Dykeman Leads Human Resources with Service Mindset

Steven Dykeman, Wesleyan's new associate vice president for human resources, has a history of public service. After nearly two decades of military service, including a period monitoring the nation's nuclear arsenal, he comes to Wesleyan with a mission-driven mindset and a plan for action.

He came to Middletown for two reasons: He wanted to be in an environment of continuous learning and development, and he believes in the University's mission.

“The mission and values that Wesleyan exemplifies really resonate with me,” Dykeman said. “Being able to have respectful discourse and conversation, and the value of different perspectives really means something to me, and that's what I like about Wesleyan.”

Dykeman joins Wesleyan after five years as director of human resources at NASA Glenn and Langley Research Centers. At NASA, he inherited two of the lowest-rated human resources (HR) teams in the organization. In his time there, he turned them into two top-rated teams at NASA, with the highest engagement, performance, and customer satisfaction scores, he said. He wants to do the same at Wesleyan.

In describing goals for his work at the University, Dykeman named two north stars. First, he plans to address HR's staffing model. He said he will analyze how the department is organized and operates, as well as the services it provides. His goal is to orient the department so that it offers the most effective and efficient HR service model to the community, while also being efficient.

To do this, he will model his plans in accordance with peer universities and recent research on best practices. For his system to work, he said he needs to learn more about the culture of the University, so he has been regularly meeting with faculty, students, and staff and has instituted an open-door policy.

“I want people to look at Wesleyan HR—how we're organized and how we work—and I want our employees to say, 'we've got a great HR team. When we need something, we know where to go, how to find it, and they're very helpful,’” Dykeman said. “That's my ultimate goal.”

Second, Dykeman aims to enhance employee engagement and transparency, and establish a feedback loop between the broader workforce and HR to improve its services continually. He recently created a series of employment engagement sessions, during which he presented findings from a recent HR staffing assessment conducted by a third-party firm and invited community feedback in an open forum. This assessment found the HR team is comprised of dedicated professionals with valuable institutional knowledge, but is working within constrained processes, insufficient staffing, and a limited communication infrastructure. The department plans to continue assessing its performance in the future with efforts like the recently held WesThrives survey, he said.

“It's important that our employees and colleagues around the university not only know that HR does your benefits and your health care, but it's important that they know how and why we do it, the way we do it, and where to find those answers, efficiently and effectively,” Dykeman said, “and that they have a good way to communicate with us when things are either going great or maybe they need some improvement.”

Alongside his two larger objectives is a third goal of integrating technology and artificial intelligence into the HR process. Assessing HR's technological infrastructure and adapting it as needed will enable the department to serve the Wesleyan community better—and support Dykeman's efforts to improve HR's processes, he said.

“I think, in the future, what you're going to find is a more efficient and clearer, transparent way that our workforce—faculty, staff, students—engages human resources to get the answers they need,” Dykeman said. “We will have an HR process that's clearly defined and easily found, with a great user experience.”

Prior to his time at NASA, Dykeman spent 12 years at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and served 18 years in the military, with time in the U.S. Army and Air Force. He earned a bachelor's degree from Lyndon State College in Vermont and master's degrees from Norwich University and Southern New Hampshire University. He is currently finishing a Ph.D. in organizational leadership from Indiana Wesleyan University and looks forward to teaching in the future.