Feedback

Throughout the Strategic Exercise to Restore Financial Sustainability, the project team and working group will be consulting with and gathering ideas from across the College community.

The survey can be found here if you would like to add your ideas.

Below are some of the comments shared to-date – this page will be updated as more feedback is received:

Vision

What does financial sustainability mean to you?

  • The ability to keep my job and my colleagues’ jobs, while growing the College at a reasonable, responsible rate.
  • It means that we have a foundation, that employees feel secure enough to plan for the future both professionally and personally. A good foundation provides a launch pad for innovation and investment when the economy improves.
  • It means that your revenues cover your expenses.  It also means that the focus should be on cash flow as net income is easily manipulated and doesn’t take into account capital expenditures.
  • As a former business owner financial sustainability means to me that the college is able to operate and grow in a responsible way that is healthy to our students, employees and the tax payer.
  • If we are allowed to continually operate in the red it will become an unhealthy environment, the quality of learning will be the farthest thing from anyone’s mind. This will cause a cascade of unhappy students that in turn will make faculty miserable which will make everyone else unhappy.  It’s a slippery slope.
  • Cost-effectiveness, in a sustainable ongoing manner.
  • Not spending more money than we make.
  • Not incurring unreasonable amounts much debt.
  • Having resources available to address any un-for seen emergencies that may occur.
  • Having resources available to re-invest into people & technology at the College.
  • Still being gainfully employed.
  • Building for change in the near future while building reserve funds
  • Looking at alternative funding sources
  • Making the best decisions for the college
  • Preparing plans to garner/use resources, funds wisely and economically that ensures a good
    learning environment for our learners, a caring and responsible place to work and enough funds
    to ensure a stable financial future.
  • Provide the services the College is intended to provide today and into the future.
  • To be able to meet obligations while offering a mix of programming which meets community
    needs
  • A plan that has backup plans for fluctuations
  • 1. Reduce dependencies. 2. Accountability when spending. 3. Flexibility within budgetary structure.
  • Making sure that we get financially sustainable not at the cost of employees or services that we provide
  • Managing finances so that the college can invest in technology, curriculum development, new business models etc.
  • Making smart financial decisions to ensure the long-term existence of the organization while balancing the current demands of employees and customers (students).
  • Ensuring that we can continue to operate to a high standard and continue to pay employees through smart financial planning.
    not a straightforward question. – having a reserve for emergencies, – being able to pay the debt on time, – having employees that will stay with the college for a long period of time (which means having competitive, pay and benefits for all employee groups), – being a good community partner, – having a diverse understanding of trends and changes in employment and emerging technologies, and the willingness to move and verify. there would be a lot more with some brain storming with others.
  • International student registrations should not be relied on as highly for a source of income to the school as did before. Look at other financial resource areas.
  • Spending only what is coming in at the same as investing in the future
  • Keeping the college viable
  • Making strategic (often difficult) choices to invest in core business operations and projects and to not invest / reduce investments in non-core activity. If I lost my job and my family went from two incomes to one, we would have to fundamentally change our discretionary spending in order to ensure we could cover the basic cost of living.
  • Security, stability, long-term
  • Financial sustainability to me means that the College can continue to deliver top quality education and services within it’s financial means.
  • How to survive any unplanned activities (tornado, pandemic) – build savings
  • Long term planning

Why do you think having a long-term financial sustainability strategy is important for the College?

