As the second phase of its work for the year, MCC’s Budget Resource Committee (BRC) was charged with two tasks: to explore cultural change at the College and to draft an implementation plan for workforce flexibility. BRC members recently met with the President’s Cabinet to present their observations and recommendations on both issues.
On cultural change, their ideas included the need to enhance internal communications – from top down, bottom up and side-to-side. Members also pointed to the need to seek greater cross-divisional, cross-departmental and cross faculty/staff integration, collaboration and training. In addition, they suggested that empowering decision making at levels below the vice presidents would result in a flatter, more flexible and responsive organization. In a time of tight budgets, such flexibility may be one way to continue providing excellent service to MCC’s students, while holding faculty and staff at current levels.
BRC members also made it clear that revisiting committee structures would be a welcome and productive shift for the College. They recommended that consideration be given to the high use of committees at the College, including providing greater clarity on committee charges and expectations, timeline and required deliverables. To ensure a more collaborative and effective process, the BRC felt it critically important that timely feedback be provided to each committee once they complete their work to more fully ‘close the loop’ on the process.
Turning to the idea of workforce flexibility, BRC members first defined the term. They then mapped out key action steps that will help move the concept forward. Recommendations regarding workforce flexibility include: examining job classifications, engaging labor management and other stakeholders to identify existing workforce flexibility opportunities, considering the boundaries that might impact implementation, benchmarking with other colleges and identifying strategies to test workforce flexibility in real time.
In the midst of all this brainstorming and decision-making, Mary O’Reilly, secretary to MCC's General Counsel, raised her hand and asked a significant question: “What does any of this has to do with the budget?” According to Darrell Jachim-Moore, assistant vice president, Administrative Services and BRC committee chair, that question was pivotal in pairing the current budgetary climate with the task at hand.
A few short weeks later, MCC’s senior staff heard firsthand that among the benefits of workforce flexibility could be: the preservation of human capital, savings in labor/benefit costs, enhancement of quality services to students and a greater opportunity for questioning the status quo.
“The BRC said what needed to be said and brought forth key action steps to begin implementing transformative change here at MCC,” says Jachim-Moore. “This work is making a real difference by creating new ways to discuss openly some of the more pressing budget issues now confronting the College.”