Director, Finance and Administration Knowledge and Support Center

Department

F&A Customer Resolution

About the Department

Finance and Administration represents a committed group of people who serve the University in a variety of areas including Financial Services, Information Technology Services, Risk Management, Internal Audit, Compliance, and Shared Services. The goal of our division is to provide the services and support needed to foster an environment of academic and research excellence at the University of Chicago. Our team is dedicated to collaborative partnerships with our colleagues and clients that lay the foundation for an exemplary service delivery process. Finance and Administration is fully aligned with the strategic and academic priorities of the University, and each of the units within our division is tasked with implementing the processes necessary to achieve lasting excellence.

Job Summary

Under the leadership of the Executive Director, the Director ensures that the Support Center provides seamless, integrated cross-functional service in the areas of procure-to-pay, payroll, human resources (HR), budgeting, research administration, general accounting, and other financial and HR transactions to all University constituents. The Director will collaborate with the Executive Director and colleagues, leading the development of a knowledge repository, along with development and implementation of service delivery mechanisms, such as knowledge base articles, service scripts, chatbots, and other artificial intelligence tools, to optimize employee knowledge sets and service delivery. The Director is responsible for tracking and reporting the effectiveness of all services provided by the Tier 1 Support Center and Tier 2 and 3 functional and technical teams that report under other central process and IT teams, as well as ensuring continuous improvement of policies, procedures, and practices.

The Director for the F&A Support Center is a member of the Finance and Administration Division’s cross-functional services team reporting to the Executive Director for Client Service Management and Service Optimization. The Director manages the relationship between the Support Center, F&A Division leaders, central process owners, campus partners, subject matter experts, and its clients, including third party vendors, applicants, staff, and faculty. This position is responsible for identifying and implementing continuous improvements across the Support Center in order to respond to client needs and requests.

Responsibilities

• Embraces, advocates for, and establishes a foundation for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.
• Works across the team to provide the necessary tools, training, and resources to perform their jobs efficiently and effectively. Coaches, counsels, mentors, and motivates.
• Encourages professional development and provides performance management, supervision, and training for all team members with a keen focus on client service and continuous quality improvement.
• Monitors and tracks Support Center performance; provides Support Center performance reports to F&A Division Leadership and central process owners.
• Assists Operational Excellence staff in implementing system to manage and sustain continuous improvement initiatives requiring ongoing review of business processes and metrics.
• Maintains and tracks against key performance indicator (KPI) metrics to identify trends and coordinates with Support Center team members to identify, implement, and track actions to address.
• Works closely with the Executive Director and Operational Excellence leader to communicate KPIs for potential continuous improvement efforts.
• Works closely with the Executive Director and Training and Change Center of Expertise leader to coordinate training for new and continuing Support Center employees and promote training to the wider University community.
• Ensures the Support Center’s operational procedure documentation guides the team's work, decisions, and interactions with the campus community and remains up-to-date with scope of services.
• Reports on continuous improvement efforts, including training opportunities to appropriate groups, such as the Executive Director, Training and Change CoE, and Operational Excellence CoE.
• Develops partnerships and feedback mechanisms with key functional leadership, including those within the central offices supporting University-wide finance, procure-to-pay, human resources, payroll, budgeting and planning, and grants management, to support successful delivery and client satisfaction.
• Ensures accountability for meeting Tier 1 service level agreements and quality performance.
• Develops and executes gathering and responding to opportunities for improvement through feedback surveys and discussions from