Princeton Weekly Bulletin March 8, 1999
Review recommends changes in facilities
The steering committee conducting an administrative review of the Facilities Department has recommended a series of operating changes intended to generate savings and improve service. These recommendations, which are being implemented under the direction of Vice President for Finance and Administration Richard Spies, are expected to save roughly $2 million annually.
Last spring, President Shapiro initiated a process for the periodic review of all administrative activities over the course of the next five or six years. The first of those reviews, involving Facilities, was initiated last April.
"I think our experience with this first review suggests that the whole experience can be very productive," said Spies. "The evidence indicated that Facilities is well run and that it serves its individual and departmental clients and the University well. Nevertheless, the review identified ways to refocus services on the highest priority needs of faculty and students, as well as to achieve significant dollar savings."
Future reviews
Spies believes the Facilities review yielded several lessons that will shape planning for future reviews. While the form of the review may vary from case to case, he suggests that each should have the following characteristics:
• It should cover a functional area, rather than simply an organizational unit or units. "Although there is clearly an overlap between functional responsibilities and the organization of the University administration, there are many situations in which closely-related activities fall into two or more departments," he says. "If we look just at departmental units, we might miss important activities -- and important opportunities for improvement."
• It should be fact-based, "which means collecting data and systematically analyzing both the current situation and alternative approaches to the work at hand," Spies says. The data collected should include feedback from the various customers of the function or service; comprehensive cost data; costs and service levels from comparable institutions and organizations thought to perform the work unusually well; and input from the staff who provide the service.
• It should involve a mix of expertise both internal and external to Princeton. The University's own participants should include staff from within the area being reviewed, as well as others who have some perspective on that area but who are not a part of the group itself.
• Cost savings should constitute an essential measure of success. Service improvements should be acknowledged as an important objective, but will more readily surface without prodding. For the review to produce significant cost savings, its leadership must be prepared to set aggressive targets at appropriate stages of the process.
Facilities budget: $76 million
As currently organized, the Facilities Department comprises the separate departments of Grounds and Building Maintenance, Building Services, Engineering, Physical Planning, and Construction Management, plus related service groups for Housing, Dining Services, Visitor and Conference Services, Real Estate, and administrative support. Together these groups are responsible for the operation and maintenance of the University's physical plant, including grounds; the planning and construction of new buildings and other support facilities; and the provision of services for students, faculty and others, including dining, dormitory and other housing arrangements, and conference services. The total budget for Facilities in 1997-98 was $76 million, including the salaries and related costs of approximately 750 full-time-equivalent staff positions.
Spies led the Facilities review with the assistance of a steering committee composed of staff from Facilities and other offices across the University. Vikki Ridge, Human Resources region manager and manager of labor relations, provided administrative support. The University engaged the consulting firm Coopers & Lybrand (now Pricewaterhouse Coopers) to provide advice about the process and support for some of the analytical work.
The committee gathered and analyzed summary data describing workloads, staffing and budgets within Facilities and at other similarly situated universities; attitudinal data based on a survey and numerous focus groups with Facilities clients and staff; and commentary drawn from interviews with representatives of various staff and client groups. The committee then identified a set of issues for further study, which it grouped and prioritized according to their apparent potential to contribute to better or more cost-effective operations.
In the second major phase of its work, the committee undertook a set of projects in consultation with members of Facilities staff. In all cases, teams evaluated the implications of any proposals they considered for staff, departmental budgets and clients.
Finally, the committee communicated its specific recommendations to the managers within Facilities, as well as to the Facilities units affected. It recommended that Spies assume responsibility for monitoring the implementation of the recommendations, as well as for evaluating success and making adjustments needed to achieve its long-term savings and performance goals.
The review committee identified savings opportunities in Building Services and Maintenance, as well as opportunities to create efficiencies and improve service through changes in Facilities' work order and billing systems and its overall organization, and by improving performance management and communication.
Building Services
The University will introduce night cleaning shifts in most academic and administrative buildings, develop uniform cleaning standards, and expand the role of the janitorial foreman position. Together these steps are expected to allow Building Services to permanently absorb existing vacancies among the janitorial staff (17 FTE). In addition, the department will reduce the number of janitorial foremen and supervisors by eight or 10 over the next 18 months, using performance as the standard for maintaining employment.
The University will hire independent contractors to clean certain buildings at the periphery of campus and at Forrestal. It also will undertake an administrative review of Building Services office processes, with a goal of further reducing costs.
Early experiences with night shifts and with outsourced services will be used to generate additional data about cleaning standards and costs. Princeton will assess cleaning frequencies and service levels across campus, and will review service levels with client groups. It will review the processes for sanitation, moving, and equipment rental, as well as optimal staffing levels in those areas. It will assess summer staffing and implement 10 or 11-month work schedules, as appropriate.
Maintenance
The review committee found that Princeton currently maintains a higher proportion of highly skilled staff than it really needs in Maintenance. Accordingly, Facilities and Human Resources will develop a plan to alter the mix of skill levels across the shops over time. In the short term, Princeton will take advantage of a number of vacancies to replace journeymen with tradesmen at lower skill levels.
The committee recommended organizing the shops to take better advantage of complementary aspects of their work, including seasonality. It suggested merging the current air-conditioning and HVAC shops and creating a small preventive maintenance crew. Laborers assigned to one shop in Maintenance will be made available to others as workloads shift. The University will gradually institute staggered shifts, so that services are available earlier and later in the day and coverage into the weekend will not automatically trigger overtime.
These steps are expected to yield savings both by reducing the total number of employees in Maintenance by about 10 and by reducing compensation costs attributable to overtime and the high skill mix. Roughly half the anticipated reduction in Maintenance staff will come from regular attrition, and the positions lost will range across management, supervisory and shop ranks.
Other recommendations
Facilities' work order and billing processes will be revised to better manage and track current projects, and to better plan for future activities and operations. Facilities' new vice president, Kathleen Mulligan, will undertake a review of the department's organizational structure, with an eye to eliminating fragmentation and redundancy.
The missions of several units -- faculty and staff housing, graduate student housing, visitor and conference services, cash dining operations, and catering -- have been more clearly articulated. Service levels in each area will be periodically reviewed to match University priorities and available resources.
The committee recommended developing more systematic procedures for performance management in Facilities. It particularly advocated more effective practices with regard to performance evaluation and pay for performance.