If a user has access to more than one department, it is pretty easy to forget changing department, thinking that there are no pending requests to deal with. Later on s/he finds out that requests have been pending for days, just because s/he didn't switch to another department in the (unnoticeable) select list at the top of the page.
Pretty bad in terms of usability.
Shouldn't the "home" give the user the global overview about pending requests on all departments?
Thanks,
Fred