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Making better choices: using a costing model. Jo James, Library Administration Manager Mike Hallas, Project & Development Manager Michelle Blake, Academic Support Services Manager 23 August 2011. Ice-breaker: decision making approaches.
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Making better choices: using a costing model Jo James, Library Administration Manager Mike Hallas, Project & Development Manager Michelle Blake, Academic Support Services Manager 23 August 2011
Ice-breaker: decision making approaches TASK: In groups you must decide which approach to use for each task – you can use each approach as many times as you like (5mins)
Background to Cost Model Designed activity costing spread sheet to answer questions below and inform decision making process: • What is the cost of providing a particular service now? • What is the cost of investment in software to automate certain services and is it cost effective to introduce? • How should staff resources be deployed to maximise service/value? • Should additional project/s be undertaken, and what is the cost of undertaking it/them?
How it works • An activity to be evaluated is determined, e.g. ‘taking a study space booking at the library helpdesk’ • Estimate the average time taken for a transaction to occur • Calculate hourly rate based on grade of staff/resource carrying out activity • This calculates a cost per transaction • Number of transactions measured then multiplied against cost to provide overall costing
Background • Staffed by members of the Library carrying out 2 duties: • Help desk 1: • A first point enquiry service for users with straightforward questions; • More detailed enquiries are passed to Help Desk 2. • Help Desk 1 is staffed by SB04 grades , and is open between 12.00noon and 5.00pm Monday to Friday. • Exclusively SB04 staff;
Help desk 2: • Help Desk 2 is staffed by SB06 and SB07 grades. • Handles more detailed enquiries; • The service is open between 9.00am and 8.00pm Monday to Friday, and 11.00am and 6.00pm Saturday and Sunday; • Staffed by a 50/50 mix of SB06 and SB07 staff. • When the Help Desk is not busy, the Help Desk 1 member of staff is sent back to their office by the Help Desk 2 staff member.
Survey Results • Undertook a manual collection of statistics over a period of 2 months (April & May 2009); • Staff required to log each enquiry that was made; • Made for interesting reading…
Stats – part 1 • Total number of queries taken: 4,949 • Total number of Help Desk 1 queries: 4,453 • Total number of Help Desk 2 queries: 496 • 92% of enquiries were at Help Desk 1 level
Queries by enquiry length 2500 2000 1500 N umber Help Desk 1 Help Desk 2 1000 500 0 less than 1min 1 - 2mins 2 - 5 mins 5 - 10mins 10 - 15mins 15 - 20mins more than 20mins Time taken Queries by length
What happened next? • Based on the evidence we came up with a recommendation to change how the service was staffed. • A paper was taken to the Library’s senior management team where the proposal was mandated. • Over a period of 6 months, change processes were initiated and consultations with Library Assistants and other library staff began.
Issues we faced • Library assistants believed that they were doing more service counter duties than before the changes • Training implications – not all library assistants had traditionally worked on the HelpDesk; • Some staff (both library assistant level and qualified librarians) believed that it was a ‘dumbing down’ of the service; • Reassurance for staff that the backup librarian would be there quickly.
Lessons learned / outcomes • Importance of communication throughout the change process is key; • Skills upgrade for Library Assistants; • Collecting statistics is very important; • Qualified staff have since been used on a number of newly developed service initiatives such as 1-2-1 research consultations and research postcards; • Helpdesk: further changes now due; • All projects undertaken within the Library use the costing model
It’s your turn • Scenario based group exercise (30mins) • Must decide which option you will recommend to management: • Do nothing • Introduce hybrid model • Introduce roaming help and close service counter • Do more investigation and analysis • You must be able to justify your decision
Group feedback • What option(s) did you choose? • Why?