Your Financial Aid Leadership is Interim – Now What?
Higher education workforce has become mobile as other professions. All thanks to the global pandemic, but the draw to getting qualified workers in the workforce is becoming rather challenging. How do you prepare for the inevitable – the day your Financial Aid Director leaves and you must have interim leadership?
Leadership must operate under the rule of thumb is all employment is temporary, just with varying ranges of duration. According to US Bureau of Labor Statistics, rates of job loss are high due to pandemic and age of workers. As The Chronicle of Higher Education detailed in its November 22, 2021 article “Colleges are Hiring. But do People Want to Work There?”, the higher education sector is not immune. Institutions are facing challenges with retaining their workforce as they previously operated under the assumption that staff are easily replaceable. This is no longer the case.
Longevity or succession planning is often overlooked in general, but for financial aid it is critical. Staffing disruptions impact enrollment, increase occurrences of compliance failures, and can adversely affect the overall morale of remaining staff. They work through the uncertainty of what new leadership might mean to their own daily routines and job security.
Loss in leadership can come in the form of a planned retirement or an unplanned resignation or termination. Preparing for the inevitable should always be in leaderships playbook in some capacity. Remember, financial aid compliance is an institutional responsibility. When your financial aid leadership position becomes vacant, your institution must band together to make certain the ship stays afloat. And, most importantly make certain that students are not impacted by the vacant leadership position.
Now is a great time to think about where your institution stands. What some back-burner thought processes might be to coach you through the inevitable.
How to Select an Interim Leader
In the case of a retiring financial aid leader, is that person willing to stick around for a limited time? To acclimate the new leader into the role and help assure your institution is on its best path forward? Best step of entrusting existing member of your Financial Aid staff with duties of the Director in an interim role. This accomplishes a couple of important points.
- it gives that person the confidence that their institution trusts them enough to shoulder the burden in a period of transition.
- it also gives the remainder of the office some temporary direction while a permanent position is posted and searched.
- it may even work out to be that this interim person is a fit for the leadership position.
In the event you must embark on a national search for your next financial aid leader. Don’t rule out temporary staffing from a consulting group as a stop gap to a longer-term solution. Many financial aid consultants provide temporary staffing at all levels, from Director-level to baseline processors. Don’t make decisions without thinking it through. This is certainly one area where some temporary relief and time can offer solace in an otherwise challenging scenario.
How to Minimize Compliance Failures
In financial aid the list of recurring tasks is never ending. Getting a firm grasp on the highest priority items is crucial. The best question you could ask your outgoing leader is what is the most pressing issues are that remain outstanding. This could range from upcoming reporting deadlines to compliance audit responses. Keeping up to date during this period will help the next leader hit the ground running. If the opportunity to speak with the outgoing leader is not possible (and even if it is). Meet with the existing staff to understand where the priorities are to help mitigate potential compliance failures.
How to Support your Interim Team
Training and professional development opportunities should be regularly available to financial aid staff. Due to complexity of work, if this area has been lax due to poor planning, budgetary constraints, it’s time to assess the training schedule and needs of the office. Asking staff what they need lets them know that decisions are not made in vacuum and their voice is important.
Best thing you can do is validate the efforts of the remaining staff, especially while the office is transitioning. Make a commitment to check in with the office, and not just one person. Keeping office morale up takes dedication and effort. Financial Aid Director is your gateway to the remainder of the office. The office should still have some familiarity with senior leaders in the event of a leadership vacancy. This will help to dispel any gaps in productivity during a period of transition.
Establish Your Points of Knowledge?
Your current Director may operate in such a way that certain staff maintain certain responsibilities, and cross training is not done. While it may work to have one person responsible for Federal Direct Loans and another responsible for your state aid program when the office is fully staffed, what happens when that person leaves? Better yet, what happens when your office’s policies and procedures manual is not current, and that staff member leaves? Who trains those individuals, especially if no one knows the material?
To combat this, cross training within the department is highly recommended … not only to plan for staff transitions, but other items like extended sick leave, vacations, and the like. When a key staff goes on vacation for two weeks, someone needs to perform those duties. As an office that is so highly regulated at the federal level, you need to make sure that processes are on a schedule, staff understand what needs to be done, and that students are still the top priority. Developing an office calendar is a great way to keep staff on task and foster cross training efforts.
Professional development opportunities are also key in keeping staff engaged and learning new material. State, regional, and national member-based associations offer wide varieties of training opportunities.
The (Long) Road to Permanence
Bringing in a new office leader has its own challenges no matter the sector or office, and financial aid is no different. Considering our economic reality, including rates of inflation not seen in decades coupled with a downturn in enrollment, the salaries that may be required to attract the leader your office needs can be a real challenge. Some institutions may be bound by a bargaining unit salary structure, while others may be trying to narrow a budgetary gap through attrition. Your institution may even face the reality of being in a remote area or have a high cost of living.
At any rate, investing in your Financial Aid Office now can save you hundreds of thousands of dollars in audit findings and their resulting financial liabilities. This means that your institution may have to spend on a candidate that leadership thinks will be able to shoulder the massive responsibility that is student financial aid. There is a lot to be said about having a seasoned professional leading your office, but you must understand that, at times, it may come at a cost. Here again, don’t rule out the benefit of interim leadership during a transition period while you take the time to find the right fit for your school. The overall search process may take months from start to finish, but seeking out a qualified financial aid leader is well worth the time and effort you and your leadership put in.
Final Thoughts
While the overall day-to-day operations of the office may be temporarily more demanding due to the loss of a key staff member, your students do not know that, nor should they have to pay the proverbial price for your internal staffing shortage. Students must remain at the forefront of your operation, no matter what the internal disruptions may exist. This means that your staff must understand that the needs of students come first, whether they are in person or virtual. A positive reflection on the Financial Aid Office by the student body speaks volumes to institutional leadership.