We know all about workforce planning for higher education institutions

Retendo Academic supports the entire institution’s workforce planning process. Employees, course coordinators, planners, finance administrators and the management are provided with role-specific views of the information they need.

For employees

A complete work task plan

The most important view for the employees is the work task plan, which sets out which courses they are scheduled for and the duties they have in each course. Employees can clearly see whether they are under- or over-allocated, whether their skills are being made use of and whether they are achieving satisfactory personal development in their work.

1
2
3
4
Retendo Academic Feature - Workforce Planning System
1

Overview of absences

A clear summary of absences allows for efficient planning when the employee needs to be replaced.

2

Monthly utilisation rate

Employees can keep watch to ensure that they are not over-allocated Each month that contains over-allocation is clearly shown with a red line.

3

Detailed planning

Employees can view their duties in the course and when those duties must be carried out. This will serve as useful supporting data for their own detailed planning.

4

Better coordination with colleagues

By clicking on a course, employees can see which other colleagues are involved in the same course. This leads to better coordination and distribution of work.

Does your post have the right composition?

Employees also receive an overall summary of their post to ensure that it has the right balance as far as allocation is concerned and that there is a satisfactory distribution between different activities.

1
2
3
Retendo Academic Feature - Workforce Planning System
1

Summary for the period

Employees’ working time is shown broken down into absence, allocated time and free capacity.

2

Distribution of absences

Employees receive a clear picture of their absences according to the type of absence.

3

Distribution of duties

Employees receive an overview of the distribution of their own working time between education, research, internal assignments and administration. Employees can thus ensure that their post is distributed as agreed.

img aca se feature 01C

Benefits of Retendo Academic

  • Work task plans always up to date. Because all planners work in the same system, the employees’ work task plans are always up to date.
  • Available online. Employees can easily access their work task plans using a browser, wherever in the world they happen to be.
  • Complete summary. Employees receive a complete summary of their posts including all courses, projects and ongoing assignments.
Retendo Academic Feature - Workforce Planning System - Digital signature

Digital signing in accordance with the working hours agreement

  • Retendo Academic has a workflow for the employees’ digital signing of their work task plans.
  • All signed work task plans are locked and saved so they can be consulted afterward.
  • Planners see a list of which employees have so far approved their plans and can issue reminders to employees who have not yet approved their plans.
For course coordinators

Who is doing what and when in the course?

In Retendo Academic, the course coordinator plans who will lecture, lead laboratory sessions, mark exams, etc. Time consumption and the time when the activities will take place are also planned.

1
2
3
4
Retendo Academic Feature - Workforce Planning System
1

Any number of activities

The course coordinator him or herself chooses the level of detail the planning will be done at: e.g. for individual lectures or overall for all lectures.

2

Gantt planning

The times when the various activities are intended to be carried out are displayed graphically for a clear overview.

3

Planning per employee

The number of hours for which each employee is scheduled, for each activity.

4

Create the request

When the planning is complete, the course coordinator can easily send the planning manager his or her request for staff resources to carry out the course.

Who is allocated to the course?

The course coordinator’s staffing requests for the course are summarised in an overview of the course. The planning manager can then choose to approve or reject the requests.

1
2
Retendo Academic Feature - Workforce Planning System
1

Activities per person

Summary of the activities for which a person is scheduled. This provides a useful basis for the planning manager who is to approve or reject the requests.

2

Requests for staff

The staffing requests which are issued, approved or rejected by the planning manager are displayed here.

Is the course profitable?

A summary of budget, staffing, income, costs and results is displayed for each course. Whether the course covers its costs or whether the budget is exceeded is clearly displayed here.

1
2
3
Retendo Academic Feature - Workforce Planning System
1

Supporting data for planning

A summary of key figures used as supporting data for budgets and planning.

2

Is the budget exceeded?

The staffing is compared with the budget for the course to ensure that the budget is not exceeded.

3

Does the course cover its costs?

The course’s estimated income and costs are compared and provide an answer to the question of whether the course covers its costs.

Retendo Academic Feature - Workforce Planning System

Decisions are documented with their own notes

  • The course coordinator and planner can write their own notes on the course as a whole, on activities and on staffing.
  • It is possible to control who is able to view the notes and a note can, for example, be displayed to all employees or only to planners.
For planners

Quick overview for further analysis

The staffing overview is an important tool for the planner and helps him or her to see which employees are under-or over-allocated and how much time is available for staffing.

1
2
3
Retendo Academic Feature - Workforce Planning System - Allocation
1

Filtering

The views can be filtered according to personnel category and allocation level, for example. Only employed staff with over 80% of full-time equivalent are displayed here.

2

Allocated

This gives an initial indication of whether staff are over- or under-allocated. The planner can then further analyse the reasons for this via the work task plan and take appropriate action.