  • Because we tend to make a lot of “flavour of the month” decisions, chasing what other institutions are doing or the latest trends.
  • Besides providing employment, the College is essential for the community as so many industries in Canada rely on us to provide them with good candidates.
  • If we do not have financial stability, then we will not have the funds required to offer quality education. Without quality education, then the College’s reputation will decline along with the number of students who will choose Algonquin in the future.
  • Outsourcing our core competencies goes against all of the principles of strategic planning. Outsourcing security is one thing, outsourcing the delivery of courses is a long-term strategic error and, in the end, will have a negative impact on the financial stability of the college.
  • The college is like a ship at sea going over a large wave. It’s great to plan for today to get over this wave but there’s a bigger one coming, and if we are not ready for it….
  • Without a sustainable financial plan, the feasibility of upgrades and forward direction is moot.
  • A long-term financial sustainability strategy is important for the College so that we can recover from the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and return ourselves to a profitable business, which will allow us to continue to serve our community for a long time to come.
  • So that all of us are still gainfully employed.
  • to be able to react quickly during any crisis or any opportunity…tornado, pandemic, etc
  • We cannot stay abreast of technology and innovation if we do not have the people, funds and
    infrastructure to provide the experience to our learners.
  • If the college cannot meet it’s obligations it will not be able to function on a long term basis
  • Long term vision is important
  • 1. Focusing on short term will only get us to the next crisis. Long term planning can position us to weather it. It is important as we want to remain open and a top choice for students and employees. In order to compete, we have have to make the investments in question 3. They all cost money.
  • To ensure that our organization continues and can thrive in the long-term.
  • The college is an important post-secondary institution for Ottawa and major employer for the area.
  • So that Algonquin has a future, as government pulls back on its funding, there needs to be planning to bridge the gap. With that said there also needs to be activities that educate taxpayers on the need for the college system and the need for the funds that government provides.
  • Look to other areas for sources of income. Cannot rely on International Students as a major source of student tuition fees.
  • The provincial funding is constantly decreasing and increasingly volatile.
  • It would mean the end of the college if there is no financial sustainability, and therefore no jobs
  • We are a key pillar of Education City and we serve an important and necessary role – in Ottawa and in the province – of delivering quality, applied education. We need to be here for another 50 years.
  • To ensure the College continues to grow and provide lifelong learning to our diverse learners, for a long time, as well as continues to be a vital part of the communities we serve.
  • Long-term sustainability is important because if Algonquin spends too much in the long run it will not be able to continue to operate and if it spends too little it will not be able to deliver the top notch education and services that students and the community have come to expect.
  • Everything changed with the pandemic, more competition, students(client) want more for their money
  • Keep college safe and healthy

At the institution level, what does Financial Sustainability in Higher Education mean to you?​

  • Expenses don’t outweigh revenue​
  • Have the resources to provide an excellent learning experience and serve our communities​
  • Revenue is reinvested aligned to core business​
  • Net contribution sufficient to contribute annually to reserves and campus infrastructure​
  • Achieve the mission​
  • Find innovative ways to drive value ​
  • Increase revenue streams​
  • Revenue supports all programs to meet student demand and industry expectations​
  • Able to restore capital reserves, “reliance on government funding” is diminished​
  • Responsibly operating ​
  • Balance of those we should do (but that is done at a financial loss), and those that do generate revenue ​
  • Having the resources to achieve our mission​
  • Balanced Scorecard , the financial quadrant, along with Internal Processes and Learning / Growth​
  • Complicated​
  • Sustainable at the infrastructure level which is required for the to operate​
  • Able to grow at the school level​
  • Imbedded in processes ​
  • Achieving a lasting set of instructions to ensure we continue evaluating moving forward​
  • Flexibility with guidelines ​
  • Good criteria for identifying when we engage in activity​
  • Setting “overall standards”, guidelines, creating and balances, etc. to ensure we aren’t heading too far towards non profit generating initiatives (without excluding) and ignoring the revenue generating ​
  • Live up to our community commitment​
  • Achieved even if we don’t grow​
  • Identify new revenue streams but is associated with additional risk​
  • Evaluating and adjusting to pursue new revenue streams​
  • Re-evaluating the “nice to have” vs “to have”.

At your unit level, what does it mean to be financially sustainable?

