Questions and answers on the review of Professional Services

It is mainly in the organisation of individual functions such as equal opportunities, prizes and awards, and the legal office that adjustments have been made through collaboration.

The analysis confirms that we need to clarify working methods and processes for cross-cutting issues within the PS. This is under way in areas such as the contract process, facility management and security issues. Processes must have clear ownership in order to develop. They will be easier to understand and coordinate when offices have more coherent strategic and operational responsibility for their issues.

The University Director, together with the PS management team, will take care of what is important for the whole and each office. All heads of office have a responsibility to feed back the conclusions of the analysis at office level and with the functions specifically concerned. Each office will also be tasked with dialogue and further work on what is relevant to them.

No, there will be no redundancies. We want to utilise the expertise that exists within PS and there are no savings requirements in this change.

At head of unit level, there will be no major changes as existing units are lifted into the new organisation of PS, with some exceptions. Continued development work will then take place within each office over the next year and beyond.

Björn Kull will become Head of the Research Support and External Relations Office. Åsa Nandorf will become Head of the Education Support Office. Their existing tasks as Heads of Office are extended, but not fundamentally changed. Therefore, there is no need to advertise these posts. However, a recruitment process is underway for the new Head of Office for Legal, Planning and Financial Affairs - as it requires a new type of management role. In the meantime, Gunnar Gustafsson Wiss is appointed Head of Office and Helén Törnqvist as Deputy Head of Office. 

Due to natural departures, there are no redundancies. As the Faculty Office and International Relations (FIR) is discontinued, Marie-Louice Isacson will leave as Head of Office. However, she will continue as a specialist within the PS staff-function with the task to project manage the review of KI's operational support. 

All this is coordinated with the union representatives and will be addressed in the work on the risk and impact assessments after the decision. The need for clarification of management levels and titles will be reviewed after the decision, and within each office. 

Responsible managers follow up with discussions and planning actions to prepare for the change. Physical moves are not always necessary, but open to discussion with the line manager. 

Between decision and implementation, risk and impact assessments are also carried out with the support of HR within PS staff together with the relevant heads of office, safety representatives and their designated staff representatives. 

The decision, which will enter into force on 1 January 2025, concerns the overall organisation of the PS. The next step is for each office to continue developing its mission, its working methods and cooperation with other functions, and its organisation. After that, the PS Rules of Procedure will need to be rewritten to clarify the mission of the different offices and units.

The heads of operations are now leading a joint effort to review and clarify their mission. Later this autumn, the President is expected to make a decision on a joint organisation in which MHK will become a office within KIB from 1 January 2025. There have been worries that MHK would become invisible and lose its distinctiveness following a merger with KIB. Today, however, MHK is vulnerable and the purpose of being organised with KIB is to provide better development opportunities and access to more long-term support functions. 

During the next year, work will begin to review the possibility of integrating KIB into the PS organisation. 

Between the decision and the implementation of the new PS organisation, risk and impact assessments are carried out with the support of HR within PS staff together with the relevant heads of office, safety representatives and their designated staff representatives. The risk and impact assessments will identify risks to the work environment and identify what concrete measures may be needed to counteract ill health and unhealthy work environment. 

Regarding the integration of MHK as an office within KIB, a similar process of risk and impact assessment will follow with support from HR within KIB, following a decision by the President later this autumn.

The three new offices, the Research Support and External Relations Office; the Office for Legal, Planning and Finance Affairs; and the Education Support Office, will each consist of between 80 and 100 staff. Of the existing offices, the IT Office already has around 100 staff, while the Property and Facilities Office, the HR Office and the Communications och Public Relations Office each have around 40 staff. There are no perfect solutions for getting offices of equal size and the offices we have now identified have clearly coherent missions and mandates within the operational support.

The project group and other functions such as HR and communication are investigating and assisting with support during the implementation period that is now taking place. Efforts to strengthen leadership at KI are being made within, among other things, focus area A.1. Management development for dialogue-based work practices at all levels.

The new PS Managers' Forum, which is held twice a semester with all levels of managers in the PS, is a way of supporting managers and fostering cooperation within the operational support. 

The heads of unit are important change leaders and constitute the head of office's immediate support and management team. The new  PS Manager's Forum is a way of utilising their expertise and equipping them in the change process. 

