Aug 7

Boost Your Timetabling Or Space Management Team (Without Adding New Hires)

Welcome to part three in our four-part webinar series; Be Your University’s Hidden Hero: Budget-Busting Timetabling and Space Management Ideas (That Could Save Millions Over Time).

In this episode, and with hiring freezes in place at many universities, we look at ways you can take the pressure off your team, when adding to it isn’t an option.

Is your university feeling the squeeze? And has it led to a recruitment freeze?

Timetabling and space management are tough jobs. And when you could do with an extra pair of hands (or two) in your team, but just don’t have the budget, it can really add to the pressure.

Luckily, there are some alternatives that can help you free up time and resource – minus the expense of new hires – as revealed in our webinar below.

Before you dive in (or in case you can’t squeeze in watching it right now) here’s a round-up.

1. Pinpoint (and address) time-sucking tasks

Are there certain tasks that suck up crazy amounts of time for your team, over and over again? Maybe it’s chasing departments for information about a course module, or trying to marry up data that’s flown in from 15 different sources at once.

Finding and fixing these tasks is a good place to start. Even seemingly small tweaks can save huge amounts of time and leave everyone feeling far less stretched. Less pressure on resources means money saved over time, too.

Could your processes do with some tweaking, to get everyone feeding in without you having to chase?

Could a software upgrade make data collection and management smoother and easier?

Maybe there aren’t one or two obvious things gobbling up everyone’s time – you just know there’s got to be an easier (and less stressful) way to get things done.

Why not book a chat? We’ll help you uncover any blind spots and work out where a few tweaks could make a real difference (and cause far fewer headaches!) 

2. Upskill your team

This is something we talk about a lot – timetabling and space planning are hard work and even the most seasoned scheduler can benefit from support to stay on top of their game. Plus the rate of change in the HE sector (think getting to grips with hybrid teaching models, or new data modelling techniques) means there’s always something to get up to speed on.

The more ready a team is to take on challenges, the easier (and less time consuming) those challenges become. Plus, upskilling can help everyone to learn how to solve problems from new angles. 

On our timetabling and space management courses everyone is encouraged to share their own specific challenges and help one another to problem solve. They’re a great opportunity  to discover how other universities handle their timetables and estates, and come away with fresh ways to solve common challenges. They’re also a great way to learn new skills and make scheduling faster and more efficient all-round. Why not take a peek and see which courses are coming up?

For day-to-day support to tackle challenges, The Timetabling Academy is the place to be. We run a packed schedule of workshops tackling all the big topics in timetabling, plus joining is a great way to meet fellow timetablers and share knowledge. You can pick the brains of our very own scheduling super-sleuths in our community forums, and choose from a huge library of downloadable tools and resources, all designed to help you and your team timetable like superheroes.

Ultimately, a little upskilling makes scheduling easier. The result? Happier teams, time saved, and less of a need to hire newbies to relieve the pressure.

(If you want to see how upskilling translates into cost savings, there’s a useful section in the webinar that you can hop straight into here).

3. Plug the gaps

Sometimes, a gap in your team is a gap in your team, and there’s no way around it other than to fill it. But even if you don’t have a recruitment freeze on, the cost of hiring and training a new team member is a big commitment, especially if you just need extra hands on deck during the run up to a busy period, such as exam season.

What if you could borrow a trained timetabler (or two, or three), who can hit the ground running? One who can support you with scheduling, student allocations, clash checking, even manage a team while you do look for a longer-term hire?

It’s not magic (although you may be thinking it is… experienced timetablers with time on their hands are like gold dust, right?!) It’s something we do, and if you’d like to find out where we’re hiding these scheduling superheroes who are waiting in the wings to take the pressure off your team, you can find out more here.

4. Chat to us

If your team is feeling the pressure, and you’d just like a friendly chat about some of the ways we can help, why not book a call? With decades of timetabling and space management experience, we’re pretty good at spotting ways to improve things, helping you work out a route forward, and getting your budget holders, senior leaders or HR team onside too.

Watch the webinar here

It’s time to take the pressure off! Watch the full webinar here, and come away armed with ideas you can use to boost your team, minus the expense of making new hires. Feel free to share it with colleagues – budget holders, senior leaders or HR teams – who might find it interesting, too.

Be Your University’s Hidden Hero: Budget-Busting Timetabling and Space Management Ideas (That Could Save Millions Over Time).

Part 3: How To Boost Your Team (Without Making New Hires)
Created with