The university announced on Thursday that it will not pursue full external management of custodial and grounds services and will maintain its current workforce, following an evaluation process that provided the U of A with the opportunity to learn more about its current operations compared to the market.

Purpose of the Evaluation

The U of A frequently performs assessments of various services throughout campus to ensure it continues to provide the best service possible to its growing population and adequately stewards its financial and physical resources.

"A primary objective of this evaluation was to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of current processes and service levels," said Ann Bordelon, executive vice chancellor for finance and administration. "We learned a lot about our internal structure and processes through this evaluation and have identified opportunities to improve how we deliver these services across campus. We will continue to work together as 'One University' to design and implement a more centralized internal management structure of custodial and grounds operations while maintaining our current internal staffing."

Delivering Efficient Service to Campus

The university already partners with external vendors to perform supplemental services for some of its custodial and grounds functions so that those services reach all areas of campus when they are needed most.

"We will investigate consolidating our current supplemental custodial and grounds services contracts," Bordelon said. "While our conversations with SSC were productive and had the potential for some level of cost savings, the university felt at this time, we are better served to look internally at our own structure and operational processes to cultivate efficiencies for ourselves."

Looking to the Future

As part of the continued enhancement of its custodial and grounds internal structure and processes, the university will look to improve training and development of employees and their supervisors, better define expected service levels and identify metrics for measuring those levels.

"As our campus continues to grow in both population and square footage, the complexity of managing these services has grown," Bordelon said. "We need to ensure we position our employees to deliver consistent quality service across campus as expected by our students, faculty, staff and visitors. We will continue to adapt as necessary to enhance the overall university experience as the market evolves and the campus community grows."