McMaster joined UniForum in 2017. It is a benchmarking program that provides university management with the means to strategically manage their administration and support services, leverage the power of sharing information, learn from one another and foster collaboration. It is also a tool used in continuous improvement initiatives. Board members can use this data to configure new strategic plans across the university. 

UniForum helps us understand how and where we deliver services across the university as well as how McMaster compares to our peer universities within Canada and around the world. The data collected helps us understand where key services are occurring and enables us to further support our teaching and research missions.

UniForum collects data around activities performed by university staff and contracted labour. The data is available to teams across the university to help gain insights into the allocation of services and to start conversations within various faculties and areas to better understand the gaps in relative satisfaction. 

When the program started, data access was limited to a few people. We are now broadening access, allowing leaders to share information with their local analysts or experts and dig deeper into the data. 

The UniForum program team is making continuous improvements to tools and processes, decreasing the amount of time required for respondents to complete data entries and increasing confidence in the data quality.

In some institutions, there were pressing issues that required baseline data to understand the potential opportunities to streamline activities. They were able to look at organizational structures and cost saving possibilities. 

Some institutions have developed transformation programs for continuous improvement – UniForum data is used to measure the impact of change on activity allocations and service effectiveness. 

Other institutions are looking strategically at student support services, teaching administration and teaching design to enhance the experience of learners and faculty members in delivering their key mission. 

Staff Respondent:
Your role as a Staff Respondent is to allocate staff time to UniForum Activities for staff in your organization unit(s). Staff Respondents provide the number of direct reports for staff in your organization unit(s) and review the data provided and submit it once complete. Individuals have been asked to perform this role because of their in-depth understanding of the activities that staff in their area perform.

If this is your first time being a Respondent, please book a support session with the UniForum team! 

Supplier Respondent: 
Your role as a Supplier Respondents is to provide UniForum Activity data for suppliers with which you are familiar. Supplier Respondents will be required to provide the hourly rate and the percentage labour of total service cost for service delivered. They will also provide the percent allocation of supplier service to activities in the UniForum Activity framework.

Your role as a Primary Contact is to review your datasets to ensure completeness and accuracy. Primary Contacts must confirm that the staff list is correct for the current collection period and assign appropriate Respondents for both staff and supplier collections. Primary Contacts are required to monitor the collection progress and remind Respondents to complete their activity coding by the set deadline.

A Respondent is essentially the individual who completes the Activity Coding for their department/unit. They are individuals who possess a high degree of knowledge regarding their area and can provide sufficient information to complete the Staff and/or Supplier collection.  

A Primary Contact is the individual who supervises and double-checks the work of the respondent. If the respondent is unable to complete the collection, it is the responsibility of the primary contact to ensure that the collection has been completed and submitted at the designated deadline.  

An activity represents what someone does, not where they work. The process of allocating staff and supplier capacity to one or more activities is called activity coding. The activity collection captures information about the core activities we perform.

The UniForum Activity Collections enable the total capacity delivered by all staff on the university’s payroll, together with that delivered by all external suppliers, to be captured and allocated to a comprehensive list of activities within the UniForum Activity Framework. There are 162 activities within the Activity Framework, grouped by ‘sub-function’ and ‘function.’

Respondent and Primary Contacts can export their datasets through UFast. Self-serve reporting tools (DOFAs, Deans, Function Leads) are available to use. Alternatively, individuals can book an appointment with the UniForum team through our SharePoint site to access and examine relevant data: https://uniforum.mcmaster.ca.

Reach out to the program team: uniforum@mcmaster.ca.

The UniForum Activity Collection Tool (UFast) is a web-based collection tool used by all participating universities to capture operational data required by the UniForum program including:

• Time allocation and reporting relationship data for non-academic staff paid by payroll (Staff Collection)  
• Time allocation and operational data (hourly rate, percentage labour) for in-scope suppliers (Supplier Collection)