  • Maximization of resources​
  • Challenging status quo​
  • Identifying opportunities to reduce waste. ​
  • Using data to inform decision s​
  • Partnering internally ​
  • Delivering value to learners​
  • Investment in development.​
  • Marketing and Recruitment strategies ​
  • Focus on critical goals​
  • Moving so quickly and working on so many things​
  • Reorganize to optimize the people and financial resources​
  • Trying to do too much with too little ​
  • Balance between reactive maintenance and preventive maintenance​
  • Understand what our learners value ​
  • Make tough choices, prioritizing decisions and expenditures​
  • May not be growth but reduction in service in some areas ​
  • ROI for all learners ​
  • Leverage technology to provide clients with access​
  • Expand beyond “regular” market​
  • Vision is unclear from a financial sustainability perspective​
  • Level of re-investment into the businesses​
  • Focus on the contribution or the student satisfaction KPI and where the balance is between them​
  • Reinvestment and Central support​
  • The ability to seek contracts, re-invest these resources into indigenous​
  • Starting this exercise at a disadvantage due to COVID, deferred maintenance, etc. ​
  • Define a few parameters – what do we mean by sustainability ​
  • Improve internal processes to improve learner experience​
  • Ensure balance and alignment between all three of these plans​
  • It’s more than just financial and more so about the impact and value contribution to the student experience and success

Ideas

What is the single best opportunity that the College has to achieve long-term financial sustainability?

  • Make sure that your plans are practical — I hear good ideas sometimes, but management often is clueless about the work involved or the money involved. Please don’t propose a massive change that we’ll try and create “on the cheap” and “off the sides of our desks.”
  • Back to basics in terms of facilities – do we need the Perth and Pembroke campuses? Wouldn’t there be employment opportunities for those employees at the Woodroffe campus either on site or virtually?
  • The College needs to make the hard decisions that will bring us financial stability. Continuing to operate Perth is financial suicide.
  • While we have been profitable for many years, our ratio of net income to revenue has been low compared to many colleges in the system. That indicates that our management expenses are excessive compared to other colleges. The addition of more executive positions in times of massive losses is an example of financial mismanagement.”
  • Great more apprenticeships, included making faculty an apprenticeship system with an exit date. Your first 5 years at the college should be as an instructor. If you prove yourself you can get your tenure as a professor.
    • Firstly, This could be done in an apprenticeship, so that one the college gets money back for each employee! Each instructor would gain a tax rebate from the government! Then could sell the vocational portion of the apprenticeship! We sell seats to the government from our own employees!
    • Secondly, it will train instructors more by making things like TALL mandatory! A better trained faculty could never be a bad thing for our reputation or students.
    • Thirdly, it allows the college a longer period where we could get rid of those who are only here to get summers off and drain the system. This could be over seen by giving co-ordinators some power. If co-ordinators could go over student evaluations with each faculty and hold instructors accountable it could help prevent having the wrong people for the job.”
  • Concentrate on the growth of the student population, program availability, and outreach to the community at large; both business and private, to use the facilities more frequently and in a more efficient manner.
  • Open the campus up to a larger student population.
  • I think we should design our structures and spaces around the College to be nimble.
  • If we are going to be changing the layout of our spaces on a regular basis – more than 5 times a year – then our spaces should be designed to change explicitly.
  • It seems to me that we are putting up a lot of drywall for new spaces, only to tear it down / change it around within months”
  • cuts programs/campuses that do not make money (in the red)
  • Extreme focus on learner relevancy ​
  • Focus on focusing” on what gets us to lifelong success​
  • Determine what the priorities are (non financial sustainability related), then prioritize​
  • Re-think what a student looks like​
  • Partnerships​
  • Re-evaluate and action processes​
  • Leverage software as needed​
  • Motivate and mobilize engagement internally (i.e. community. SA) and externally​
  • Dedicated indigenous recruitment plan to seek additional indigenous revenue opportunities ​
  • Second or third career training is going to become even more important and should be explored​
  • Leverage Algonquin College as a lifelong provider of educational services vs one, recurring revenue opportunity.
  • Retain the College’s reputation for delivering a quality educational experience.
  • Be far more entrepreneurial than the current bureaucratic system at the College is prepared for.
  • focus more on what the community needs, less on nice to have, get back to basics
  • More robust online offerings
  • 1. Invest in and utilize the talent and opportunities inside the college before spending externally.
  • Stop using 3 party for services that could be done cheaper and more effectively inhouse. Ex. all the contractors we have for IT, grand and Toy etc. that could been done through bookstore or support staff. Also hiring fixed term admin when the positions are clearly support staff.
  • Support employees should use their training budgets to take courses from ACO. This would recirculate the money AND it improve the employees’ understanding of the STUDENT experience.
  • Efficiency in staffing and program delivery while balancing employee needs and student expectations.
  • Add more full time support jobs. Having a lot of part time jobs leads to higher turn-over as educated professionals look for more financially secure positions elsewhere, necessitating further hiring and training.
    diversity
  • Make part-time support workers feel important that you do not have a revolving turn-around of hiring employees. Part-time support is just as important as full-time support.
  • Being quick to close programs that are not viable and putting those resources towards new or existing programs with growth
    get profit making companies involved, eg sponsoring the training of specific types of employees
  • Take a critical look at the ROI of projects, roles, and departments. Look for opportunities to gain efficiencies through centralized reporting structures. For example, what have been the gains of the centralized reporting structure for Faculty Marketers? What other decentralized roles at the College could benefit from a centralized reporting structure? Ex. Budget Officers / Business Administrators, Student Success Specialists, “course loaders” – not a role per se but core work that lives in different roles. Centralization promotes economies of scale (reduced duplication of work, errors, and gaps), process consistency, peer support and co-learning, faster implementation of process changes, clearly defined roles, and business continuity (ability to redeploy resources to cover absences and during peak periods).
  • Focus on key priorities, and resources aligned to that. Back to the basics.
  • The College could work with College Employer Council to get increased and appropriate funding from the province for the education we provide to the Ottawa community.
  • Review management (very top heavy with big salaries) – cut academic programs that are in the red

