Texas A&M HR Team Receives Innovation Award

The Human Resources employee and organizational development team at Texas A&M University has received the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR) 2014 HR Innovation Award.

The team received the award for its Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace certificate program. Thanks to the generous support of PeopleAdmin, CUPA-HR offers a $3,000 contribution to Texas A&M’s endowment or a scholarship fund of the team’s choice.

The HR Innovation Award honors a team’s or an individual’s demonstrated human resources innovation. The innovation can be technological in nature, based in process improvement, a novel partnership that advances the profession or a new approach to an HR department’s current challenge; but most important, it must advance the HR profession or contribute to the overall excellence of the profession.

“Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace” is an 18-month, multi-faceted certificate program designed to help employees recognize, accept and value differences among coworkers and others in the Texas A&M community, thereby increasing their ability to work, serve and interact effectively with others within a diverse environment. The program blends online training and classroom workshops with a variety of experiential activities and independent assignments. The program was built entirely in-house by HR employee and organizational development by repurposing and repackaging existing training courses and by utilizing existing university and community-hosted workshops, seminars and lecture series.

“The Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace program introduces participants to the value of diversity and inclusion, raises awareness about their perspectives and how their actions impact others, and offers strategies for creating and maintaining a workplace that not only accepts but also values diversity,” says Anne Mayer, director of HR employee and organizational development at Texas A&M.

About CUPA-HR

CUPA-HR is higher- ed HR. We serve higher education by providing the knowledge, resources, advocacy and connections to achieve organizational and workforce excellence. Headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, and serving more than 17,000 HR professionals and other campus leaders at more than 1,900 member organizations around the country and abroad, the association offers learning and professional development programs, higher education salary and benefits data, extensive online resources and just-in-time regulatory and legislative information.

CUPA-HR’s annual Higher Education Human Resource Awards honor excellence in higher education human resources and recognize service and commitment to CUPA-HR and innovation in the profession.