Cornell University Division of Planning and Budget

• Workforce Planning Overview
• Objectives
• Process
• Functions Reviewed
• Accomplishments
• Key Principles Learned
• Resulting Actions

Workforce Planning Overview

Workforce Planning was initiated as one facet of the university's on-going planning efforts to align resources with core mission activities. Focused on support activities and related costs, the intent of this initiative was to best position the university for the future by establishing agile, responsive, and cost-effective support systems and structures that are scalable for anticipated growth and adaptable to changing program needs.

Background

Driven by fiscal pressures and a responsibility to ensure the most cost effective use of limited resources, President Rawlings initiated the Workforce Planning initiative in November 2001 as a comprehensive review of non-academic staffing requirements across the Ithaca campus. Four primary issues prompted this review:

• a recognition that an organization as large, complex, and decentralized as Cornell needs to examine its support operations periodically to ensure that they are effective and operating efficiently;.
• the condition of the national and state economy was expected to severely constrain Cornell's operating resources. State resources in support of the contract colleges were expected to decline significantly, the endowment payout was expected to decline, and market limitations constrained tuition growth. The projected gap between revenues and expenditures for fiscal year 2003-04 totaled $25 million;
• competitive pressure for increased investment in priority academic programs to attract and retain faculty and to succeed in obtaining external financial support. Institutional priorities, including faculty and staff compensation programs, required resources far in excess of the immediate projected budget deficits and the $20 million goal established for the workforce planning effort in July 2002; and,
• the cost of support activities was increasing at a faster rate than academic mission related costs. Additionally, there were sufficient indications that the effectiveness and efficiency of support functions would need to improve to meet programmatic needs and institutional requirements for the future. High costs of inefficiencies and ineffectiveness (transaction processing) divert resources from the academic missions of Cornell. These costs compound over time and limit Cornell's investment in the future.

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Context for the Workforce Planning Initiative

The focus on improving effectiveness and efficiency was certainly not a new concept for the Ithaca campus when the workforce planning initiative began in November 2001 nor were many of the basic tenets that shaped the focus of this initiative. Recommendations from the university’s 1992–1995
strategic planning effort called for the organizational structure of the university to be “strategically conceived to support the decision making and programmatic interactions most important to our success.”

The Final Report of the Task Force on Exercising Effective Stewardship recommended use of reengineering techniques, clarification of responsibilities, establishment of incentives, and consolidation of administrative services to achieve greater efficiency as well as improved quality in support operations.

Project 2000 followed with the objective of developing radically new and different ways of doing business to provide better service at lower cost. Reengineering policies and practices began as a major component of the Project 2000 effort, along with the implementation of new core administrative systems. However, the magnitude, complexity, and resource requirements of the systems implementation eventually consumed the reengineering efforts, and the vision of more effective processes university-wide was not realized. Individual operating units and central functional offices continued to create and seize opportunities to make improvements when possible, but these efforts did not result in broad, consistent, and coordinated adoption throughout the campus.

With the general slowdown of the U.S. economy in 2000 and 2001, coupled with the immediate financial incentive provided by the anticipated impact on New York State’s budget of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, President Rawlings reignited the institutional quest for improved administrative effectiveness at a reduced cost. In doing so, important lessons learned from previous efforts informed the structure of the workforce planning initiative, the objectives established, and the handling of budget reductions.

• Workforce planning from the very start was an initiative of the President. The overall project lead team and all subsequent individual review teams were established as advisory to the President. The President made it clear that all major decisions would be made directly by the President, Provost, and Vice President for Administration and Chief Financial Officer. Further, the overall project lead team appointed by the President included three Deans, one from each of the college budgetary models, a vice provost, and two vice presidents. This level of institutional leadership, particularly including the active leadership of three deans, provided the necessary focus and accountability throughout campus to conduct a critical examination of current practices.
• The primary focus of the workforce planning initiative was on defining major roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities for functional activities across organizational boundaries. This was deemed the critical first step necessary to achieve sustainable improvement in both the effectiveness and the efficiency of campuswide support functions. The tools that would assist in streamlining work (such as technology and systems) would be considered after there was clarification of roles and responsibilities and a prioritization of necessary work.
• In prior years, financial challenges were typically met by assigning budget reductions to each operating unit and allowing each dean or vice president to make their own discrete decisions about where to reduce costs. The impact of this practice on support activities was a widely differentiated and uncoordinated system of support between operating units and central offices. Workforce planning responded to this by initiating reviews of entire support functions, thereby achieving greater consistency in the definition and coordination of responsibilities. Each workforce planning review was charged with realizing a significant amount of financial savings, and as an incentive to each unit, the savings realized would generally remain within the operating unit in which the savings were achieved.
With the expectation that defining roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities was a critical first step to achieving sustainable improvement, workforce planning was initiated as the first phase of a longer-term effort to achieve sustainable improvement in effectiveness and efficiency of support operations.

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Guiding Principles Influence Other Planning Discussions

The workforce planning effort has helped create a sense of institutional drive, leadership, and in some cases, cover, for tackling organizational issues that have been around for a long time within core functional areas and within individual operating units. The framework and guiding principles of the workforce planing initiative positively influenced other planning discussions centrally and in campus units. These principles include:

• Clarify roles and responsibilities and assign responsibility where it can be managed most effectively.
• Clarify accountability.
• Increase efficiency and effectiveness.
• Seek broad solutions to local challenges.
• Define priorities and reallocating resources accordingly.
• Pause before adding new staff to consider other options (e.g., shared services).

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