie has been responsible for remote supervision of her admin team and the thoughtful creation of an on-site admin work schedule to ensure sufficient administrative support for all faculty while minimizing any COVID health risk for her team. She was the primary HR resource for furloughs and reduction of staff appointments and currently the point person for all staff hires within both divisions. Working with the division’s Associate Chief of Research, Billie was very involved with both the ramp down and ramp up of all research labs; the division of Hematology and Oncology alone has more than 20 research labs. She worked closely with the PI’s and lab managers to ensure that all complied to the occupancy limitations and safety measures mandated by the Med School. Through many challenges in these past years, Billie continues to demonstrate professionalism, is always accessible, displays a calm and supportive demeanor, and unfailingly has become the problem-solver for our entire administrative team. Since her hire in 2019, I was always impressed with Billie’s work ethic, productivity, creativity (thinking outside the box) as well as her resilience in working in an environment averse to change. Working with Billie these past years, during a time of stress and uncertainty, proved further her worth as an exceptional dedicated leader.

Leadership

Along with her creative thinking, I consider Billie's leadership abilities to be outstanding. After being promoted to the business manager or both divisions, Billie had a few challenging years. The administrative staff were leery, and some completely opposed, of reporting to a new manager since the previous manager supervised them for well over five years. Billie recognized the opposition and resistance, yet was determined to win over the group with her own personal leadership style. Billie routinely practices transparency, fairness, consistency and flexibility with her staff. Billie's approach to both the admin team and the faculty was thoughtful and with a strategic focus in mind. It is very important to her that she treats the admin team and all faculty fairly and consistently despite the challenges of a complex range of personalities. By way of her unwavering leadership style she has gained both the trust and respect of her team and the faculty.
 
A few notable examples of how she responds to ideas from her various teams, cultivates comradery, and demonstrates her appreciation are:
  • The creation of an anti racism biweekly group meeting / book club that was formed after she organized an anti-racism / anti discrimination presentation facilitated by Steven Vinson. This presentation and these meetings were the impetus for her to apply and be selected in both divisions IMPOWER council.
  • Zoom holiday events to cultivate comradery and raise the teams spirits. Provided zoom games and small prizes for the group.
  • Supported me on the idea for a road trip winter holiday visit, dropping small holiday gifts to the homes of each admin.
  • Organized a team building event (Escape Room)that was overwhelmingly successful and appreciated by the group.
  • Creation of quarterly lab manager meetings in an effort to keep the research group updated on events, pending changes and offer support if necessitated.

Despite the many challenges associated with the pandemic; managing a remote workforce, constant changing requirements for lab space closures/re-engagement, economic recovery plan which encompassed across the board effort reductions to our staff and the management of voluntary furloughs within the admin team and some lab staff, Billie remained calm and positive. She was determined to provide support wherever needed. Billie shared with me, "One thing that I learned through this experience was to follow through with the plans/vision for the team despite their verbalized discontent and negativity".

Customer Service

Billie's primary customers are her staff, the faculty and research group. She is fully engaged in coaching or supporting any supervisory issues the faculty may be having with their administrative assistant or perhaps their lab staff. 

Billie also is very open in sharing ideas and newly developed tools to other divisions, their managers, as well as with other departments. She attended a DAAD meeting a few years ago and presented her lab manual as well as explained how she manages / supports the research groups. Billie has also shared her manual with division administrators and managers and most recently with the Early Career Faculty On-boarding and Development group.

Lastly, Billie has shared her on-boarding and off-boarding check list with her divisional peer group. Billie is always willing to share, offer support or suggestions to anyone who asks. She is truly customer focused and will go out of her way for anyone who needs assistance.

Process Improvement

As previously stated, Billie's innovative thinking and willingness to improve current processes is commendable and needs to be recognized. Within the three years she has been with our divisions and twos year as business manager, Billie has developed/revised multiple and successful process improvements.

  • She developed work tools that were shared with other division managers that include an off-boarding/on-boarding electronic checklist which has been useful in keeping track of employment activity of both staff and faculty.
  • Created targeted email group specifically for our division leaders who manage direct reports. She found this to be a more effective way to communicate directly to specific divisional hiring managers for many matters such as merit, goal setting, performance evaluations, etc
  • Billie also further developed the division's laboratory manual to assist current and new lab managers and PI's with relevant information regarding all lab policies, procedures, training expectations, etc. We planned on presenting this manual during our research support presentation at the 2020 AAIM conference, but due to COVID this did not occur.
  • Other notable improvement was streamlining the COOP process by requesting section updates whenever someone would hire into or resign from a lab. This proactive request has improved turn-around time for a timely COOP submission.
  • Finally and most recent, Billie has worked with the entire division in the creation of a monthly newsletter. This comprehensive newsletter contains a variety of information for both the faculty and staff; clinical, research, and training updates (these are written by faculty), HR, finance and research updates (written by staff), awards, celebrations, conferences etc.