Two initiatives aimed at streamlining human resources and administrative support are well under way, with the spans and layers initiative having already saved close to 90 percent of its $17 million target.

Cornell's main challenge now is to rethink work, a central feature of the spans and layers initiative, said Vice President for Human Resources Mary Opperman at an open forum Oct. 26. "We are still trying to figure out how to realign the work with the available resources," Opperman said. "This will ultimately put the organization back on track where people are in balance both with the work that they can accomplish and with their work lives."

She presented an update on the initiatives at the forum, which was hosted by Vice President for Planning and Budget Elmira Mangum. The initiatives are part of the Administrative Streamlining Program office, formerly called the Initiatives Coordination Office, within the Division of Planning and Budget.

Opperman outlined the HR and spans and layers initiatives and then took questions from the audience. The HR initiative consists of six projects:

Opperman also outlined the spans and layers initiative, in which deans and vice presidents were asked to determine where in their organizations an increase in spans (how many people a manager supervises) and a decrease in layers (the tiers between the president and a division's lowest-ranking employee) could be implemented to create efficiencies. This work was done last year, and much of it has been implemented in the areas that were part of the initiative.

The divisions of HR and planning and budget are now tracking the changes that were made as a result of these efforts. The system that supports this tracking will be complete by Oct. 31.

An ongoing focus in the HR division is supporting departments and units as they align their work to the resources they have available given reduced staffing and budgets. Within the HR division, Kathy Burkgren, director of organizational development for faculty and staff, and Chris Halladay, senior director of HR/organizational effectiveness, have been working with leaders across campus to address these issues. They have also been partnering with the compensation department and their HR colleagues across campus to develop online tools and to support leaders as they identify the work that their unit should stop doing. "We can't keep trying to do it all," said Burkgren.

During the question session, when asked when managers can start to redesign work, Burkgren said right away: "If we can sit down for two to three hours, we can have a really good plan to help you figure out how to move forward."

Does the administration have a number of staff positions it is looking to reach? No, Mangum said, although each initiative has a financial goal. Of the 191 positions administrators identified through the spans and layers methodology last year, 144 were eliminated through attrition; the remainder were layoffs, she added.

How can staff protect themselves against changes that create more work, not less? "If something comes to you and it's just not going to work, feed it back, let someone know," Opperman said. "Don't let it integrate into a bad procedure or policy. That's when it's hard to change."

Forums on administrative streamlining

Upcoming forums hosted by the Administrative Streamlining Program to update the campus on various initiatives are:

• Nov. 4: Facilities, 12:15-1:15 p.m., 101 Bradfield Hall, with Vice President for Facilities Services Kyu-Jung Whang.
• Nov. 5: Procurement and finance, 12:15-1:15 p.m., 101 Phillips Hall, with Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer Joanne DeStefano and Chris Ober, the Francis Bard Professor of Materials Science and Engineering.
• Nov. 10: Information technology, 12:15-1:15 p.m., 125 Riley-Robb Hall, with Steve Schuster, interim executive director of Cornell Information Technologies.

For the last 18 months, Cornell has been assessing its administrative services, with the goal of saving up to $85 million annually by fiscal year 2015.

For more information, visit http://asp.dpb.cornell.edu.