The Division of Finance and Administration is building the foundation to launch a new model of innovation and service excellence for the Carolina community. We have recently welcomed three new staff members — Ray Reitz, Information Technology; Allison Reid, Marketing and Communications; and Tricia Hennessey, Continuous Improvement and Business Intelligence — in addition to Carly Perin, who took on a new role in Finance Service Delivery after years with Facilities Services. They, along with Bill Stockard in Human Resources, will be essential to implementing a new service delivery program for the Division, under the leadership of Meredith Weiss and in collaboration and partnership with department heads and staff members throughout the Division.
What is Service Delivery?
Service delivery is a way of centrally organizing administrative functions, previously performed by staff within individual units, to optimize the delivery of efficient, effective services to the entire Division while enhancing job skills and building career paths for our employees. We plan to implement a Service Center of Excellence, comprised of Human Resources, Information Technology, Finance and Communications service delivery operations.
Why Now?
With multiple challenges facing Carolina — seven years of budget cuts; expectation from state leadership to become more efficient; multiple pressures threatening the traditional university model; and new and more complicated enterprise systems — now is the time for us to make the bold decision to implement service excellence and work together to create an exceptional service delivery program.
Guiding Principles
The goal of our Service Center of Excellence is to create and develop in each service delivery area a team of highly skilled professionals who are extremely knowledgeable about our departments as well as their area of expertise, and who will work as a team to deliver exceptional services that add significant value to our operations. As we embark on the process to move toward service delivery, the principles at the end of this document will guide our decisions.
Transition Timeline
The transition to the service delivery center will take place in three stages over the course of the next year.
The first phase will occur this summer and will include a series of meetings with AVCs, directors, managers and affected staff to gather information and to determine existing roles, processes and services provided and those services that are needed. Later in the summer we will host larger kick-off meetings to further explain the transition process and answer questions.
During the first phase, some staff members currently working in the areas that will be transitioned to service delivery will have a dotted-line reporting structure to the new service delivery director in their area, as their support for special projects and transition planning will be essential. We will also be putting a core transition team in place to assist with our planning work and a service delivery advisory governance group with representatives from across the Division to ensure departmental input and involvement in the process.
In the second phase — to be implemented during the fall semester 2015 — we will finalize the service delivery project plan. This will include development of a list of service delivery that will be provided to units; creation of organizational charts for each service delivery area; human resource process planning; development of a plan for the physical location of the service delivery center; and an outline of those administrative responsibilities that will remain within the individual units.
During the second phase, service delivery directors will fully determine the makeup of their staff, which will ultimately include moving HR, Finance, Information Technology and Communications service providers from their individual units to the service delivery center and will also include creation of and hiring for new positions for which existing employees will be encouraged to apply. I want to emphasize that there will be no layoffs resulting from our shift to service delivery.
During the third phase, starting in December 2015, we will create the implementation plan, the details of which will be shared across the Division as they are fully developed, and we will begin implementing our Service Center of Excellence.
More Information to Come
We are looking forward to working with all of you to make our Service Center of Excellence a success. To do so, we need to make sure information and ideas are shared throughout our organization in all directions. No one person holds all the great ideas. It will be a team effort.
Therefore, I ask that you share your suggestions, questions and ideas with us. We’ve set up two easy ways to do so:
Submit your ideas in an online form Email your ideas to FAsharedservices@unc.edu
You may also follow our progress at our Service Delivery website, where we will feature project updates, share news and post answers to frequently asked questions.
Thanks in advance for your cooperation and support as we embark on this exciting change. I want the Division of Finance and Administration to be a model of innovation and service excellence to the Carolina campus, and I believe this is one big step in that direction.