How are Heriot-Watt University using UniForum data to drive continuous service improvement?

Heriot-Watt experienced a significant period of disruption in the lead up to their initial Service Effectiveness Assessment undertaken in 2021, including a large-scale centralisation of many professional services (Building Our Commonality), voluntary redundancy scheme, and responding to the Covid crisis. These disruptions contributed to lower than desired UniForum Service Effectiveness scores, leading to the creation of their Service Effectiveness Programme in October 2022. As part of this Programme, a Service Effectiveness Board has been formed to establish a university-wide vision for seamless, consistent and intuitive service experiences, and partnership between professional services and academics to continuously improve ways of working.

To monitor the performance of the Programme’s various projects and initiatives, Heriot-Watt has conducted the UniForum Service Effectiveness Assessment on an annual basis, alternating Part 1 and Part 2 service catalogues. 2021 Service Effectiveness (Part 2) results revealed a below-median Net Satisfaction score. By their next round, Part 2 SE Assessment (2023) results were above the median. How was Heriot-Watt able to achieve this improvement?

Heriot-Watt used their initial Service Effectiveness (SE) results to identify all services with greater than 55% Dissatisfaction and greater than 55% Importance scores, creating a ‘Prioritised Service List’ to inform which initiatives most urgently needed to be addressed. Priorities can be narrowed down further by using UniForum efficiency data to identify low effectiveness services that are also high cost, as seen in the Management Reporting example. 

They then performed deeper dives into the SE results for those services, allowing them to design effective, data-driven improvements based on specific service feedback. For example, in Information Technology they made improvements in the ERP system and Digital Student Experience Programme, and in Student Support rolled out new course registration processes and improvements to examination processes. 

Additionally, SE survey feedback revealed that staff were unsure of who to contact or what service to expect, particularly following the centralisation of services that occurred in 2018. This aligns with broader UniForum Service Effectiveness data which demonstrates a correlation between greater awareness of services and higher effectiveness levels. Heriot-Watt is therefore leveraging this best practice insight and creating consistent service catalogues across a range of professional services, a core initiative of their Service Effectiveness Programme.

Successful service transformation relies on the engagement of both service delivery staff and service users in the change. Heriot-Watt combined insights from their SE results with targeted engagement to identify what was most important to staff for the affected services. After engaging with staff initially, tracking the impact of the initiatives ensures that progress and realised benefits are communicated back to staff. With their 2023 SE survey, Heriot-Watt could break down their overall Net Satisfaction result to the functional levels to understand what drove the overall improvement in service satisfaction between 2021 and 2023. Nine of the eleven service areas had experienced an increase in service satisfaction, including in IT and Student Support.

Please get in touch if you’re interested in adding effectiveness insights to your university’s service improvement toolkit and would like to participate in the upcoming round of the Service Effectiveness Assessment (October/November).