Segal Company News

For information about hot topics, or to set up an interview with a Segal expert, reporters should click here.

Consulting for Higher Education

Managing the Significant Challenges Of New Leadership, Change & Performance

Now, more than ever, higher education is facing significant challenges on its campuses. While continuing to draw inspiration, support and respect for past accomplishments of faculty, staff and alumni, even the most august institutions realize that the future is less than certain in light of current trends:

• During the past five years, over 50 percent of colleges and universities in the U.S. have appointed a new president.
• In addition to new leadership, campuses must deal with new accountability challenges emerging from both regulatory and societal pressures as well as growing competition from well-funded distance learning and for-profit institutions.
• Perhaps the most important change taking place is the way institutions look at the learning environment. They are rapidly moving away from the traditional residential faculty-focused approach to a lifelong, student-centric approach.

These forces have created an imperative for institutions to be able to adapt to change and transform culturally in order to stay ahead of the curve. While old habits die hard, institutions are facing an increasing need to operate in a broader, more performance-oriented environment, often with human resources (HR) units taking a leading role not uncommon in American business but new on America's campuses.

HR is Taking a Lead Role in Institutional Operation

As new leadership roles emerge in HR in colleges and universities, a shift in management philosophy to a more strategic "business-like" approach is being emphasized. Increasingly, HR is viewed as a essential partner to higher education senior leadership in making strategic decisions that affect the mission, operations and workforce of the institution. Becoming more strategic involves linking HR plans, programs and offerings to the institution's strategy and maximizing the value of resources and expenditures.

Consulting Firm of Choice to Higher Education

The Segal Company has actively promoted the need for colleges and universities to be prepared for cultural change. Segal consultants have identified key issues and developed solutions to enable clients to respond to changing circumstances and effect cultural transformation. However, Segal also recognizes that change often occurs slowly on campuses and meets resistance.

To understand the culture and challenges confronting higher education decision-makers, Segal is involved with associations that enhance and promote many of higher education's activities, including CUPA-HR, NACUBO, ACL (Association of Consortia Leadership) and, more recently, ACE (American Council on Education) and AGB (Association of Governing Boards), and our experts speak at many of these conferences. We continually monitor and survey higher education trends in both private and public institutions.

Colleges and universities continue to select Segal to help address critical needs and challenges, now and in the future because of our work with and our understanding of their issues and concerns. We have consistently delivered superior solutions across a broad spectrum of human resources services. We address solutions for faculty, executives, administrators and staff, as determined by our clients needs.

Segal's Services of particular interest to higher education institutions include:

• Total Rewards Strategy
• Compensation for Executives, Faculty, Administration and Staff
• Performance Management
• Talent Management
• Health Care Benefits
• HR Assessment
• Metrics
• Communications
• Retirement and Pension
• Collective Bargaining
• Employee Opinion Surveys
• Investment Strategy Consulting

Why Segal?

The number of higher education clients we service increases every year as more and more institutions recognize the unique skills, broad experience and cultural knowledge we bring to our consulting services. Our higher education list has increased by over 70% in each of the past 4 years. Segal is the consulting firm of choice to higher education for a variety of reasons:

• We are the only national human resources consulting firm with a National Higher Education Practice
• Our higher education leadership team proactively keeps current on trends through association participation, regular networking with thought leaders and client work
• We have extensive expertise and an ongoing commitment in higher education issues and dedicated leaders in each of our service offerings to higher education.
• We are currently driving the development and use of metrics to plan and measure effectiveness in institutions, their workforces and in human resources.
• Our size, decision-making process and consulting philosophy enable us to tailor our partnership with our higher education clients to suit each institution's needs. Our consultants can provide expert, behind-the-scenes assistance, work collaboratively with our clients throughout projects, or provide ad hoc assistance.

To find out more about Segal's services for higher education or to be contacted by a member of Segal's Higher Education Consulting team, click here.

Contact a member of the Higher Education Team

Back to Top