‘We remove barriers with SQUAD’
Finance & Control and Human Resource Management are seeking collaboration during and especially after the SQUAD self-evaluation.
“SQUAD has shown us that some of the issues that we encounter as Finance & Control are also at play with our ‘neighbors’ at Human Resource Management (HRM). If we tackle these together, we become stronger,” says Marloe van Breugel-Krijnen of Finance & Control regarding the self-evaluation process that her service is currently involved in alongside HRM.
“It gets the conversation going. We think more about why we do things the way we do them and whether they could be done better or easier.” Kevin Kreemer, financial reporting specialist at Finance & Control, sees the SQUAD self-evaluation - in which his service is currently collaborating with Human Resource Management - as an opportunity to increase quality and efficiency.
“SQUAD is definitely setting something in motion,” observes Marloe van Breugel-Krijnen, data domain coordinator at Finance & Control. Together with Kreemer and several other F&C colleagues, she attended the SQUAD hackathon organized by HRM in the Evoluon in early February.
AFAS versus Oracle
“We were invited to help think about leadership and collaboration. I’ve been with the university for a long time, having worked as a controller at various departments (among other things), so I was able to discuss and think about things from various angles,” says Van Breugel-Krijnen.
Her service, F&C, uses a lot of data that HRM manages. “That’s why it’s important that we look to one another even more and are thereby able to find each other even better. We can already find one another, but not well enough yet.”
Kevin Kreemer notices a lot of overlap with HRM in his work as a reporting specialist, in which he provides departments with financial insights. “The desired information is scattered here and there. It’s sometimes a real search to get to the right figures because we work with different systems. HRM works in AFAS and we work in Oracle. In my work, I depend on good collaboration to bring forth the right data and insights. I think that SQUAD can bring solutions and deliver a quality improvement.”
Remain in conversation and try to find the solution together
Marloe van Breugel-Krijnen, data domain coordinator at Finance & Control
Partnership
It’s not just about how the services can organize the processes better and more efficiently but also how to collaborate better with one another. Not just with other services but particularly with the clients: the departments. Van Breugel-Krijnen: “I’ve noticed that we’re already thinking more from the client’s perspective and are working together to offer what they need. This collaboration as partners is where we want to direct ourselves. Remain in conversation and try to find the solution together.”
‘Good collaboration comes from both sides’
Menno Prins, full Professor of Molecular Biosensing in the departments of Biomedical Engineering and Applied Physics and Science Education, was involved in Finance & Control’s self-evaluation phase of SQUAD. “It’s good as an organization to regularly reflect on yourself,” Prins believes.
He gives an insight into what he needs as a scientist when it comes to financial matters: “We run several projects at the same time, both national and international projects. Budgets need to be prepared and managed. My questions in this regard are very diverse; sometimes financial, sometimes administrative, sometimes legal.”
Prins has one point of contact within F&C for all his questions, which is Jacqueline Cremers-Nijssen. “I chat with her every two weeks via Teams and we work through a list of questions. Sometimes, Jacqueline has to look for experts within her organization for answers or she makes inquiries with the department. And sometimes I have to figure something out in the projects we run. This way of working is very effective for both of us. I have one point of contact and she bridges the gap to other specialists for me.”
Partnership
Prins sees the collaboration as a partnership, not ‘I ask, they serve’. “Together, we look at how to draw up and fill out the budget properly. This requires expertise from both sides. I trust those at F&C to know what’s needed for all of the reporting and for any audits in the future. I have no grasp of that nor do I want to get involved.”
“Jacqueline and I speak briefly but regularly. We’ve learned each other’s language by now, which is very nice when you’re dealing with difficult processes that often require multiple actions. That’s where we keep each other on our toes. And I don’t expect there to always be a solution immediately; we give each other the time and trust to solve it.”
This month, the two services will submit their proposal for a draft change plan, which will then be reviewed by an external review committee. It will also be widely discussed and evaluated with various stakeholder groups within the university. A definitive change plan will follow based on the external review committee’s advisory report and feedback from within the organization. Both services will then set to work to implement the desired changes.
Broader picture
According to Ingrid Lenssen, change manager at F&C, they can’t wait to get started within F&C. “Finance & Control was already working on a new strategy in 2021,” she says. Lenssen was appointed in 2021 for this very reason. “In the same period, the first round of SQUAD began. The period of uncertainty surrounding the impact of the work of F&C employees has therefore been quite long.”
Lenssen: “The added value of SQUAD is that we’ve engaged in even more conversations with our partners across the university, which gives an even broader picture of where we are and what’s needed for the desired change.”
Us
An important lesson that has emerged from the SQUAD process is that there is not enough talk from ‘us’. Lenssen: “Within the culture of our organization, we still reason a lot from the perspective of our own profession and act and make decisions from there. Only then do we have a conversation. This ensures that we do not find each other often enough to tackle a problem.”
“I hope that we can offer our partners what they need to make good decisions for our organization and that this happens in an atmosphere of mutual trust and professionalism in which our people can get the best out of themselves and see opportunities to take up their roles.”
Van Breugel-Krijnen is convinced that after SQUAD, her division and all services can look to the future with confidence. “Our organization must continue to improve itself. For the university itself, but also to be able to support the growth that the Brainport region demands of us.”
FROM OUR STRATEGY: ABOUT SQUAD
With a top university comes top support. This is how Executive Board members Frank Baaijens and Nicole Ummelen kicked off the SQUAD (Support Quality Drive) operation before the summer vacation of 2022. How can we best support the primary processes, research and education both now and in the future? This is what SQUAD must begin to answer through critical self-reflection and change plans. There are four rounds that will take about a year and a half altogether. Information Management & Services and Data Management & Library carried out the first round, while Finance & Control and Human Resource Management are currently doing their self-evaluation. The third round will involve the Facility Management Center, the Equipment & Prototype Center and Real Estate. The fourth round will have four participants: General Affairs, the Communication Expertise Center, Education & Student Affairs and the Innovation Lab.
Within our strategy, SQUAD falls under the theme of Resilience. Read more about our Strategy 2030.
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