U of T’s global benchmarking program enters its third year

ksoobria — Wed, 18 May 2022 13:16:54 +0000

U of T’s global benchmarking program enters its third year ksoobria Wed, 05/18/2022 - 09:16

The ��Ƶ has entered the third year of its participation in UniForum, a global benchmarking data collection program. The data is used to enhance administrative and support services at the ��Ƶ.

More than 50 universities from around the world are participating in the program, including 7 from Canada, and more are preparing to join in the near future.

Last year, the university collected information about the services and activities of more than 20,000 employee records. This was a decrease from 2019 due to COVID-19 and campus closures. There were significantly fewer casual employees during the 2020–21 fiscal year, but there is hope that the employee levels will return to pre-pandemic levels as the return to campus continues.

The data collected through the UniForum program is used to develop a more detailed picture of work across the university, as well as how it compares to its peers. Among the key findings thus far are that the university has more generalist than specialist roles relative to peer institutions, and is also more decentralized.

“The data we’ve received helps us better understand the high-quality services employees across our three campuses provide to support teaching and research,” says Kelly Hannah-Moffat, vice-president of people strategy, equity & culture. “As well, by comparing our data with that of peer institutions, we can identify where we are leaders and where we might reimagine our processes and explore new ways of working.”

Additionally, the Service Effectiveness Survey, which was administered for the second time in fall 2021, reported a 13-point increase in satisfaction since it was last administered in 2018. The survey also yielded feedback that will be used to further enhance university services.

“Based on the data collected so far, the UniForum Steering Committee is proposing that the next step be to select specific university-wide services and engage divisions in a collaborative end-to-end process review,” says Scott Mabury, vice-president of operations and real estate partnerships.

“We’re also working to build a service transformation team and hope to be able to share news on this in the coming months.”

The 2022 data collection will continue to provide more trendline data and help the university better compare itself with other research-intensive universities in the UniForum program, such as the University of Cambridge, University of Melbourne and University of British Columbia. The key window for 2022 activity data collection will be from May 30 – July 8, 2022.

U of T’s global benchmarking program enters its third year

Kevin Soobrian

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U of T launches global benchmarking program

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 13:42:08 +0000

U of T launches global benchmarking program Anonymous Tue, 04/09/2019 - 09:42

There’s strength in numbers – at least when it comes to pooling data to help the ��Ƶ improve its services.

A new global benchmarking program set to launch in May will compare U of T to 48 other universities around the world based on resources for administrative and support services.

“The program uses rigorous data collection across the university to see the big picture,” said Scott Mabury, vice-president of operations and real estate partnerships. “The information will tell us, at an institutional level, how we resource the activities that support our academic mission.”

The data will be used to benchmark U of T against other research-intensive universities participating in the program, including the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge and the University of Sydney.

“The data alone can’t tell us how to improve or which institutions to emulate, but it will give us an idea of how we can grow more seamlessly as an organization,” said Kelly Hannah-Moffat, vice-president of human resources and equity, who is co-sponsoring the program with Mabury.

The program, called UniForum, is designed to be adopted for multiple years, and the ��Ƶ has committed to a four-year period. Mabury stresses that any budgetary decisions being made now are not the result of UniForum.

“Year one of UniForum is really about establishing the data set,” he said. “Subsequent years could identify areas that are under-resourced, as well as areas where we could reimagine the process.”

For Mabury, the end goal is to maximize service effectiveness across U of T campuses.

“We are a world-class university, but also an old university. With our age comes processes that haven’t been looked at or updated in many years,” he said.

The data collection process will involve all administrative directors and department managers over a three-week period beginning in June. Training for staff leading collection areas will start in April.

“Ultimately, UniForum will allow us to make more informed decisions about where to invest in the future,” said Mabury. “We have experts in our own university who provide this type of data collection and benchmarking for outside organizations, yet we haven’t done the same for ourselves – until now.”

More information is available on the U of T UniForum website.

U of T launches global benchmarking program

Photo by Laura Pedersen

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U of T’s global benchmarking program enters its third year

U of T launches global benchmarking program