Operational Excellence at Illinois
January 13, 2022 10:02 AM

Dear Faculty and Staff,

As part of The Next 150 Strategic Plan (2018-2023), the university is continuing the Operational Excellence at Illinois initiative by partnering with Huron Consulting Group to advance our administrative services in specific areas: (1) budget & procurement, (2) IT & data, (3) human resources (4) physical space and (5) marketing and communications.

The initiative is being led by the Operational Excellence at Illinois Task Force, which includes university leadership from each area. There are also five work teams comprised of faculty and staff from across campus.

The goal of this initiative is to identify opportunities for strategic or operational improvements in organizational structures, service delivery, business process, technology enablement and talent pools. Though we are still in the early phases of the initiative, we are confident this work will reduce duplicated efforts, streamline processes and create resource centers across administrative services. This project is designed to ensure our administrative services support and promote both our university missions and those who make these missions possible.

I want to be clear that our approach for this initiative does not propose holistic centralization of services or eliminating positions. In fact, one of our goals is to provide more opportunities for individuals to move into new or specialized roles, along with more consistent titles, classifications and compensation to improve equity across the university.

As we move forward, we invite you to engage and offer input, as your participation will be vital to the success of this initiative.  Learn more by visiting the Operational Excellence at Illinois website, as we will add information on the progress and opportunities to participate. If you have any questions or concerns, I encourage you to email operationalexcellence@illinois.edu.

It is a strategic time for this university and this initiative. The pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic have revealed an extraordinary capability by our community to collaborate and innovate. Let’s work together to harness strength to advance this university and maximize our missions even further.

Thank you in advance for your collaboration, your insights and your support of this initiative.

Sincerely,

Robert J. Jones
Chancellor