The University of Wyoming (UW) is about to take on a large-scale internal staff organizational restructure. This initiative, set forth by the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited company (Deloitte for short), will address “inefficiencies, potential delays and errors, and limited career paths,” according to the presentation on the UW Human Resources homepage.
The restructuring comes from the Case for Change Initiative, a staff organizational structure that will restructure university employment through operational changes that will allow “[…] administrative employees across the university [to] benefit from standard roles, more evenly distributed workloads, logical reporting structures and clearly defined career paths in service to UW’s students, faculty and staff.”
The intent of the reorganization is to standardize roles, evenly distribute work, promote logical structures and accountability, have clear and defined career paths and reflect compensation of the current market.
The Branding Iron reached out to both President Ed Seidel and Associate Vice President of Human Resources Bob Link for more information about the Case for Change Initiative, but instead they responded with this joint statement.
“In line with its Strategic Plan, the University of Wyoming strives to be an organization where all members of its community can thrive. Over the past year and a half, we have learned through dialogue with the campus community that we can improve in terms of career opportunities for staff as well as in effectiveness and efficiency in operations. The staff reorganization primarily seeks to address these challenges. As we have shared in recent campus communications, employees will continue to have opportunities to provide their feedback during the reorganization process. We recognize that every individual and unit on campus has unique needs and perspectives, and it is our aim to work with them to identify workable solutions that lead to positive outcomes for all stakeholders,” said Seidel and Link over email correspondence.
However, despite the presentation’s best efforts to describe how the program will change future and current job positions at the university, many employees are expressing discontent, concern and confusion.
“As a manager, I am not directly affected but I am indirectly affected because my colleague who works with our business side of things might no longer be working with our programs,” said Mollie Hand, a manager in the LeaRN program and Chair of the Staff Senate Governance Committee. “I looked back in our minutes and this word, Case for Change, didn’t come up until January. I took notes because I was trying to figure out ‘Did they say something and I just missed it?’”
“I think I understand that what they’re trying to do is those people who have multiple hats at their job, they’re just trying to make it where they can put more focus on one area of importance instead of several,” said Nicole Fifield, Custodial Manager.
Hand and Fifield are not alone. The UW Senate Staff released a survey to collect information from individuals from a variety of positions, anything from accountants and office associates to program coordinators and management.
Hand explained that the survey was created by the Staff Senate Executive Board after a town hall with AVP Bob Link. “We realized that we need to understand where, get the feel of where staff is, whether they’re happy with his reorg or not.”
With over 700 participants, here is what some of them had to say. All responses are anonymous.
- I work in Athletics and I believe my position could be affected by this change for the better. I received an email from our Associate AD, for Budget and Finance in the Athletics Business Office this week stating that our department has asked for an exemption from these changes. This is very upsetting because Athletics always believes we function differently than the rest of campus and therefore we shouldn’t be treated the same. I have worked in this department for over 18 years. I have been given more duties over the years and expected to perform a certain way but I am never compensated, listened to, or respected for what I do. I just continue to sit back and watch others around me receive numerous pay increases and/or title changes. Athletics is very “clicky” and if you don’t fit in then you are not treated the same as others and you will never go anywhere. If the exemption is allowed then nothing changes for me and Athletics will just continue to get their way. I plan to resign from my position if Athletics is given this exemption.
- Based on the information, I believe this will be a great change for classified Staff at the University. This will give staff opportunities for advancement and professional development that are lacking under the current structure. I am excited that the University is taking a modern approach to ensuring the satisfaction of its employees and has made strides to enhance the retention of productive employees.
- Thank you as always for all that you do. Not all departments are created equal with how staff are treated. I have worked with directors and business managers who are responsible for both HR and financial duties and who neglect their HR duties in favor of their financial duties. Importantly: I don’t think they realize they do this or perhaps this just seems normal to them because of the greater perceived value put on money rather than people. The larger number of hard, financial deadlines may be what keeps moving financial duties forward and pushing back HR responsibilities with no or softer deadlines. I had to handle 3 people’s jobs (including mine) for more than a year because the director claimed to not have the time to start the hiring process for 2 roles. They only moved forward with filling 1 of the 2 roles when an upper-administrator thought I was about to quit and ordered them to move forward with it. I still had to absorb the 2nd role. Therefore, I am ABSOLUTELY FOR splitting HR and finance duties IF this means staff get the support they deserve. Of utmost importance is to allow staff opportunity for growth because the staff culture we have now is not the same staff culture we had ten years ago. Many of us want to strive toward something and need the support to do it.
