Introduce shared services incrementally, rather than with a “big bang”

Solution: Incrementally introducing shared services
Given that “big bang” consolidations are unrealistic, campuses should instead design multi-year plans to migrate service delivery and staff to shared services. This gradual implementation reassures stakeholders that the new shared services model can function effectively, garnering greater support over time.

Slow and steady wins the race

There are many advantages to a slow and steady, incremental transition to shared services:

• With clear communication and multi-year, advance warnings, units and staff have time to understand the implications of shared services and prepare. Staff can seek other positions or receive training for more task-specialized roles. Meanwhile, academic leaders can restructure roles so that staff remaining in the units can focus on value-add activities, rather than back-office, transactional tasks.
• Early movers serve as an invaluable proof of concept. Customers and staff who see the shared services center delivering on its promises of greater service and efficiency are more likely to adopt its services.

Incrementally adopting shared services usually proceeds along one of two paths: unit by unit, or process by process.

Incremental path #1: Unit by unit

In this approach, campuses pilot shared services within one cabinet member’s control span and then expand to others after refining services, business processes, and organizational structure.

Most frequently, non-academic units are brought into the shared services organization first, given that reluctant faculty and deans are often the greatest hurdle to shared services migration. This order gives shared services leaders time to work out logistical challenges and establish positive momentum and a proof of concept, among other advantages:

• Administrative leaders often lack authority over support staff employed in the academic core. Staff in central finance and other administrative units belong to a more vertical organizational structure, making the reorganization easier.
• A limited reorganization provides opportunities to generate data related volume of work, labor intensity, and time to resolve issues. This allows for better benchmarking and estimates of future savings when introducing shared services elsewhere.
• Central staff can take the lead on standardizing business processes before rolling out the changes to other units on campus, providing immediate relief to frustrating workflows.

Alternatively, some campuses launch this adoption path by consolidating units that report to the provost. This approach establishes the pilot within areas highly visible to faculty and academic staff, signaling the support of the provost for shared services. Securing the buy-in of an academic champion is another helpful inroad into the academy. Consider the following suggestions for possible early adopters among academic partners:

As an example of a gradual shared services implementation, consider the University of Texas at Dallas. The Central Business Office (UT Dallas’s shared services organization) initially recruited customers in central administrative units. It also took responsibility for faculty research startup packages, providing exceptionally high service and embedding advocates for the group within academic departments. This word-of-mouth campaign ultimately proved effective when a newly recruited dean heard about the Central Business Office from faculty. She eagerly handed over administrative support to the Central Business Office and redeployed budget dollars to hire new staff that could focus on mission-critical work, rather than transaction processing.

Winning Over New Arrivals
Faculty at UT Dallas Recruit Dean into Shared Services

In general, a unit-by-unit shared services implementation encourages non-client units to participate in the initiative by first proving that the consolidation of services lives up to its promises. There’s an important caveat to remember: voluntary participation reduces resistance to shared services, as unit and department leaders determine when transitions occur and can make internal organizational and staffing changes on their own. However, this “opt-in” approach risks delaying meaningful scale. For that reason, some institutions choose to require adoption of shared services, but provide several years of advance warning that provides plenty of time for units to prepare.

Incremental path #2: Process by process

The other incremental approach for introducing shared services is process by process. The University of Louisville took this approach to consolidating services. When Louisville business leaders engaged in process improvement efforts for some of the most frustrating and “broken” processes, they found that each had transactional components best delivered through a shared services model. So when each process improvement project concluded, the shared services center absorbed the specific steps earmarked for standardization and consolidation.

Case Study: University of Louisville
Business Operations Center rollout begins with onboarding, with process improvement group had targeted for reengineering

Top 9 broken processes

1. Onboarding
2. Time reporting
3. Leave management
4. Position maintenance
5. Job changes
6. Additional payments
7. Expense transfers
8. P-card reconciliations
9. Program/account reconciliations

Leaders at the University of Louisville reported three major advantages of this process-by-process implementation:

• The entire university has a single way to perform the task, meaning that there are no old and inefficient business processes happening alongside the redesigned workflow.
• Delivering solutions to campus’s biggest pain points helps generate support for shared services.
• The shared services center could calibrate its staffing load and ensure it has capacity before absorbing processes. Unit-by-unit approaches sometimes run the risk of understaffed shared services, given potential reluctance of unit-based staff to move and the difficulty of calculating the right amount of staff.

Notably, a process-by-process rollout is more common among shared services centers supported by central strategic funds and offering a smaller menu of services. Often, these smaller centers have are created without moving any staff from distributed units. Institutions that pursue this approach tend to focus less on creating opportunities for cost savings through attrition or headcount reduction, as there is not enough work removed from any one staff person’s plate to redeploy the entire salary line. Instead, this approach seeks to lessen the administrative burden of distributed staff, allowing some of that time to be reallocated toward value-add activities.