Modernizing Higher Ed: Workforce Planning and The Great Resignation
By: Kim Fisher
I’m watching the “We’re hiring” announcements for higher ed institutions. From IT to Registrar offices to Presidents and Provosts, there are incredible opportunities available but for HR departments, this time has to be stressful. The most strategic HR and Finance teams will transform employee turnover into an amazing opportunity. They have the chance to evaluate the needs of the departments with open positions and current staff roles and then, determine what the org structure should look like in coming months. It opens a chance to update their DEI Initiatives and make positive progress there as well.
But, like all institutions, this evaluation has to happen quickly. Like every organization, institutions need to:
hire essential roles promptly and
adopt stronger scenario planning and forecasting of the workforce.
It’s early in the calendar year so it’s time to get budgets together for the upcoming fiscal year. Lucky for institutions, we can deploy robust Workforce Planning and Scenario modeling in 8-12 weeks’ time. If we start right away, the institution can have more impactful discussions and strong budget projections in time to accurately reflect needs.
Higher ed is also feeling the impact of The Great Resignation and the challenges that lie ahead for higher education. HR teams are getting incredibly savvy about how to showcase what institutions DO offer of value to employees to offset that, in higher ed, we can’t pay as much as commercial organizations. What we lack in salary, we make up for in many other aspects.
All this leads me to two interesting thoughts for higher education.
Workforce Planning is an Integrated Conversation
Workforce Planning scenarios are created to evaluate hiring/staffing and how a workforce might change and evolve in the coming years. Scenarios identify the levers and triggers that are important to watch and adjust to project not only the coming fiscal year but the coming 5 and 10 years out. These are conversations that must be tightly aligned with the entire university cabinet. This is the expertise CUPA-HR has been developing in campus HR leaders. As you evolve from the HR team simply filling open positions to better anticipating what positions are most needed today and what positions, over time, are becoming obsolete or “nice to have”, everyone needs to understand:
Coming program changes (majors added and retired)
Enrollment trends and revenue adjustments
Technology impacts to department automation and modernization where less staff can do the same job or new positions are needed
New revenue streams that will require a whole new operational and educational approach and therefore staffing adjustments.
Listed above, we have identified how the HR team needs to be closely aligned to the Provost, the VP of Enrollment, the CIO, and the CFO divisions across campus to better do their job. This just highlighted for me something we talk about with Connected Planning. It’s vital to break down planning silos across the institution and change the approach to enterprise-wide planning. No longer is HR developing a spreadsheet on their own. Allitix will ask you detailed questions about your planning today, we’ll integrate your HR and Finance ERP data (and other spreadsheets in case you want a view at previous years’ data in context with future years’ data) and give you a holistic picture of Workforce Planning in the coming 5-10 years with a clear understanding of the levers and drivers that will most impact this part of the organization.
The Great Resignation Demands a Programs and “Potential Students” Discussion
My enterprise higher education background always takes me up a level in strategy conversations. I think many of us are asking “Where are all the employees going and what is driving workers to quit?” And there is much reading to be done on the topic (I suggest Harvard Business Review “Who is Driving the Great Resignation” and “Six Strategies to Boost Retention Through the Great Resignation”). But now, while the operational side of higher ed has to figure out who to hire and when, the academic side has an opportunity to transform the institution for the future.
How? Institutions have to quickly adapt and offer programs that will help all these “resigned employees” reshape their careers. That’s what employees are looking to do. They want a “do over.” Employees are evaluating what is important to them. What benefits do they want? What flexibility do they want?
These are the services you are already providing. You just have to deliver them to a new set of students you had not anticipated. Your alumni. Your surrounding community. Your business partners. You already provide career planning for current students. Maybe that’s a program you should be providing for alumni? (Here’s an institution already doing that very thing: Miami University (Ohio)). You are already teaching online classes and components of your programs that might educate and become a credential to someone working in a local business. You already have the curriculum. You just need modern delivery methods.
But adapting quickly requires careful planning. Connected Planning. For the whole institution. And that’s where Allitix comes in. Reach out today at highered@allitix.com if you would like more information.