In the course of the review, several issues have been identified where there is a need for cross-cutting processes or fora for co-operation between different offices. For some of them, the coordination responsibility is clearly within one office, such as communication (Communications and Public Relations Office) and the joint function for facility management (Property and Facilities Office). For others, cross-cutting forums with a clear mandate for the entire organisation are needed, such as security issues and development projects. Here, there is yet no final proposal on working methods and organisation, but work is ongoing with the relevant functions. Other important cross-cutting issues include research and education, cooperation with the healthcare sector, equal opportunities, environment and sustainability, and internationalisation. More will certainly be identified as development work gets underway in each office. 

The review of operational support is part of focus area F. Coordinated and optimised administration and includes several sub-projects, of which PS organisation and working methods is the first. In sub-project II: Coordinated support functions at departmental group level, the focus is on the departments and core activities. Preparations are already underway within the departmental groups for this work, which is expected to start next year.

Dialogue between concerned and involved functions is one way to facilitate the analysis. Often, offices, units and functions that are proposed to merge have several points of contact and an already established cooperation with knowledge of each other's missions, strengths and challenges. 

Other tools are the different offices' operational plans and the rules of procedure (in Swedish). Your input in the form of ideas and questions is an important contribution to developing a good proposal for decision.

In a large organisation, effective management teams are important. In the same way that a smaller PS management team is better equipped to work strategically on operational planning and common priorities for the whole of PS, each office needs an effective management team that can take joint responsibility for its mission and lead its staff. 

Efforts to strengthen leadership at KI are being made in focus area A.1. Management development for dialogue-based practices at all levels. During the autumn, for example, all managers and team/group leaders within PS, KIB and TL are invited to the new and recurring meeting form Mangagers' Forum. 
 

There are many ways to organise these activities and functions. Regardless of how the offices are structured, there is a need for close cooperation and coordination within the PS, and with the core activities. Effective management teams and improved internal communication are some of the measures now being prepared to improve the conditions for more effective and responsive operational support to both research, external engagement and education. 

A recurring request from the core activities (education and research) is that operational support within PS acts in a more coordinated manner. One way to meet their needs is to keep together subject areas from strategic to operational in larger offices and to coordinate and further develop communication between PS and the core activities. 

In the analyses now being carried out with all staff at PS, further proposals to meet the needs of the core activities based on the different functions of GVS are welcomed. The needs of the core activities are also an important issue for sub-project II: Coordinated support functions at department group level, within the same focus area. 
 

As a first step, the Communications and Public Relations Office's mission will be analyzed to promote increased cooperation within PS, and then lay the foundation for developed internal communication at KI. This will in turn inform sub-project II: Coordinated support functions at department group level.

Facility management (FM) includes, among other things, contract and service responsibility for caretaking, restaurant, cleaning and reception. The aim is to develop FM services with good quality according to European and Swedish standards. In a first stage, the investigation covers the offices within PS and KIB in both Solna and Flemingsberg. The conclusions from this first study will also be taken forward in sub-project II: Coordinated support functions at department group level.

Heads of departments and activities are responsible for carrying out collaboration in the way that suits their respective activities. Collaboration is ongoing until September 16 in all offices as well as KIB, TL and MHK. The project group offers support, including a template for SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analyses in the Padlet tool. The analyses will be compiled by the project group, which the university director Veronika Sundström will use as a basis for a decision in October. A risk assessment will then be carried out in accordance with the Work Environment Act.

Until September, in-depth collaboration is taking place with all staff within PS, KIB, TL and MHK on the proposal for the new organisation of PS. In September, the project group compiles the input received during the collaboration through a model with SWOT analysis in the Padlet tool. This is part of the basis for the decision which the university director will make in October. The decision will be followed by a risk assessment in accordance with the Work Environment Act. After that, the work of preparing for the implementation of the decision will begin and the decision is planned to come inte effect 1 January 2025.

Logged-in staff at PS, KIB, TL and MHK can find the timetable, including dates for relevant meetings on the project page for F1. Review of adminstrative organisation and procedures.

To consolidate KI's operational support for the future. We are not facing any savings at the moment, but many other universities and higher education institutions are. At the same time, increased demands from the outside world and a higher security situation mean that we need to coordinate better to be able to do more with the resources we already have. This was also a clear message in the inventory of development needs at KI that the current university management made when it took office last year. More coordinated and efficient operational support was high on the list of priorities expressed by various representatives from KI's core activities.