3

Requested in relation to unallocated

Here, the planner can see whether a person is requested by a course coordinator. The planner can then go to the work task plan to see details of what the requested hours will be used for and approve or reject the request there.

Retendo Academic Feature - Workforce Planning System - Allocation Level

Avoid burnout before it occurs

The employer’s responsibility for the work environment involves ensuring, among other things, that staff are not over-allocated and risk burnout. In this view, the planner receives a monthly overview of staff allocation levels and can take action as early as at the planning stage to ensure an even workload.

Information on actual absence up to date at all times

One challenge for planners is to obtain information on actual staff absences. Thanks to Retendo Academic’s integration with the university’s human resources systems, all actual absences are automatically transferred to the planner and are presented in a clear way. The planner can then adjust the work task plan to take into account the actual staff absences.

1
2
3
Retendo Academic Feature - Workforce Planning System
1

Absence

Thanks to a clear overview of staff absences such as holidays, illness and leave of absence, the planner can see how actual absence affects the person’s allocatable time.

2

Convert

The conversion feature enters all actual absences from the human resources systems into the work task plan.

3

Outcome absences

If the actual absence imported from the human resources system differs from the planned absence shown in the table above, the planner can easily enter the actual absence into the work task plan.

Orderly organisation of courses and projects

1
2
3
Retendo Academic Feature - Workforce Planning System
1

Organise in portfolios

All courses and projects are grouped into portfolios to obtain a satisfactory structure and monitoring per portfolio.

2

Compare budget and staffing

This ensures that courses and projects are not overstaffed in relation to the budget.

3

Gantt overview

This provides a graphical overview of when courses and projects begin and end.

Project, course and staff in a single view

The view shows each person’s allocation to courses and projects. It is used, for example, to communicate allocation to the staff or as support for the planner in his or her staffing work.

1
2
3
Retendo Academic Feature - Workforce Planning System
1

Summary by person

This displays a distribution of a person’s entire allocation to courses and projects.

2

Summary by portfolio

The number of hours needed to implement different educational courses is displayed here.

3

Export to Excel

The entire summary can be exported to Microsoft Excel.

Powerful features for the planner

icon aca feature users duo

Hidden planning to avoid misunderstandings

There is a hidden planning mode in Retendo Academic to enable the planner to complete the planning before the staff access it. When the planning is complete, the planner chooses to publish it for the staff. This prevents unnecessary questions and misunderstandings based on half-finished planning.

icon aca feature userlock duo

Prevent unintended changes

After planned work has been completed and the check has been carried out, the planner can lock the planning backwards in time to prevent unintended changes to the assignments.

icon aca feature sitemap duo

Centralised or delegated planning

The working methods for workforce planning can vary widely from one department to another within the institution. For that reason, Retendo Academic supports both central planning and planning delegated to course coordinators. In the case of delegated planning, detailed planning is carried out by the course coordinator, who then requests the desired staffing from the planning manager. This can be a very effective working method, particularly at larger institutions.

icon aca feature recycle duo

Test different scenarios for better supporting data for decisions

Experimenting with different scenarios is a powerful tool for producing more complete supporting data for decisions and in Retendo Academic it is easy to create and save your own scenarios for different periods.

icon aca feature fa calculator duo

Automatic calculation of continuous professional development time

The role of the planner is simplified thanks to the fact that Retendo Academic automatically calculates the employees’ continuous professional development time – a calculation that can be complicated in some situations. Administration time is also calculated automatically by the system.

Retendo Academic Feature

Information up-to-date at all times

In Retendo Academic, the planner always has access to up-to-date information for his or her planning thanks to integration with human resources, financial and course systems.

For finance administrators

Are we keeping to the budget?

Retendo Academic enables a thorough analysis of how the department’s total income is distributed in terms of educational level, programmes and individual courses in order to ensure that the institution keeps within the financial framework. Income and costs are reported for each course and the courses that have a surplus or a deficit are clearly shown. The information provides good supporting data for decisions on financial positions.

1
2
3
Retendo Academic Feature - Workforce Planning System
1

Summary of income

The income and costs are added up for the entire programme, in this case nursing training.

2

Income per course

Expected income is calculated for each course based on the number of students, points, throughput and so-called price tags.

3

Staffing expenses

Expenses based on staffing and staff salaries including various increments are also calculated for each course.

img aca se feature 04B A

Supporting data for salary account-coding without effort

For the head of finances, it can be difficult to obtain supporting data for salary account-coding. Retendo Academic solves this by generating complete supporting data, account-coded and ready, based on staffing. Retendo Academic also handles all account-coding for staff on loan from or to other departments.

img aca se feature 04C

Easy checking of supplier invoices

Retendo Academic provides the ability to register suppliers and consultants, including supplier invoices. When the consultants are allocated to different assignments, the system calculates an allocation cost per consultant based on the consultant’s hourly rate. When the higher education institution receives the supplier invoice for the consultant, it is registered and is easily checked against the staffing cost in the system.