Overview
Nottingham Trent University (NTU) has over 23,000 students and employs around 2,500 staff, working across three campuses. NTU prides itself on the employability of its undergraduates who have undertaken sandwich work placements. Keen to improve even further the entire placements process for students, employers / placement providers and NTU staff, and recognising its strategic importance and the potential for risk, NTU sought an external partner to lead a business improvement project in this area. Capita was chosen to carry out this project, primarily because of our track record on similar business process reengineering projects within NTU, but also because we were able to accommodate a transfer of relevant skills to the NTU business improvement manager, allowing the transformation programme to continue.
Challenges and goals
NTU wanted to ensure an excellent student experience, value for money, and minimal risk in its entire placements function. By transforming the function and implementing common processes and standards, NTU sought to:
- Enhance the student experience surrounding sandwich placements
- Ensure continued high employability of NTU students
- Ensure a minimum standard of service to sandwich placement students across all schools within NTU
- Ensure risk visibility
- Ensure health and safety guidelines are complied with
- Save academic and administrative resource by removing inefficiencies and enhancing management and administration.
Our approach
Capita worked closely with NTU to carry out the project, shadowed by the NTU business improvement manager; the most efficient way of transferring skills. Using our proven business process improvement (BPI) methodology, Capita defined the objectives and scope of the placements review along with the possible benefits that could be realised. This definition was achieved by careful analysis of existing student survey results and a specific survey of placements, designed by Capita, obtained by means of a questionnaire of employers / placement providers, students and academic staff.
Having defined and agreed the project scope with senior NTU staff, Capita held workshops and one to one discussions with academic and administrative staff to establish the current state in each NTU school. In order to complete the review and benchmark NTU against its peers, Capita carried out a comparative analysis by looking at the way other universities administered placements.
By analysing and mapping the existing state, drawing out good and bad practices and comparing NTU to its peers, Capita was able to identify significant areas for process improvement within NTU. This was achieved by a variety of BPI methods - process mapping to iron out inefficiencies in the current procedures and the creation of a new organisational design with common processes. Capita identified a set of minimum standards, compiled future state process maps and an outline implementation plan for NTU.
The final stage of the review consisted of a walkthrough of the key findings, proposed organisational design and recommendations and associated benefits with the NTU Steering Group in order to ensure buy-in from key stakeholders.
Results and benefits
NTU’s primary goal of achieving a skills transfer to their own business improvement manager, who in turn will continue the transformation programme, has been achieved by a close working partnership with Capita. NTU will be able to achieve their strategic goal of enhancing their reputation for placements and minimising risk by implementing Capita’s recommendations. A major added benefit of the transformation will be enhanced employer relations and greater levels of student satisfaction. By transforming their business processes, with a new Capita organisational model, NTU will achieve value for money and a higher quality placements service with greater clarity of approach and greater visibility of placements. This in turn, will lead to significant efficiency gains with all NTU schools sharing a consistent and quality approach.
“Capita’s education consultant worked well with our organisation, quickly gaining credibility yet retaining the essential objectivity and incisiveness needed to lead the project. The project involved many staff and was completed on time (despite significant internal challenges) and with high levels of consensus for the final recommendations”.
Francesca Fowler, Director of Organisational Development & Business Improvement
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