Crunching the numbers: Data drives new look at USask services

Now moving into the fifth year of the six-year UniForum Data benchmarking project, USask officials are collecting yearly data on how administrative services are delivered as well as measuring the satisfaction level of staff, students and faculty compared to 65 participating institutions across Canada and around the world.

For USask Vice-President Administration Greg Fowler, sharing updates with the campus community on the process and progress is a key part of the project.

“I think it is important to be transparent and to explain what we are doing,” he said. “This benchmarking exercise involves comparators across the world, in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada ... and it gives us an understanding of where we are in terms of administrative costs overall, but also where we are in terms of service. There are always concerns expressed by our community and you often hear comments about administrative costs, and we want to make sure that we are stewarding the university’s resources well and this is probably the best tool that we have to do that. The data we receive is only part of the benefit. UniForum gives us an opportunity to meet on a regular basis with the other universities to learn and understand what each of us are doing to improve service satisfaction.”

USask began the project in 2021 to collect data on the effectiveness of the university’s administrative service delivery and costs across campus, while also biannually surveying members of the campus community (faculty, staff and students) to help gauge effectiveness and satisfaction with the institution’s services. The UniForum Data project currently examines 167 different work activities in 14 high-level administrative areas, providing the university with an invaluable snapshot of success and challenges across campus.

One of 26 Horizons Project initiatives the university is undertaking, Fowler said the UniForum benchmarking project has helped the institution identify ways to better co-ordinate services, find efficiencies to free up time for other pressing needs, and to “help determine what matters most to improve the experience for students, staff and faculty members.”

“The other big part for us is we are taking actions on this to change to be better and to understand where we need to go and this is really helping provide the data we need that we can’t get elsewhere,” said Fowler, noting that USask has roughly 3,750 full-time equivalent staff filling roughly 9,600 roles in total across the university’s campuses. “This is definitely not a cost-cutting initiative. It’s more about where we are providing services and how much we are investing to get those services. So, it is about capacity and structure of services, and it is how well – in terms of service satisfaction – we are we doing to provide those services.”

Overall, Fowler said the university generally measures up reasonably well versus USask’s Canadian colleagues taking part in the project, including eight other members of the U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities – Alberta, Calgary, Dalhousie, McMaster, Ottawa, Queen’s, Toronto and UBC – as well as Simon Fraser and York.

“Across Canada we’re third lowest overall for administrative cost out of the 10 (other Canadian universities) and we are second-lowest overall in terms of weighted FTE’s (full-time equivalent staff),” said Fowler, who did add that Canadian universities generally aren’t as efficient as their international counterparts who are also taking part in the UniForum Data project. “When we do compare across the world, we’re higher than the world-wide benchmark, in terms of weighted FTE’s and cost … as all Canadian universities are.”

Fowler said one example of an area where USask rates exceptionally well both nationally and internationally is Information and Communications Technology, where the university’s unit ranks with the best in the world in terms of low cost and high satisfaction.

“There are some pockets where we are doing quite well, and one of them is ICT. It is seen as world-class,” said Fowler. “It is in the lower quartile for cost and the higher quartile for service. So that is an area where we have seen really good results and change over time to achieve that.”

However, Fowler noted that there are other areas where USask could improve upon its internal structure in comparison to other universities.

USask’s Administrative Services Renewal (ASR) Project, led by Chantel Laventure and Dr. Vince Bruni-Bossi (PhD), is taking a consultative approach to better co-ordinate these services. In terms of systems, Fowler’s team – including Chris Gaschler with Information and Communications Technology, the co-project lead for the UniForum Data initiative with Troy Harkot within the Provost’s Office – is recommending a systems renewal to streamline service delivery and satisfaction, as the administration team members examine better ways of making use of the financial resources available to the university.

“What Chris has identified this year through UniForum is that there would be as much as a three-and-a-half times return on investment if we could invest in our enterprise system,” Fowler said. “And that’s human resources, finance, procurement, students, and research. All those systems are quite old and need renewal, and our community has identified that is an area that we should be investing in.”

“Our university, like many institutions of its age, has evolved organically over the past 100 years,” Gaschler added. “If we were designing its structure today, the distribution of activities across central units, colleges, and departments might look quite different. We’d need to consider how to optimize for efficient and user-friendly services for faculty, staff, and students.

“The Integrated Services Renewal project is an opportunity to address this. By replacing our legacy processes and systems with modern streamlined workflows for HR, Finance, and Procurement, we can reimagine these services to be simple, user-friendly and efficient. This simplification will not only improve satisfaction and reduce costs, but also free up resources currently tied to high-volume transactional activities, allowing them to be strategically refocused on our core missions of teaching and research.”

Fowler said improved systems would help the university become less transactional and more strategic in its approach – which has been successful at other institutions – focusing on better co-ordination of services offered through USask’s 14 colleges and three schools.

In addition to the financial considerations, the UniForum Data project is giving university leaders a clearer understanding of the campus workforce and where service and satisfaction can be improved while also providing staff with increased opportunities and clearer career paths moving forward.

“We have really developed a greater understanding of what all of our staff do on a daily basis, and it’s been really helpful in understanding the breadth of campus and all of the work that goes on,” said Fowler. “It’s not simply about cost. It’s about better structure and making sure that we have service capacity in the areas we need … It’s a win for our staff because they get clearer career paths and professional functional leadership, and it’s a win for the university because we’re better co-ordinated and better organized to work together. It’s an ongoing effort.”