Department Administrative Restructuring

May 12, 2021

As we continue to reimagine how we deliver administrative services as part of the Service Excellence Transformation (SET) program, the university continues to reduce its administrative workforce in response to ongoing financial pressures.

The university aims to achieve cost efficiencies by restructuring and implementing appropriate technology and processes through its review of its six functional workstreams. Not all stream reviews are at the same stage or operating under the same timelines. At this point, the Finance and HR streams will be the first functions to move centrally with the selection of Finance and HR partners and the establishment of a transaction processing hub within the new, central Shared Services unit. These processes are well underway, and we should hear more about the progress of these and the other streams shortly.

As SET moves forward with restructuring administrative services at the university level, the school will also be restructuring its internal administrative services to align with the new, more centralized operating model.  

Under our current structure, we have four academic departments, each with its own dedicated administrative support. However, we have determined that the best way to organize resources under the new operating model is to restructure our department's administrative model to a shared services model. With this new approach, the four academic departments will share administrative resources. These shared services will be led by two Academic Department Managers; these new roles and position profiles have been created under the SET initiative to complement the university's new operating model. In addition, we will also be working with the SET team to create four administrative roles to meet the business needs of the faculty. These positions will be set up as a shared resource across the four departments and will report to the Department Managers.   

To initiate this new model, we will be posting the two Academic Department Manager positions shortly. These competitions will be open to all current staff members at the university.

The way we have operated and provided services in the past is not possible with the number of staff reductions across the institution. It will take the combined efforts of everyone to make this work. We want to thank everyone for their ongoing patience, commitment and professionalism as we progress through this transition. Please be patient with yourself and others as we work through these challenging times.