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Making better choices: using a costing model

This article discusses the use of a costing model to make better decisions regarding service costs, investment in software, staff deployment, and project undertakings.

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Making better choices: using a costing model

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  1. Making better choices: using a costing model Jo James, Library Administration Manager Mike Hallas, Project & Development Manager Michelle Blake, Academic Support Services Manager 23 August 2011

  2. Ice-breaker: decision making approaches TASK: In groups you must decide which approach to use for each task – you can use each approach as many times as you like (5mins)

  3. Background to Cost Model Designed activity costing spread sheet to answer questions below and inform decision making process: • What is the cost of providing a particular service now? • What is the cost of investment in software to automate certain services and is it cost effective to introduce? • How should staff resources be deployed to maximise service/value? • Should additional project/s be undertaken, and what is the cost of undertaking it/them?

  4. How it works • An activity to be evaluated is determined, e.g. ‘taking a study space booking at the library helpdesk’ • Estimate the average time taken for a transaction to occur • Calculate hourly rate based on grade of staff/resource carrying out activity • This calculates a cost per transaction • Number of transactions measured then multiplied against cost to provide overall costing

  5. How it works

  6. How it works

  7. Case Study: Library Helpdesk

  8. Background • Staffed by members of the Library carrying out 2 duties: • Help desk 1: • A first point enquiry service for users with straightforward questions; • More detailed enquiries are passed to Help Desk 2. • Help Desk 1 is staffed by SB04 grades , and is open between 12.00noon and 5.00pm Monday to Friday. • Exclusively SB04 staff;

  9. Help desk 2: • Help Desk 2 is staffed by SB06 and SB07 grades. • Handles more detailed enquiries; • The service is open between 9.00am and 8.00pm Monday to Friday, and 11.00am and 6.00pm Saturday and Sunday; • Staffed by a 50/50 mix of SB06 and SB07 staff. • When the Help Desk is not busy, the Help Desk 1 member of staff is sent back to their office by the Help Desk 2 staff member.

  10. Survey Results • Undertook a manual collection of statistics over a period of 2 months (April & May 2009); • Staff required to log each enquiry that was made; • Made for interesting reading…

  11. Stats – part 1 • Total number of queries taken: 4,949 • Total number of Help Desk 1 queries: 4,453 • Total number of Help Desk 2 queries: 496 • 92% of enquiries were at Help Desk 1 level

  12. Time of day

  13. Queries by enquiry length 2500 2000 1500 N umber Help Desk 1 Help Desk 2 1000 500 0 less than 1min 1 - 2mins 2 - 5 mins 5 - 10mins 10 - 15mins 15 - 20mins more than 20mins Time taken Queries by length

  14. Cost per enquiry. Number of enquiries is in ()

  15. What happened next? • Based on the evidence we came up with a recommendation to change how the service was staffed. • A paper was taken to the Library’s senior management team where the proposal was mandated. • Over a period of 6 months, change processes were initiated and consultations with Library Assistants and other library staff began.

  16. Issues we faced • Library assistants believed that they were doing more service counter duties than before the changes • Training implications – not all library assistants had traditionally worked on the HelpDesk; • Some staff (both library assistant level and qualified librarians) believed that it was a ‘dumbing down’ of the service; • Reassurance for staff that the backup librarian would be there quickly.

  17. Lessons learned / outcomes • Importance of communication throughout the change process is key; • Skills upgrade for Library Assistants; • Collecting statistics is very important; • Qualified staff have since been used on a number of newly developed service initiatives such as 1-2-1 research consultations and research postcards; • Helpdesk: further changes now due; • All projects undertaken within the Library use the costing model

  18. It’s your turn • Scenario based group exercise (30mins) • Must decide which option you will recommend to management: • Do nothing • Introduce hybrid model • Introduce roaming help and close service counter • Do more investigation and analysis • You must be able to justify your decision

  19. Group feedback • What option(s) did you choose? • Why?

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