Financial Assistant Workload

1
Financial Assistant Workload

• By Doug Belliston
• Financial Assistant Task Force
• Susan Bettis, Al Merkley, Mike Nelson, Pamela
  Castillo, Ron Woods, John Gardner, Doug
  Belliston, Rebecca Waldron, Penny Morrell, Denise
  Haney

2
Ancient History

• Issue of assistant work overload came up last
  year at this retreat
• FAT Force formed! (Financial Assistant Task
  Force)
• Discussions, Focus Group
• Expectations for standard employee category,
  increased pay! ?
• ? No standard job description possible of 239
  Survey responses, 239 unique combinations

3
What was learned by the Task Force?

• Technology skills often lag person not matched
  to skills needed
• Financial Services does not train well
• Good technicians, lousy trainers!
• Implementations/upgrades must be better paced
• (Fast Track, Extensity, Cashnet, Bob, AIM, Star,
  Y Jobs, ePAF)
• Financial duties not receiving desired level
  attention

4
What was learned by the Task Force?

• WORK WITH US!
• Involve users in design!
• Remember yours is not the only system!
• Let us learn on what we will use!
• MAC is here to stay and we are vocal!

5
What was learned by the Task Force?

• Time itself has allowed people to build
  familiarity and get over the hump
• Help Desks along the Extensity model
• Mentored and peer-to-peer training
• Reference Guides
• Many infrequent usersmake tools very intuitive
• Pace implementations-dont bury us

6
What was learned by the Task Force?

• Plan for organizational resistance
• Lack of knowledge breeds insecurity and sense of
  embarrassment
• Lack of confidence in new systems perpetuates
  shadow systemsoften beyond their true need
• Better Training!
• Which led to the Financial Assistant Survey

7
Remember the Survey.?
8
Assistant Time Commitments
9
How many things do people do?
10
How many tasks do people have?
11
How is supervision handled?
12
Leveraging Tasks Within Areas
13
How Things Are Done - By Area
14
How Things Are Done - By Area
15
How Things Are Done - By Area
16
Distribution of Duties by College
17
Assistant Time by College
18
Assistant Time by College
19
Training Needs
20
Training Requests
21
Training Requests
22
Conclusions?

• Assistants seem to be adapting to the many
  changes less vocal frustrations
• Role of assistants must be considered within each
  areajob descriptions, internal controls, duties
  vs. skills, specialization or generalist
• Financial Services needs much better training
  approach and follow up
• System tools are neededhelp desks, reference
  guides, peer-to-peer training
• More?