Scott Savage shares updates on ServiceFirst, listening tour

The Well sat down with Scott Savage, associate vice chancellor for organizational strategy and performance, to learn more about what’s happening with the work across Carolina through ServiceFirst.

Can you talk about the progress that has been made on ServiceFirst initiatives to date?

One of the successes we’ve seen early on is the spirit of change management and alignment across the campus community. People are coming together around ideas, agreeing on the things they think would be feasible enough to move to a shared services model. We’re also delivering on our original timeline we shared earlier this year. We have representation across the six in-scope functional areas — finance, human resources, information technology services, research administration, communications and procurement — and routine meetings have been happening with those task forces. They have defined the mission and operating principles of those functional areas that will guide us as we recommend an updated collaborative structure for the University.

How does ServiceFirst work into the overall University budget cuts?

As previously shared at the Board of Trustees meeting in September, part of those budget cuts includes a minimum of $8.5 million in administrative staff reductions. It’s clear we’ve got great people, and we’re offering great services, but we’re also seeing inconsistent service levels and processes among departments and schools and opportunities to address and streamline within the scope of ServiceFirst. It’s important to note that the work being done within those six functional areas is a representation of campus peers defining their own operating principles and identifying the opportunities for shared services.

In the coming months, we’ll determine what implementation looks like at Carolina, but we need to build the trust of students, faculty and staff to be able to do that. As we get into the latter part of this year and beginning of next year, we will continue doing everything we can to promote transparency, establish accountability and continue to pursue the University’s overarching mission of excellence in teaching, research and service.

You’re currently in the middle of a listening tour across campus. What have you been hearing from campus units and schools?

So far, we’ve met with about 15 schools and campus units, and we’ve found there is a strong culture of operations in what drives each group. It’s clear all of them have been pursuing the mission of the University, and that every unit is unique in how they approach and support that work. This is important as we consider how we can build something that would work across diverse units, and it’s been a great opportunity to help establish a baseline assessment of how these functions are already working across campus. We’re working with the Odum Institute to build a survey tool that can be used consistently to continue that work before implementation of any new organizational structure.

It’s also given us a healthy appreciation and a deeper understanding of the overall mood on campus as it relates to ServiceFirst. These sessions have given us a chance to hopefully build some trust that our goal is to support teams where they may have some struggles and help them see the future state of what’s possible as we stretch further into what the University strides for in terms of excellence.

Read monthly ServiceFirst updates on the initiative’s website.

Can you provide an update on the ServiceFirst timeline?

The alignment of key constituents across campus in terms of delivering on the original objectives of ServiceFirst — which are to define functional missions and operating principles, determine shared services opportunities and recommend a service delivery structure — has been happening, and that information is being presented to the steering committee.

As we get into the new year and start implementing new collaborative structures, ServiceFirst will be a data-driven, quantitative and qualitatively measured service culture. The initial working principles of prioritizing the mission and improving service and support haven’t changed. Our goal of creating a workplace where people thrive is still an imperative.