The review is being carried out in many steps over several years. We have previously conducted several studies, such as Harmonized professional services 2019-2021, which point out the need for increased coordination within operational support. When the current university management took office, they had a broad dialog throughout KI to identify development needs. This resulted in the nine strategic focus areas that comprise this assignment.

One of the entry points of the University Director was to try to keep the subject areas from strategic to operational work together within each office and be more equal in size. This is still the ambition, but we need to be pragmatic and take one step at a time. There are no perfect solutions and different trade-offs need to be made; this is why the next steps with input from all staff is important. The changes that are now being discussed may be followed by other changes depending on the further work.

At present, there are problems of compartmentalization and a lack of clarity about functional responsibility in some places within PS. Fewer offices will facilitate coordination and more efficient use of resources and expertise. The ambition is for each office to be responsible for its entire area of expertise so that communication and support can be designed based on the needs of different target groups and the increased demands from the outside world. A smaller management team take a better joint responsibility for priorities and strategically developing GVS' work through for example operational planning.

This is part of the strategic focus area A. Greater dialogue and transparency. The offices of HR and Communications are already collaborating and developing various managerial trainings for and with managers to promote collaboration, networking and skills development.

The project team is currently examining this issue together with HR. In general, there are currently no savings requirements in the changes and we want to make use of the good competence that exists within PS.

A PS safety representatives will be part of the project group from August. The project manager, Marie-Louice Isacson, has had regular meetings with the main safety representatives since the review began. The issue is also discussed at regular work environment meetings at all levels (GVS, KIB, TL and central).

The organization of PS that we are now gradually working towards must be sustainable regardless of how the collegial bodies are put together. The operational support must be able to support academic leaders and decision-making bodies based on each office's area of responsibility. This work needs a clearer coordination. During the autumn, we will also work in parallel to develop focus area B. Clearer responsibilities and roles within the organisation and management.

This issue is not part of the review of PS, but will be addressed in sub-project II starting at the end of 2024.

Assignment F. Coordinated and optimised administration is identified by the university management as one of KI's nine strategic focus areas. In the project Review of adminstrative organisation and procedures, the academic management is represented by the deans in the steering group. The university management is continuously informed about the development of the project.

There are different ways of looking at their activities. For example, the organization of university libraries in Sweden and abroad differs - sometimes they are seen as core activities, sometimes as support, they are simply in between. Whatever organization is decided, the cooperation with the core activities remains important and the mission of these different activities will continue. An organization closer to PS facilitates coordination with related operational support functions and we will now analyse more closely at how this could look.

The university management has assessed that regardless of KIB's location, the best solution is for MHK to be organizationally part of KIB. This is partly to reduce the vulnerability of MHK by being coordinated in a larger operation where, among other things, resources for communication and administration can be shared. But there are also advantages of coordinating and developing KI's different library activities together towards users and stakeholders.

To avoid concerns that may arise from speculation about changes, we want to share the information that is available so that responsible managers can start a dialogue and address any concerns before the summer season begins. The actual work of deepening the analysis of the proposed change is planned for after the summer.

Within this sub-project, no such plan exists at present. The issue of changes in our physical workplace is part of the project Modernizing ways of working and workplace. If you personally have wishes or needs regarding the revision of PS, you can raise them with your manager.

The processes need to develop in different ways, for example as part of the next steps of the review but also within the project Modernizing ways of working and workplace, as well as within the assignment B3: A common governance, planning and follow-up process for the entire university (which will begin this autumn).

Organization is important, but the most important thing is how we work together. We need to ensure that our offices meet our demands for a flexible way of working where we are sometimes remote and sometimes at work. We currently lack offices that are optimized for the new hybrid working day and that promote enhanced collaboration within and between our offices to provide optimal support. The hope is that both of these projects will lead to better and closer cooperation within the operational support so that we can provide optimal support to the entire organization at KI. 

The term "PS+" has been used in discussions about the review of PS to signal that, in addition to the offices within PS, the review also includes KI's University Library (KIB), the unit Teaching and Learning (TL) and the activities of Medical History and Heritage (MHK).