Service excellence at York
After four transformative years, the University wrapped up the Service Excellence Program and has embedded future work directly within departments. Administrative improvement projects will continue as part of Project 13: Administrative Service Efficiencies in the York U Forward Action Plan.
From 2020-2024, the Service Excellence Program worked to bring York's vision for service excellence to life by collaborating closely with the York community to:
- Streamline processes to free-up staff time and expertise for more complex work.
- Enhance service quality through shared accountability and a commitment to both sustainability and responsiveness.
- Create a culture of service excellence that empowers staff to deliver exceptional services and engage in continuous improvement.
Quick Links
- Community updates
- New agreements for finance & human resource services
Four ways to create a better experience
Process
Structure
System
Culture
Process improvements that put efficiency first.
Organizational re-design that streamlines end-to-end operations.
A central hub for processing high-volume admin requests through the University Service Centre.
Modernizing systems by introducing advanced technology to better support the needs of the community.
Change, communications, and engagement to support the community through transformation.
Training and upskilling to equip the community to use new systems and processes.
Executive Co-sponsors
Lisa Philipps
Provost and
Vice-President Academic
Carol McAulay
Vice-President,
Finance and Administration
Laina Bay-Cheng
Interim Vice-President, Equity, People, and Culture
York established the Service Excellence Program (SEP) in 2020 to uphold the University’s commitment to service excellence and improve the quality and delivery of administrative services. As is the nature of transformation projects, SEP was designed to operate as a multi-year initiative, with the end goal of embedding a culture of service excellence across the University and normalizing continuous improvement as part of our administrative operations.
While change can be difficult, the winding down of SEP is aligned with the University’s thoughtful and balanced approach to cost containment in service of long-term financial sustainability. We are grateful to the SEP operational team for their work over the years and look forward to ongoing continuous improvement to create positive change for our community.