Progress has been made on the Queen’s Renew Program; a university-wide initiative focused on making professional services more efficient, consistent, and financially sustainable.

Current efforts are focused on improvements in Facilities, Finance, and HR. Work is underway in these areas to reduce paper-based processes and duplication, modernize outdated systems, and standardize how services are delivered to Queen’s faculty, staff, and students.

Faculty and Staff Feedback on Queen’s Professional Services

Queen’s recently completed its latest Service Effectiveness Survey, gathering feedback from almost 1,400 academic and professional staff about their experiences with services across the university. The survey, conducted through the UniForum program, allows Queen’s to compare its professional service performance with peer institutions in Canada and internationally.

Overall satisfaction compares well to peer universities, although satisfaction varies by service across units. The survey also identified priority areas for improvement, including Facilities (cleaning, maintenance, etc.), IT Authentication Services, and Research Commercialization Services. Feedback highlighted challenges such as outdated systems and processes that can slow work or create inconsistencies.

As the Queen’s Renew Program progresses, survey results will help inform priorities for process and system improvements and will serve as a benchmark to measure progress as new tools and structures are introduced.

Improvements Underway for Queen’s Facilities Services

The Queen’s Renew Facilities Initiative has launched to improve how Facilities services are delivered and supported across campus. The improvements will focus on improving processes and equipping Facilities staff with the tools needed to deliver high-quality, reliable services. Key initiatives underway include:

• Custodial Process Reengineering: Custodial processes will be improved to ensure staff are deployed efficiently and with the right equipment to meet the needs of the Queen’s students, staff, and faculty.
• Improving Tracking and Planning for Maintenance Work: The current platform for managing building and maintenance work orders is outdated and relies on manual processes. Market research is underway into a replacement that will reduce paperwork, provide modern mobile tools for Facilities employees, and provide better data to track, maintain, and plan for the upkeep of Queen’s buildings and infrastructure.
• Time & Attendance Platform: Options are being explored to digitize Facilities HR processes and reduce paperwork.
• Strengthening Project Management: New project reporting tools, project lifecycle best practice manuals, and additional training will support Facilities project managers in delivering the many construction projects Queen’s undertakes annually.  

Further updates on these improvements will be shared as this work progresses.

Process Improvements in Finance and HR

Progress continues on process improvements already underway in Finance and HR. Some examples of this work include:

• Options are being explored to replace the current Excel-based budgeting process with a university-wide budgeting system, which is expected to be implemented in spring 2027. A new budgeting system will reduce manual work, improve consistency across units, and provide more up-to-date financial information.
• A new application is under development to simplify the administrative processes that support hiring term adjuncts at Queen’s. The new application will reduce paper-based processes, speed-up hiring processes, and enhance consistency across units.
• Work is underway to enhance the HR service experience for employees. Options are being explored to implement a single point query intake solution for central HR, which would help to improve the response time for HR queries, enhance consistency for service users, reduce duplication and manual processing, and allow for the collection of data and analytics to support continuous improvement.  

More information on the Queen’s Renew Program, including process improvements in HR, Finance, Facilities, and Term Adjunct Hiring, can be found on the Queen’s Renew Program SharePoint communication site.