- Staff senate should at the very least ask the administration to reveal whether the organization is being undertaken to accomplish a reduction in force/budget cuts or if there is another issue driving the reorganization. This is unclear and information from the consulting agency is too general and uses too much marketing language to ascertain what the true impetus behind the reorg is.
- Whatever the changes are, will not matter. Those that do minimal work, will be given the same accolades as the one that takes on extra duties to get the job done.
- Biggest concern is actually about advancement; I’m afraid this reorganization, while very necessary, will create a cookie-cutter type situation in terms of advancement. “In order to get to Job A you need to complete point 1, 2, 3.” Instead of how it is now where education and work experience are the qualifications whether to apply for a position or not.
- I honestly just don’t know how much my job or coworkers jobs are going to change and that is where all of my worries come from. I am an Office Associate but my job is about 50% regular office duties and 50% event planning and handling. From the little I understand, If just my p-card charge reconciliation goes away, then my job will not change much. But depending on how my co-workers’ jobs change, my job may need to change to compensate for the changes made to their jobs. From my understanding, some coworkers may stay in the departments as the office person, some will go to HR to do only HR roles, and others will go to finance to do financial roles. My worry is some of the little things that all of the current office people do on a regular basis might fall through the cracks as tasks and positions are reassigned because they don’t fit well into an “HR” or “Financial”, my list is below. • Who will do the work for Scholarships/Awards? • Who will do Website Edits? • Who will handle the department social media? • Who will handle and coordinate department events? • Who will coordinate and make reservations for visiting faculty/guests? • Our college has staff originators that do the gathering of info and data entry and tracking for the Course Action Proposal (CAP) process (using Curriculog/Modern Campus Curriculum) instead of faculty like other colleges to help minimize errors and moving pieces. How will the staff changes change this process?
- This process has been tremendously abrupt, without any effective communication to campus. Dismissing this concern with comments that “it doesn’t impact most” and that HR “doesn’t want to cause unnecessary concern” doesn’t excuse the complete information blackout. The void of information breeds speculation and misinformation; this change impacts jobs, income, and lives.
- This would be a disastrous decision and blow to leadership that would ultimately have to be backtracked down the line, like it always is when units are centralized on campus. No offense to our centralized units, but they don’t exactly have the best reputation for speed and it fractures leadership because conflicts of interest arise.
More comments can be found on the Branding Iron Online website.
In response to the survey, both the UW Staff Senate and the UW Faculty Senate have produced pieces of legislation, Staff Senate Resolution 248 and Faculty Senate Resolution 464, asking for the indefinite delay of the Case for Change Initiative Implementation until there is better communication and transparency regarding how people’s jobs are going to be affected.
“Personally, I would like HR to take a look at the different departments. Though this restructure might work really well, especially for larger departments, I’m not so sure we create a lot of efficiencies in smaller areas where maybe that one person does three different parts in a job but that’s the most efficient way of doing so,” said Fifield. “Look at each department individually and look into where this might work, and where it might not work, before putting a blanket over the whole thing.”
This is a result of the Deloitte Report, an audit service that promotes solutions to educational experiences.
“Well that’s the thing about the Deloitte study, it’s like ‘well this is what they do across the rest of the country,’ who cares? Be the example,” said a long term UW staff member who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal for their job. “I’m watching my institution on the verge of crumble. And they think that ‘oh, it’ll be fine if we build another fancy facility, it’ll look shiny and everything, we’ll be fine. That’s not how it works.”
“Are we really doing everything we can to take care of the student body and make sure that we want the student body not only to thrive but to grow?” said long term UW staff member. “We’re losing staff. We’re losing faculty. This used to be the place to work.”
At the time of this publication, the Case for Change Initiative implementation is still set for Summer 2024.
