Sharing services
why dialogue is key to success

Chris Cobb has been involved in managing the change to shared services for many years in his roles as pro vice chancellor at Roehampton University and now chief operating officer at the University of London. He has also led thinking at JISC and HEFCE, where he has been a member of successive groups overseeing the development of shared services. In that time he has seen a marked change in the reaction to shared services from institutional leaders.

“Previously there appeared to be a built-in opposition to shared services due to infringement of institutional independence and the constraints over operational flexibility – but that’s now gone,” he says.

Managers may be enthusiastic about shared services for various reasons. JISC programme manager Alex Hawker explains, “Sharing a core administrative function can help institutions reduce their costs and carbon emissions, as well as their need to recruit staff with specialist skills in digital technologies – who may be difficult to find.” But it’s also about sharing expertise, and Cobb points out that a simple phone conversation between individuals working in different institutions may for others be a starting point to exchanging valuable information.

JISC’s work has established that sharing services works best when they are strategic, ambitious and focused on activities close to the institutions’ core missions. For example JISC’s SALAMI project is increasing students’ employability by joining together datasets using open standards to provide potential students with a coherent and seamless experience, helping them to make the best choice possible. The project brings together information from the University of Nottingham, Derby College, New College Nottingham and Aimhigher in the East Midlands.

But, while managers may have an increasing appetite for shared services, Cobb admits that further down the chain shared services may be met with greater cynicism. “Among staff there is now probably greater anxiety and suspicion about shared services,” he said. “Many feel that it is just a euphemism for outsourcing, putting jobs at risk – more so now than previously due to the backdrop of funding reductions and an increase in redundancy programmes.”

So how do you approach those difficult conversations with staff? There is evidence to show that there’s far less opposition from staff for shared services where they are asked to collaborate and be part of the process. This involves working with people outside their institution to create more than the sum of their parts. Inviting people to be involved can show them how the new way of working might benefit them, Cobb suggests. “Where the service is going to be shared across a number of institutions, you’re going to be part of a larger group so your career opportunities and potential for broadening the impact of what you do and developing your experience and skill base will be enhanced. It can be lonely if you’re the only person in an institution working on a particular area.”

When you’re moving towards procuring services from outside the college or university, it’s potentially a tougher conversation. Cobb says that taking a holistic approach is important: asking staff to consider “the institution’s future, its own sustainability and how, if we can reduce the costs, then that will improve the chances of long term survival rather than being able to invest in those things that are just administrative.”

JISC has produced a number of tools to help managers guide people through this cultural change. Alex Hawker said, “You need to look at the services you’re providing across the whole institution, not just focus on individual systems. Our resources can help with that process of evaluating what you’ve already got to help inform your decisions. For example, we have developed tools and communities around ‘enterprise architecture’ which help managers approach any changes holistically.”

John Townsend, director of corporate information services at Liverpool John Moores University, agrees, “In my view, it is hard to overestimate the importance of changing the language, and moving on from talking about ‘systems’ to talking about ‘services’. People are inclined to think of systems as ‘inside’ whilst services can be ‘in’ or ‘out’. Moving the language on to services frees up the discussion.”

While language and project management are both important, Cobb concludes: “The best tool of all is a conversation. E-mails and reports aren’t enough, it’s amazing how little understood shared services are and how entrenched views can be. A simple and on-going dialogue can be time consuming but is time well spent.” “Above all, keep the dialogue going,” he says. “The same’s true of a lot of things – if you have a conversation, the hostility and opposition falls away.”