³ÉÈË´óƬ

Work continues on the Queen’s Renew Program, a multi-year initiative designed to make Queen’s professional services more cost-effective, consistent, and efficient. Current projects are focused on improving finance and Human Resources (HR) systems and processes, and giving staff access to better tools, clearer workflows, and more reliable data.
 

Progress on finance and human resources improvements

Over the last several months, the Queen’s Renew Program has advanced process improvements in finance and HR. The employees consulted as part of this work highlighted the need for better access to up-to-date finance and HR data, systems that support collaboration across departments, and improved tools to simplify tasks. 

In finance, a streamlined budget process is being piloted to eliminate extra steps and save staff time, while enhanced financial templates and improved HR data management are making reporting and analysis faster and more accurate. A new procurement dashboard will provide units greater visibility into their spending, and a single point of contact email will provide more consistent and efficient support for staff. 

Work is also advancing on larger-scale HR improvements, including introducing a single point query intake solution for central HR and an automated time and attendance system for casual hires. These solutions will help to improve the response time for HR queries, enhance consistency and clarity for service users, and reduce duplication and manual processing.
 

Facilities Initiative launch

With work now well underway for finance and HR, the Queen’s Renew Facilities Initiative has launched to improve how Facilities services are delivered and supported across campus. The initiative is co-led by Megan Sheppard, Associate Vice-Principal (Facilities) and Kevin Deluzio, Dean of the Smith Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. A committee with representatives from different areas of the facilities team has been formed to help provide input on the process improvement work.
 

New SharePoint site for Queen’s Renew Program 

To keep faculty and staff informed of the Queen’s Renew Program’s progress, an updated website and a new SharePoint site has launched. The will serve as a central hub for information about the Queen’s Renew Program, such as initiative overviews and process improvements underway.
 

Streamlining term adjunct hiring

The Renew Program Office is providing project management support for the development a new application to help streamline and standardize the administrative processes that support hiring term adjuncts at Queen’s.

The project, originally launched in 2022, is now moving forward under the leadership of Lynne-Marie Postovit, Vice-Provost (Academic Affairs). The project steering committee includes representatives from Faculty Relations, ITS, Institutional Research and Planning, the Faculty of Arts and Science, the Faculty of Education, and Human Resources. 

The new application is expected to shorten hiring timelines and reduce reliance on paper-based processes, minimize duplication of effort, and improve access to hiring data.
 

UniForum benchmarking and data analysis

Queen’s has completed the most recent round of UniForum activity data collection, capturing information on how professional service activities are delivered across faculties, schools, and shared service units. 

The data is now being analyzed and compared to the 2024 UniForum results, which indicated that Queen’s spends more on professional services than most other participating institutions of similar size and research intensity. While the campus community reported slightly better-than-average experiences with these services, they also identified challenges with certain support and delivery processes. 

Looking ahead, the university is preparing for the next UniForum Service Effectiveness Survey in November 2025. The survey will give a sample of staff members a chance to provide feedback on Queen’s professional services, which will help the university understand which services are meeting the needs of employees and where improvements can be made.