Observations

Other comments or feedback about the Strategic Exercise to Restore Financial Sustainability project.

  • Make sure the people who are on the ground, doing the work, have input that matters beyond meaningless surveys and Town Hall displays. Management often doesn’t understand the impact of their decisions, as so many have not actually worked in the trenches or are very far removed from those days.
  • Look at the upper levels of administration, including the chair level and find efficiencies, focus should be on those in the classroom (students and teachers). Look also to the community for partnerships which can bring financial opportunity to the College.
  • I don’t believe that we have executives with sufficient experience in the financial restructuring field and we must bring them in. I spent 7 years in that business and the college is making decisions that we would have never made when turning around businesses.
  • We can regain sustainability without austerity. I’ve seen institutions in tough times before and when people are being laid off continually and doom and gloom is all that is forecasted it creates a horrible environment.
  • Since the college has given so much to faculty maybe start a program to give back. Encourage faculty to pro at the college instead of near by other lots.
  • Encourage faculty to sign up to take a class at full/ half price. As a faculty whose already doing this, I can’t be the only one willing to give back.
  • ‘The pandemic has exacerbated the financial challenges we were starting to experience prior to the crisis’ Why then was the construction of a multi-million dollar building not deferred until a time that financial needs were met prior to this project’s commencement.”
  • Please strongly consider bringing back a larger population to campus.
  • Too many committees with too many members – we need decision makers
  • Review SPSP or any other similar reports – we have existing data to make quick decisions
  • Committee membership is top heavy – all management
  • Don’t let it degrade into a cutbacks discussion rather than an innovation and growth agenda.
  • 1. There needs to be an improvement to expenditure processes and greater training for management to reduce the wasted capital on poor decisions, vanity projects, unnecessary external consultations, and ‘forced’ spending. 2. Elicit and utilize the valuable input from employees by normalizing their contributions. 3. Increasing revenue does not solve the problem; it hides it. 4. Investments into employees gives you far greater productivity per dollar than cuts will ever save you. 5. Transparency allows for more valuable contributions.
  • Please do not get out of the pandemic on the back of support staff- we have already seen this happen with Campus services- employees let go with little or no impact to admin and admin bonuses. If we are looking long term -we need to look at the bigger picture.
  • Given the shocks to the college in the last few years (strike, provincial legislation, COVID), SERFS should evolve to be a continuous effort. Those shocks have encouraged the college to think and do things differently and I hope those difficult decisions which improve long-term sustainability be made in advance rather than reactively.
  • The college will be a different workplace when we return to work on campus, how to attract and keep young employees, need to invest in the people

