A missing opportunity in the higher education transformation debate

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This blog was kindly authored by Faye-Marie Adams, Compliance Officer, Robert Gordon University. She is writing in a personal capacity and the views expressed are her own.

Before launching major transformation programmes, institutions should create dedicated opportunities for staff to examine workflows across organisational boundaries. Process mapping, cross-functional improvement workshops and structured organisational learning activities should be treated as core components of transformation programmes rather than optional extras. The modest investment required may prevent considerably larger costs later when organisations discover they have solved the wrong problem.

Higher education providers are investing significant time and money in transformation. Across the sector, discussions focus on operating models, organisational structures and financial sustainability. These are important conversations. Yet they often overlook improving ways of working as a source of value. This may sound like an operational detail, but it is one of the biggest blind spots in current transformation debates.

While institutions understandably focus on future-state design, transformation ultimately succeeds or fails where new systems meet old processes, where strategic ambitions meet practical constraints and where change programmes meet the people expected to deliver them.

Staff continue to support students, answer enquiries, process transactions, maintain compliance and keep services running while adapting to new systems, structures and ways of working. The benefits of transformation are ultimately realised – or lost – through their experience of it.

This matters at a time when the sector is seeking greater efficiency and productivity. There is a risk in assuming technology alone will unlock transformational gains. Jisc’s 2024/25 Digital Experience Insights survey for higher education teaching staff highlights that while digital technologies are firmly embedded, persistent challenges and inconsistent support remain a reality for staff who are calling for clearer guidance, streamlined systems and dedicated development time.

My perspective on this comes not only from higher education, but from previous work in policing and healthcare transformation.

During the formation of Police Scotland, I led the implementation of the new HR shared services model across North Scotland. Bringing together teams, processes, policies and employment arrangements inherited from the former Tayside, Grampian and Northern police force areas was not simply an exercise in organisational redesign. It required people from different locations, functions and professional backgrounds to develop a shared understanding of how work was carried out and how it could be improved within a new national organisation.

A similar lesson emerged several years later while leading a Healthcare Improvement Scotland quality improvement project in a GP practice in Aberdeen.

Initial assumptions suggested administrative staff needed to absorb additional responsibilities. However, examining workflows, bottlenecks and staff experiences revealed a different picture: delays from pharmaceutical queries and medication-related issues. The eventual solution – recruiting a pharmacist – only became clear once the operating experience itself was understood. More importantly, the process created a shared understanding, challenged assumptions and shifted conversations from blame towards collaboration.

This pattern is not unique to policing or healthcare. Autonomy’s The Results are in: The UK’s Four-Day Week Pilot found that across sectors, organisations did not simply compress the same work into fewer hours; successful implementation involved rethinking how work was organised and delivered and adapting working practices to make reduced hours sustainable.

These experiences reinforce that meaningful transformation depends on understanding and reshaping work as it is actually done. The same lesson applies in higher education, where many of the most difficult challenges span organisational boundaries. Schools, Faculties and Professional Services departments collectively hold expertise spanning teaching, research, student support, technology, governance, finance, regulation, resources and risk. The challenge is not a lack of knowledge, but creating the capacity and conditions before transformation initiatives are launched.

This can appear inefficient. Workshops take time. Process mapping takes time. Building trust takes time. Yet the absence of shared understanding is often what proves costly. Organisations risk solving the wrong problem, implementing the wrong solution or simply transferring pressure from one part of the institution to another. That is why organisational learning deserves a more prominent place in discussions about transformation.

Across higher education, it is staff who keep institutions running while transformation programmes are delivered. They manage competing priorities, resolve unexpected problems and maintain business-as-usual amidst constant change. Their experience of how work happens in practice represents one of the sector’s most valuable – and often least utilised – sources of insight.

Improving working lives should not be viewed as an ancillary benefit of transformation. It is integral to organisational performance. As HEPI’s report Pressure Vessels: The epidemic of poor mental health among higher education staff highlights the pressures experienced by higher education staff have implications for both individuals and institutions. By removing and reducing excessive workloads, duplication and avoidable friction, institutions can release capacity and enable staff to focus their time, energy and expertise where they add greatest value. The benefits are not simply operational. They strengthen services and create greater capacity to support students and colleagues.

Institutions already devote considerable attention to transforming what they deliver. The next major efficiency gain is not hidden in a new technology platform or organisational chart, but in improving the operational realities of the people doing the work. In an increasingly competitive and pressurised environment, that may be one of the most important foundations for long-term sustainability and maintaining the student experience on which institutions ultimately depend.