Good afternoon,
I’m excited to share that the Future of Work Project was rolled out this week! This project, facilitated by Operational Excellence in partnership with Human Resources and Finance and Operations provides clear guidance and support for implementing lasting flexible work arrangements to meet business needs and support our talented staff. The entire OE team was truly grateful to be part of this process.
Over the next two weeks, I’d like to take you behind the scenes and share with you what it takes to design solutions and facilitate change. This week I’ll discuss the role of the project definition, metrics, and our design team.
Project Definition: To start every project, Transformation Managers (TMs) work with executive sponsors and the functional lead to create a project charter to ensure everyone is clear on what the project should accomplish. A project charter defines the problem, objectives, and what will be in and out of scope. The objectives for the Future of Work project were to provide flexible work options to employees while also upholding our world-class on-campus experience for our students.
Metrics: Understanding an issue, as well as measuring impact, is all about data. Data can come from many sources, including hard numbers, surveys, and conversations. Some of the data collection points for the Future of Work Project included a survey that was shared with non-faculty employees to understand their experiences with the flexible work location pilot program, as well as extensive conversations with student-facing units to learn more about what students want, how they are interacting with their unit, and what units are doing to support a world-class on-campus experience. This information, along with other data points, helped inform the direction of the design team and prioritization of problem-solving.
Design Team: Solution design is best served by diverse perspectives. For the Future of Work project, OE worked with 13 design team members in various roles around the University. The team met weekly for 2-hour workshops facilitated by TMs Candace Reynolds and Suzie Baker and OE Resident Meagan Solloway. The TMs carefully planned activities and used a variety of facilitation techniques to maximize workshop productivity – these are working sessions! The team engaged in activities to generate ideas, prioritize issues, solve problems, and create content which became the Flexible Work Options Playbook and associated resources. Additional information about new flexible work arrangements can be found on the Flexible Work Arrangements page.
Please feel free to share this email with your colleagues. I look forward to sharing the importance of deliverables, communication and the project closeout with you next week. In the meantime, you can also visit our website to learn more about Operational Excellence, read my previous updates and submit feedback. If you have any questions, please reach out to me at wernoski@email.unc.edu. I read every email.
Best,
Rick