Themes

Please select which three (3) themes you think may have the most impact on the College’s Financial Sustainability?

Why did you select the themes above?

  • While I’m skeptical that my own interpretation of the above is the same as the College’s, the ones I select align closest to the direction that I believe will benefit the College the most long term.   
  • We do many things at the College some we excel at and some we do not. Main issues has consistently been the following- top heavy admin structure and offer every course underneath the planet. We need to focus on programs that they have a need or general interest. Ex- hospitality programs- lower demand due to pandemic- refocus strategy to ex. increase PSW instead
  • “Regarding capital asset strategy, now that employees have gotten used to working from home, we should think about shrinking our office space.  Or possibly repurposing it.
  • I’m from ITS.  I want to see ITS be a leader in continuous improvement.  Now, we’re a follower.
  • Regarding partnership strategy, I’m really impressed with the PCPP initiative.  We should do more of that.”   
  • They make the most sense to ensure our sustainability without seeming too fishy about what could actually happen to employees along the way with these measures.             
  • Revenue Growth and Cost Containment seem like basic principles of saving money: make more money and spend wisely.
  • Portfolio Analysis make sense to me, as the needs of students and employers will likely shift, resulting in programs that aren’t as needed. We should adapt to serve what the community is looking for.
  • I did not select Human Capital Strategy, as I found the terms “”flexibility and agility”” troubling in this context. That essentially means relying on more part-time labour and making it harder for people to get full time positions. You would be trying to improve your means at the expense of the people who do the day-to-day work – people who have their own expenses and who work hard to provide a quality experience for students.  That’s not financial sustainability, that’s exploitation. ”     
  • They work together, they talk to diversity, and allows employees to feel like they are part of the entire college, not just their small part.  They all focus on increasing and managing the overhead of the college and look to the future for the changes that will come.   
  • Those were the best choices.     
  • Partnership strategies and Continuous Improvement are forward looking that have great opportunity to be exploited, whereas most of the others are refinements of what the college is already doing. Portfolio Analysis enables quickly exiting and entering activities that match the college’s strategic plan.         
  • Because they made the most sense in the short term     
  • They align most closely with my previous comments about efficient use of resources and more strategic financial investments in operations.     
  • I think having the right mix of portfolios and ensuring they are sustainable will naturally impact revenue growth and cost containment  (growing or minimizing portfolios based on performance).  Continuous improvement can likely impact all areas. Partnerships can support growth and opportunities.           
  • Without an excellent human capital strategy, Algonquin will not be able to provide excellent education. Continuous improvement will allow us to continue to be more efficient, and constantly providing better education and services. Financial Management Governance Policy is important because it brings all departments of the college into alignment and makes sure all areas of the college are on the same page for planning and delivery of education and services purposes.           
  • Need to invest in your people and culture         
  • Keep college in the right direction           
  • Increased revenue is required.  Portfolio analysis-are we too diversified in the course offerings requiring too many supplemental resources, and equipment?  Respecting our core values are there areas/processes that are redundant?         
  • The right portfolio mix will generate the best revenue and sustainability, as well maximum utilization of employees will keep costs contained           
  • The problem at the College is a lack of entrepreneurialism.  The culture is what can’t be done rather than what can be done.  We do a poor job marketing our programs.