ThackerCreating Sustainable Business Practices to Propel Your Department10.26.2020

Creating Sustainable Business Practices to Propel Your Department Dr.. • Identify practices in housing that can benefit from documenting processes and procedures.. • Identify key charac

Creating Sustainable Business

Practices to Propel Your

Department

Dr Kelly L Thacker ACUHOI Business Operations Conference

October 26, 2020

• Understand and be able to explain tenants of sustainable business practices

• Identify practices in housing that can benefit from documenting

processes and procedures

• Explain to colleagues rationale and approach to housing processes

• Identify key characteristics and steps of the documentation process

Road Less Traveled….

• Started graduate program in I/O Psych

• Worked in Apartment Housing in Grad School

• Left graduate school ABD to work full time

• Worked at Same Large Public for 12 years before moving

• Oversaw split academic/residence hall

• 5 different positions; assignments, residence life, building management, technology, desk operations, dining meal plans

• Oversaw technology systems for residence hall program

• Embraced my love for organization and affinity for operations work.

• Currently Director Housing & Dining Services (budget, finance, contracts, marketing, assignments/dining, billing)

Let’s Talk Sustainability

• Reducing wait times for students

• Reducing confusion or frustration of campus processes

• Reusing a process to ensure consistency and dependability

• Recycle ideas and information

• Recycle successful programs or interview questions to reduce staff time

Impact of Business Sustainability

Reacting v Responding

• Reacting- Trying to determine the process to utilize in order to address

the situation Not much thought is utilized Leaves people feeling frantic and has an emotional toll

• Responding- Having a thought out approach and action Can give staff

direction easily Staff are aware of the general outline of the process

Tenants of Sustainable Businesses

• Documentation of Information & Systems

• Interconnectedness- “Safety Nets”

• Create Routines, Processes & Tasks

• Processes Independent of People

• Cross Training

• Empowering Staff

When you create business sustainability…

Relative to Housing

Environmental

• Providing basic needs (Maslow)

• 24/7/365 Response

• Work with humans-unpredicatable

• Burnout/ Balance/Health & Safety

• Housing = Auxiliary

• Need to make $$

• Redundancies

• Responsibility & Transparency

• Additional Health & Safety Costs

• Technology/Infrastructure Costs

Market

• Off-Campus Competition

• Ensure Value to Campus

• Virtual Classes Impact

• Live On Requirement?

• Job/Staff Reduction & Resources

Life Today

Documentation= Key

• What is a housing practice that would be important to document?

• What purpose does the process serve?

• Why is it important?

• What other areas of campus depend upon this process?

SOP & Document Creation-Best Practices

1 Identify Goal of Task

2 Identify the Audience (internal v external)

3 Identify Steps in Process

4 Identify Who Does Each Step

5 Create Responses for Different Scenarios

6 Connect Steps to other Documents/Information/Online Resources

7 Test out SOP’s- Use in Training

Top 5

1. Sustainability is not just about the environment

2. Housing is a business, treat it like one

3. Environmental pressures impact our work

4. Documentation is the key to success

5. Practice: Write, Review, Edit, Utilize

Activity: SOP Creation

• Think of an important task you complete on a regular basis

• Would someone else be able to do this task if you weren’t in the office?

• Write down the process for completing this task

• Goal/Process/Role/Other Resources

• Share this information with your neighbor

• What don’t they understand?

Document Review

Goal Setting

• Before the end of the year, identify 1

business practice and do the following:

• Create a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the process

• Gather feedback from colleagues about the

document

• Implement the and evaluate use of the SOP

Dr Kelly Thacker

kellythacker@wayne.edu

Director Housing & Dining Services

Wayne State University