Flexible Work in Health Sciences Finance

The Health Sciences Finance and Research Finance teams have realized benefits from working flexibly that we hope to preserve far into the future. From the beginning, it was very important that we stayed in touch and engaged as a team. We have used technology to facilitate this, with our morning Teams check in serving as a water cooler where we gather, connect, and share everything from baby photos to journal articles. Health Sciences Finance staff say they meet more with their department counterparts than when we were 100% in person and the meetings are more productive with the use of screen sharing and whiteboard technologies. We also look for opportunities to get together in person, making sure the gatherings are purposeful and the connecting meaningful.

We have also realized productivity gains that might have taken years to implement. We worked with the Accounts Receivable team in Financial Affairs to develop a process for getting money into the bank without manual intervention, trips across campus, and photocopying. The new process is both more efficient and sustainable, and use of systems like MacBill have allowed us to streamline the entire billing and receivables processes across the Faculty. All of our files and processes are now electronic. We went from regularly buying pallets of paper to not placing a paper order in two years. Online workflow in Mosaic with a better audit trail and online access to information has meant no more trips to the photocopier, and no one spends their days filing paper.

Our focus is always on service to the Health Sciences community. Health Sciences Research Finance staff note that they meet with the research community much more than they ever did when in the office full-time. Increased interaction with our team results in better management of the financial side of their projects. Previously we would send reconciliations and go back and forth in email to clarify information. Now we can screen share and review together to come to a quick common understanding.

These changes mean a different approach to managing teams. We have shifted our focus to deliverables, where staff are empowered to structure their work to fit into their own high productivity times. Our Finance 2 Go team went from travelling to client offices to working from their homes, implementing process improvements and document handling capabilities that we might never have realized. Online queries and reports have been developed to allow us to track the team’s productivity against key performance indicators.

Here is a sampling of what staff have said about their flexible work arrangement:

“Reduced paper use– electronic workflow is better: less follow-up, better audit trail. Meetings online are effective and time-saving. Easier to manage time and productivity. Using Teams platform allows us to communicate more easily with colleagues.”

“Because of our decentralized structure we never had a culture where you just ‘dropped in’. Partners were downtown, at hospitals, or the other end of campus. Now can collaborate with them in a way we never did before.”