The College administrative system must become more transparent, according to a College report released Feb. 2. The report, produced in response to the recommendations of a 2006 external evaluation by McKinsey and Company, identifies inter-departmental disconnection, error-prone hiring practices and a staff perception of being "undervalued," among other factors, as limiting administrative effectiveness and the retention of promising College employees.
The report is the product of the Administrative Working Group, a consortium of senior administrative members tasked by College President James Wright to address the concerns identified by McKinsey.
"While Dartmouth has many strengths within its administrative team, it has an opportunity to upgrade its organization to better support faculty and students," the McKinsey report said.
In the vein of such an "upgrade," the Administrative Working Group focused on three areas, including administrative culture and communications, hiring and retention and annual planning and budgeting.
"I asked committees to review these matters," Wright said. "I asked them to consult wisely with members of the community to determine what the issues and challenges and opportunities were."
In addressing administrative culture and communications, a key issue guiding the working group's analysis was the decentralized nature of the College administrative system.
"There is a general sense that the campus has become increasingly divided into 'silos' with individual offices, departments and divisions feeling less connected to the mission, values and priorities of the College," the report said.
One significant element of this disconnection identified in the report involves College hiring practices. At the moment, the human resources department initially provides guidelines to hiring managers. After that, human resources "leaves the process," and the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equality takes over. This practice contrasts with the hiring procedures used by most of Dartmouth's peer institutions.
"In most institutions, [human resources] has primary responsibility for the process, but there is confusion [at Dartmouth] as to who has that responsibility," Provost Barry Scherr, chair of the hiring and retention committee, said.
The working group committee recommends that, in the future, human resources "handle all transactional aspects of the search and hiring process."
"We have long hiring processes with a series of checkoffs that are required," Wright said. "First a budget checkoff, then an IDE checkoff, a human resources checkoff -- I want to try to expedite this process, but we are going to still hold everyone accountable for making the strongest hires that they can and also for making sure that Dartmouth continues to be a place that is welcoming to a diverse workforce."
The report questions the extent to which Dartmouth has been successful in achieving such a diverse workforce, stating that hiring managers do not always adhere to the diversity goals outlined by the College.
"I am disappointed with some of our searches not being more successful in increasing the diversity," Wright said.
In addressing this issue, the report recommends that the College reiterate its diversity goals and values to managers, publicize the College's respect for difference and support diversity programs for current employees, among other initiatives.
The report also identifies a lack of diligence in checking job applicants' qualifications.
"We have not had a system in place where the hiring manager has checked the requisite number of references -- we just want to make sure that happens on every search," Scherr said. "There is no follow-up on paper for that to happen right now."
Still, Wright asserts that the quality of the administrative workforce has not been affected.
"You shouldn't infer that we haven't done pretty good background checks on the people we hire, but it is not systematic enough. There is not a rigorous checklist," Wright said. "I don't think that there have been any major crises or errors in hiring that I am aware of in this regard."
The report recommends that the College confirm the qualifications of candidates by calling all references listed in job applications and performing a Google search of the candidate's name.
The College's administrative culture suffers as a result of these hiring practices, according to the report.
"In contrast to the results of a recent College-wide employee survey, many staff provided anecdotes suggesting a low level of morale among those who have limited opportunities for growth at Dartmouth," the report said.
The report cites "a sense of being undervalued," "a heavy workload" and the "long time that it takes to fill vacancies," given current policies, as promoting this administrative culture.
"I think it has hurt retention," Wright said. "We lose young people because there is a perception that Dartmouth is not that open at hiring internally, and as long as we continue to hire exceptionally strong young people, we have to realize that there will always be people trying to hire them away from us, and sometimes they will be successful -- it is one of the consequences of having a good hiring system, quite frankly."
The report proposes that the College invest in further on-campus training for staff members in order to increase their opportunities at the College and also urges the College to create an "ombuds office," a place for staff to have their grievances addressed confidentially and effectively.
"Schools as large or larger than Dartmouth usually do have an ombudsperson," Scherr said. "It will provide a place where people can go with any problem of any size and have it dealt with confidentially."
Sheila Culbert, chair of the working group's committee on communication and culture and a senior assistant to the president, argued that the overwhelming majority of administrators are pleased with Dartmouth.
"We heard a lot of good things in open meetings and staff survey," she said. "Eighty-nine percent of the employees were satisfied, and 93 percent would recommend Dartmouth as a place to work to others."
Even with such employee satisfaction, the language of the report suggests that the current administrative system needs to undergo a process of reform, even going so far as to say that "many employees are either unaware of Dartmouth's mission or are unclear how it relates to their work."
In order to remedy this ignorance, the working group suggests that the College mission statement -- last reviewed in 2001 -- be revised so that it is "crisper" and can be more effectively applied by administrative staff members.
"It is not that the mission statement has changed -- it is about clarity and conciseness," said Culbert.
A draft mission statement will be released this coming week to allow for the community to make comments, Wright said.
While Wright clarified that it may take over a year for the College to act on some of the report's recommendations, he said that all recommendations would be addressed.
"That is why we have set up a group including the chairs of those three committees, the College [general] counsel and Dean [Stuart] Lord to help work through the implementation of this," Wright said. "We are intending to move ahead with these things."
