Karen Shemanski, senior human resources director and advisor to the Jack B. King university librarian, was the 2024 recipient of the University of Iowa Outstanding Strategic HR Business Partner of the Year award presented during the University of Iowa HR (UHR) and Business Conference held in April 2024. In nomination materials, colleagues called Shemanski’s work “truly instrumental in the overall success of the Libraries.”
The Outstanding Strategic HR Business Partner award is given to an HR professional with a minimum of five years of experience functioning as an organizational leader, with responsibilities for designing, developing, and leading HR strategy; analyzing business information; and demonstrated competency in the following areas: leadership and navigation, business acumen, global and cultural effectiveness, relationship management, communicating for effective relationships, critical evaluation, and change management.
When presenting the award, the committee shared words from letters of support for Shemanski’s nomination. “Karen’s leadership continually exemplifies the criteria for the outstanding strategic HR business award, specifically with her recent work guiding a suite of critical organization-wide HR changes in the Libraries, including the implementation of new library professional job family, changes to the librarian promotion process, and a new program for recognizing and rewarding advanced contributions to academic librarianship.” One of these strategic changes was the creation of a new job family, the Library Professional designation, which fills a need for a category between the roles of Merit and P&S staff.
Shemanski has worked for the University of Iowa in an HR capacity since 1996, when she began as an administrator for what was then called Information Technology Services. From 2008–2011, she led a campus-wide project to redesign the compensation and classification system, an effort that reshaped the classification and pay structure for approximately 5,000 of the university’s non-organized Professional and Scientific (P&S) staff. After a decade as director of UHR administrative services, Shemanski came to the Libraries in early 2019.
“Having Karen as a leader in our administration has been transformative for the Libraries,” said John Culshaw, Jack B. King university librarian. “She understands that our staff are our most valuable resource, and she not only offers her support on a day-to-day basis, but also guides us as we plan ahead to ensure the best possible future for the libraries and this institution.”