Navigating Higher-Ed's Perfect Storm
Part Two: Student Self-Service, Automation, and Human Relations
The coronavirus pandemic has created a perfect storm in the higher education industry. How an institution responds now, in the weeks and months ahead, will establish the course of their future. Some have very few options for survival where others, if they set the right bearing, can position themselves to not only weather the storm but also flourish in the long term.
This is the second in a series of posts that we will be publishing over the next few weeks, with the purpose of highlighting what you can expect from the marketplace and what you can do to minimize the severe financial hardship you may be facing. Our first post focused on the planning and associated messaging necessary to address new selection criteria that students and parents now have related to health and finances. This post focuses on the importance of moving toward automated services to enhance productivity and to alleviate workloads that may exceed capacity as available resources are diminished.
Within the context of this article, it is beneficial to recognize a few of the harsh realities that many colleges and universities are facing at this time:
One of the larger challenges that residential institutions currently face is the unknown. It is unclear if residential campuses and associated on-campus classes will be open for FA20, or to what degree they will be able to re-open. The implications for enrollment, whether the campus re-opens or not, is also uncertain. Recent surveys and associated projections for FA20 are showing that approximately twenty percent of students will opt to take a gap year or find a lower cost option. An additional 5% may select an online college. That means if campuses do not re-open, one hundred percent of on-campus revenue will be lost for the semester. Conversely, if campuses are able to fully re-open, there could still be as high as a twenty-five percent drop in on-campus revenue for the semester.
There are huge financial implications for colleges and universities that are dependent on revenue associated with campus life. While it can vary by institution, on-campus revenue would typically include room and board, activity fees, parking fees, meal tickets, orientation, and more. Loss of on-campus revenue could mean further staffing cuts, and depending on the level of loss, those cuts could be substantial. It is likely that the remaining staff will be unable to inherit the additional workload resulting from those reductions, in addition to what they are already doing. The additional load will simply exceed their capacity.
Technological innovation has been typically regarded as an expensive luxury. However, as huge amounts of infrastructure and resources are being severely shaken, and the number of available support staff declines, institutions may be forced to reduce the number of students they can serve. While that might work in the short term, the model must fundamentally change to ensure long-term sustainability. Most institutions will be forced to become more efficient through the implementation of technology and automation that can increase productivity, reduce costs, enhance student satisfaction, and make the institution altogether more scalable.
It is our opinion that the university-of-the-future will necessarily be far more automated than what is typical today. For some this might be a hard pill to swallow. However, Higher-Ed is not the first industry to face this. A good example is the airlines. Many of you will remember watching a ticketing or boarding agent typing feverishly on their computer-keyboard to check the status of your flight, check you in, issue a boarding pass, etc. Now those tasks are automated and made available to us through online self-service. Yet, we still require support and personal connection, which is why the airlines have not over-automated. They still have support desks and people available when we need assistance. Similarly in the case of Higher-Ed, three major areas of focus for future sustainability are Student Self-Service, Automation, and Human Relations.
Student Self-Service:
Today, in many institutions, students must physically go to the office of the service they need, where a staff member assists them by using enterprise systems - typing on their keyboards like the travel agents of old. Recently there has been an evolution of one-stop shops to help alleviate this but many departmental functions have not truly integrated into that model. Further, most of the one-stop shops are physical and are limited in the way that they can be accessed. In order to safeguard the future of the institution, student-services must be made available online for self-service via personal computers and mobile devices. One-stop shops must become virtual and fully-functional. This enables a paradigm shift in the financial makeup of an institution – reducing the number of staff that a department needs to serve the student population, and dramatically increasing the institution’s scalability.
Automation:
As just noted, many of the functions of an institution are manual. Staff are often managing paper applications and records, and subsequently using specialized enterprise systems that are complex and not accessible to the student population. As a result, departmental productivity is typically very low, by today’s standards. Although automation technology is readily available, it requires a sophisticated process to implement properly without risking costly reparation. For this reason, it is wise to get started as soon as possible and not take a chance on falling behind those who adapt early. The hardest part in moving toward automation is the first step – recognizing and accepting the fact that there will be resource trade-offs, including trading labor for automation. However, the outcomes are substantial, including serving more students with less staff, reducing recurring payroll budgets, and attaining higher net-revenue per student. Once automation has been identified as a strategic objective, the task of mapping workflows, and associated systems and processes, to the student-journey can begin. This almost always reveals some practices that are ad-hoc or convoluted, which will need to be accurately established and streamlined to ensure system efficiency and thus cost effectiveness. Once completed, clear criteria are defined which enable selection of the right automation systems and clarity on how they need to be implemented.
Human Relations:
Automation discussions almost always feel like a departure from a relational environment. However, when implemented correctly, automation systems do not reduce personal connection, rapport or trust. Even the best technology and automation solutions, implemented in the best way, cannot replace the wisdom and skills that only a staff or faculty member can provide. Instead, well implemented automation systems will make staff more informed; they will be able to see the full picture and serve the student much better than they could in the past. For this reason, the process of adopting a student self-service model, and functional automation, will necessarily include thoughtful decisions about multi-tier help desks that include processes to provide both generalized and specialized support, depending on the complexity of the problem being encountered.
Higher education will not be the same in the future. Campus closures have stimulated a disruption that is not going away. While, in the past, technology has been perceived as an expensive luxury, the industry will have no choice but to move that direction if they want to be around in the future. As discussed earlier, Higher-Ed is simply at a point in their history where many other industries have already been. Those that made the hard choices survived and have even thrived to this day (Netflix, for example). Others who did not make the shift eventually had to close their doors (Blockbuster, for example). An old mentor of mine used to say when you come to a fork in the road take it. In this case, though, I think the decision of which fork is pretty important. The question to ask yourself is how committed are you to your mission? Is it important enough to reshape the institution? Or is preservation more important than fulfilling mission?
I want to thank Paul Bradley for his contributions to this article. I have had the privilege of working closely with Paul over the past six years. As one of MMC’s Associate Consultants, Paul brings a unique combination of skills that include deep technical expertise, along with massive knowledge of student-life, integrated student services, the one-stop shop, and CRM systems. Paul is an instrumental link in our delivery of consultative services related to automation and student self-service. If you have questions related to this article or would like to talk with Paul about his experience and how we can be helpful to your situation, please contact us at mmc@mikemoroney.com.